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Historical Trauma
The document presented by Dr. Tami De Coteau discusses the nature of trauma and its far-reaching effects on individuals and their relationships, highlighting both present-day and historical trauma sources. It emphasizes how trauma can lead to learned helplessness, impair cognitive functioning, and transmit attachment problems across generations. The healing process involves recognizing danger has passed and learning to live in the present, supported by various therapeutic strategies.
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Historical Trauma
- 1. Presented by: Dr. TamiDe Coteau, PhD Licensed Clinical Psychologist DeCoteau Trauma-Informed Care & Practice, PLLC www.decoteaupsychology.com
- 2. TRACE THE SOURCE NoElectricity Failure to Respond Adaptively Present Day Trauma Poverty, Violence, Suicide, Inadequate Education, Substance Abuse, Inadequate Health Care, etc. Historical Trauma Genocide Indian Boarding Schools Government Agencies Centralized Authority, etc
- 3. What Is Trauma? PosttraumaticStress Disorder – variety of symptoms following exposure to a traumatic event. Clinical presentation varies among individuals and may include: Fear-based re-experiencing, emotional, and behavior symptoms. Anhedonia or dysphoric mood and negative thoughts. Arousal Dissociation Combination of all of these Other Trauma- and Stressor-Related Disorders Reactive Attachment Disorder – relationally inhibited and emotionally withdrawn Disinhibited Social Engagement Disorder – socially disinhibited
- 4. What is Trauma? Violenceand betrayal in our own lives, as well as on our histories and cultures. Unbearable. Intolerable. Overwhelming. Out of Control. Trauma has direct and indirect effects. Imprint on the mind, body, and brain. Traces of trauma remain in our minds, emotions, and biology.
- 5. Trauma & VisceralFeelings
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- 8. LH LEADS TODEFICITS IN 3 CORE AREAS: 1. Cognitive – inability to learn new responses to overcome prior learning that trauma is uncontrollable 2. Emotional – the helpless state resembles depression 3. Motivational – reduced motivation to try new coping responses. The individual therefore STOPS LEARNING new ways of responding
- 9. Learned Helplessness LH isNOT a moral choice LH is a conditioned response to adversity The individual is conditioned to believe they have NO CONTROL over their life so they give up trying LH destroys desire to try (not ability)
- 10. Learned Helplessness The individualCANNOT process their own way back to normal response patterns
- 11. Learned Helplessness The longeran individual is in an uncontrollable situation, the greater the number of times they will have practiced inappropriate responses Days…months…years…decades…generations…of building highly practiced inappropriate responses systems. Such as….
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- 13. Trauma & TheBrain
- 14. The Adverse Childhood Experiences(ACE) Study ACEs are major risk factors for illness, death and poor quality of life, later in life Some of the worst health and social problems in the USA arise as a consequence of ACEsCDC.org
- 15. Trauma & TheBrain Trauma impairs rationale thought Trauma impairs imagination
- 16. How Does TraumaImpact Relationships? Attachment problems arise from repeated experiences of failed emotional connection Abuse; neglect; trauma; prolonged separation; multiple caregivers; maternal depression and/or substance addiction; lack of harmony between child and parent; inexperience mother with poor parenting skills Attachment problems are passed on from one generation to the next unless repair occurs
- 17. Trauma & Memory DualMemory Unable to “know” what happened Fragmented, dissociated
- 18. Trauma & Left-RightBrain Left side rational brain Facts Statistics Sequence Right side emotional brain Sensory experiences Nonverbal signals
- 21. Healing from Trauma Healingrequires that the body learn that danger has passed Healing involves learning to live in the present
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- 23. The Indian BoardingSchool
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- 25. Citations Van Der Kolk,B. 2014. The Body Keeps The Score: Brain Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Penguin Books. New York, NY. Karen, R. 1998. Becoming Attached: First Relationships and How They Shape Our Capacity to Love. Oxford Press, New York, NY. Perry, B. 2009. Examining Child Maltreatment Through a Neurodevelopmental Lens: Clinical Applications of the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 14:240-255. Trevarthen, Colwyn, & Kenneth J. Aitken. 2001. Infant Intersubjectivity: Research, Theory, and Clinical Applications. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 42, 3 – 48.
Editor's Notes
- #3 If I have a power outage, I must trace the source and identify the problem in order to fix it. The same must be done to address our trauma. Whether it be present day trauma…. Or Historical trauma Historical trauma (refers to cumulative emotional and psychological wounding, extending over an individual lifespan and across generations, caused by traumatic experiences. The historical trauma response is a constellation of features in reaction to this trauma. There is no way for me to diagnose a person with historical trauma.
- #4 According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual Fifth Edition Fear based...flashbacks Emotional and behavioral Arousal – such as anxiety or panic Dissociation – a sort of Splitting off or detaching from out thoughts, memory or physical sensations These types of labels describe the clinical presentation required to meet the criteria for a diagnosis of a trauma-related disorder. But they don’t really described to us the deeply distressing and disturbing experience of trauma.
- #5 Trauma by definition is unbearable. Intolerable. Overwhelming. Out of control. In fact for many people, the memory of trauma is so upsetting that they will try to push it out of their minds, move on, act as if nothing happened. Trauma affects not only those who are directly exposed to it, but also those around them. Wives of men who suffer from PTSD tend to become depressed, the children of depressed mothers struggle with anxiety and insecurity. Having been exposed to violence as a child makes if difficult to establish trusting relationships as an adult. Not just and event that took place sometime in the past, it is an imprint. …a trauma imprint that leaves traces on our mind, body, and brain. This imprint of trauma has ongoing consequences for how we manage to survive in the present. Following a traumatic event, the traces of trauma remain in our minds and emotions….impact our capacity for joy and intimacy. The traces of trauma impact even our biology and impair our immune systems. Trauma literally impacts how our DNA is coded, which is then passed to our offspring.
- #6 Trauma is a visceral feeling. When something is visceral you literally feel it in your gut. It’s intuitive. So Trauma is a sensation in the body. The vagus nerve connects to the brain stem, also known as the 10th cranial nerve, part of the downstairs brain. When the Vagus nerve senses safety, it signals down to our heart and lungs, slowing HR and breathing. And we feel calm, relaxed. When the vagus nerve senses threat, it sends an alarm signal that increases heart rate and breathing and sends us into a flight or flight response. It also produces gut-wrenching feelings and heartbreak.
- #7 But not everyone responds to trauma in the same way. Whenever we feel threatened our first line of defense is to call out for help and comfort from the people around us. But if no one comes, our system second line of defensive is the fight or flight response, a much more primitive survival method. We fight, we run. However, if this fails, we are trapped, held down and cannot escape, the body tries to preserve itself by shutting down. We are then in a state of freeze or collapse. The result is a feeling of numbness of not being present or alive. They may not even register pain. For many people the fight or flight response is preferred. Which explains why so many people with trauma seek chaos and danger. It may also explain why people with trauma are prone to cutting,
- #8 1967 U.S. psychologist Martin Seligman began foundational experiments Learned Helplessness (LH) is a mental state in which an organism, forced to bear painful stimuli, becomes unable or unwilling to escape LH theory explains why individuals may accept and remain passive in negative situations despite their clear ability to change them Group 1: dog is able to escape Group 2 : do is leashed but learns to push lever to stop shock Group 3: dog is LH leashed but lever does not work and therefore dog is not able to escape the shock. LH developed only when the dog perceived that it had no control over his environment.
- #10 Must be a conditioning process that teaches the individual that failure is inevitable
- #12 What are the inappropriate responses to adversity that we see among Indian people.
- #14 We all want to move beyond our trauma, but the part of the brain that ensures our survival, otherwise known as the downstairs brain, is not very good at denial. Long after trauma is over, the downstairs brain still reacts to the slightest hint of danger and secretes massive amounts of stress hormones. These stress hormones are responsible for the unpleasant emotions and intense physical sensations associated with trauma, such fear, panic, racing heart, sweating, paranoia, and feeling as though your outside your body looking in.
- #15 The experience of trauma, whether it be recent personal trauma, or trauma from long ago, causes our bodies to secret large amounts of stress hormones. Over time, the stress hormones wreak havoc on our health and lead to chronic disease. Conducted by CDC and Kaiser Permanente One of the largest studies ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being.
- #16 Individuals with trauma keep replaying an old real, they are constantly pulled back into the past. As a result they lack the mental flexibility to let their minds play…to imagine…to envision new possibilities…to see themselves in the future. There is no place to go. No goal to reach. Trauma results in reorganization of the way the mind and brain manage perceptions. It changes what we think, how we think, and our very capacity to think Traumatized people have trouble deciphering what is going on around them. They superimpose their trauma on everything. People are no longer trustworthy. Everyone represents threat.
- #17 Attachment problems arise from repeated experiences of failed emotional connection between the child and his caregiver. Relationship problems are passed on from one generation to the next unless repair occurs. The assimilation policies of the federal government, particularly the one that involved sending young Indian children to boarding schools, continues to have a tremendous detrimental effect on Indian views and practices about parenting This history has led to a generational pattern of attachment problems– the trauma perpetuates itself.
- #18 Traumatic memory is different from typical memory. Traumatic memories are stored in the brain differently. The sensations and images that enter the body at the time of the trauma are not properly assembled in the traumatic memory, so that they don’t tell a coherent story. There is no beginning, middle and end. No narrative. Instead the traumatic memory is fragmented. When the memory is triggered, it returns as images, sensations, and intense emotions. This tends to be worse in survivors of child sexual abuse.
- #19 The left and right sides of the brain process memories in dramatically different ways. The left brain is often referred to as the “rational brain”. It remembers facts, statistics, and the sequence of events. The right brain is referred to as the “emotional brain”. It stores the memories of sound, touch, smell and the emotions these senses evoke. It automatically reacts to voices, gestures and facial features, and places we’ve experienced in the past. The right brain is intuitive Under ordinary circumstances these two sides of the brain work together. However, most of the imprints of trauma are stored in the emotional brain. So when something reminds a person of their traumatic past, their right brains reacts automatically, as if the trauma is happening in the present. Without the capacity of left brain sequencing we cannot determine cause and effect. We react without knowing why or what caused our reaction. Afterwards, they may look for somebody to blame for their reaction.
- #21 It has been said, by some very famous people, that Indian people have suffered genocide.
- #22 Research shows that the helping trauma victims find words to describe their trauma is very helpful, but it is often not enough. The act of telling the story does not necessarily change the automatic physical responses of the person’s body. Trauma is encoded in the brain and vagus nerve. So mind, brain, and viscera communication are needed for healing to take place. For real change to occur, the body needs to learn that danger has passed and to live in the reality of the present.
- #23 Since emotions are registered in the body, and we have a vagus nerve which connects the brain with many internal organs, we can directly train our own arousal system through mindfulness, movement, rythmns. These are principles that have been used by Native cultures since the beginning of time.
- #24 Broke every connection the Indian had. Relationships, culture, language, God – as they knew him.
- #25 We need to tell our trauma story Telling the story is important. Without stories, memory becomes frozen, and without memory you cannot imagine how things can be different. While telling a story about a traumatic event has tremendous benefits, it does not necessarily diminish the trauma remembered in the body as sensations. Ex. Indian trauma intervention.