3 ms·

Question: how is trauma treated in this model? Basically, the concept is that there are hypersensitive neural pathways and your goal is to de-sensitize them? Is

Question: how is trauma treated in this model? Basically, the concept is that there are hypersensitive neural pathways and your goal is to de-sensitize them? Is that right? Is there any parallel to the behaviouralist concept of behaviour extinction? Because that is really hard to achieve. Sounds similar to Exposure therapy too I don’t really want to talk about why but I’d love to know more about it

tomek_ycomb 3y ago
It's not entirely clear from a brief Google what behavior extinction is. However, I don't really think this is particularly parallel let alone same as any sort of prescriptive process for reward/training which the brief search on Google suggested behavior extinction is about. I'm not going to totally deny that there are any parallels between any behavior reinforcement mechanism m, but I'd sooner redirect to reading more about body keeps score before making the parallels to another concept (in this case)
specialist 3y ago
My mental model is replacing unwanted habits with preferred new habits. An example might be replacing negative thoughts with something more positive. Terribly over simplifying, but in my case I decided to fake being happy and positive, wrote some scripts for myself, and just kept repeating these new scripts. Imagine my surprise some years later when I actually sincerely meant what I was saying. -- In the case of pain and trauma, there's now a large and growing body of science about pain. In my case, my worst pain was a stabbing sensation in my back. It wasn't related to any of my physical injuries. Looking back, I now liken it to phantom limb pain. I enrolled in Swedish's Pain Services, what I nicknamed "Pain College". Lots of lectures and self-study about the best available science. Like "all pain is real" and the new paradigm of "pain is protection". So the trick is to identify that trigger and neutralize it. (My words. YMMV.) I also learned a bunch of new skills. Tai chi and qi gong; multiple specific forms of breathing, relaxation, and mediation; ideas on how to reorganize my life (and schedule) to better manage pain; and a bunch of other stuff. The most crazy thing I learned was "graded motor imagery". The intent was to reconnect my brain's pain processing with the actual source. So I was shown picture puzzles where I had to identify left vs right shoulder. During this activity, my experience of the stabbing pain (in my right shoulder) greatly diminished. Something that not even pain killers could do. Mind blown. -- So. Any way. Addressing one's trauma shouldn't cause more trauma. I've experienced that, multiple times. "The Body Keeps the Score" is like a primer for addressing some kinds of trauma. It's main contribution is popularizing the new pain and trauma sciences. There's been so much progress since it was first published, no one book could cover it all. -- To address one's pain (trauma), one has to find the right kind of professional, who has the answers you need. For me, that was Swedish's Pain Services. There's similar clinics nationwide. It might be worth getting a consultation. The team that helped me gave me additional resources (referrals) for my problems that were outside of their purview. -- https://www.swedish.org/services/pain-services https://www.swedish.org/services/pain-services

tomek_ycomb 3y ago

It's not entirely clear from a brief Google what behavior extinction is. However, I don't really think this is particularly parallel let alone same as any sort of prescriptive process for reward/training which the brief search on Google suggested behavior extinction is about. I'm not going to totally deny that there are any parallels between any behavior reinforcement mechanism m, but I'd sooner redirect to reading more about body keeps score before making the parallels to another concept (in this case)

specialist 3y ago

My mental model is replacing unwanted habits with preferred new habits. An example might be replacing negative thoughts with something more positive. Terribly over simplifying, but in my case I decided to fake being happy and positive, wrote some scripts for myself, and just kept repeating these new scripts. Imagine my surprise some years later when I actually sincerely meant what I was saying. -- In the case of pain and trauma, there's now a large and growing body of science about pain. In my case, my worst pain was a stabbing sensation in my back. It wasn't related to any of my physical injuries. Looking back, I now liken it to phantom limb pain. I enrolled in Swedish's Pain Services, what I nicknamed "Pain College". Lots of lectures and self-study about the best available science. Like "all pain is real" and the new paradigm of "pain is protection". So the trick is to identify that trigger and neutralize it. (My words. YMMV.) I also learned a bunch of new skills. Tai chi and qi gong; multiple specific forms of breathing, relaxation, and mediation; ideas on how to reorganize my life (and schedule) to better manage pain; and a bunch of other stuff. The most crazy thing I learned was "graded motor imagery". The intent was to reconnect my brain's pain processing with the actual source. So I was shown picture puzzles where I had to identify left vs right shoulder. During this activity, my experience of the stabbing pain (in my right shoulder) greatly diminished. Something that not even pain killers could do. Mind blown. -- So. Any way. Addressing one's trauma shouldn't cause more trauma. I've experienced that, multiple times. "The Body Keeps the Score" is like a primer for addressing some kinds of trauma. It's main contribution is popularizing the new pain and trauma sciences. There's been so much progress since it was first published, no one book could cover it all. -- To address one's pain (trauma), one has to find the right kind of professional, who has the answers you need. For me, that was Swedish's Pain Services. There's similar clinics nationwide. It might be worth getting a consultation. The team that helped me gave me additional resources (referrals) for my problems that were outside of their purview. -- https://www.swedish.org/services/pain-services https://www.swedish.org/services/pain-services