In my last post I discussed the clinical presentation of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Complex-PTSD (C-PTSD). These carry a constellation of symptoms that can be a significant challenge to treat. 

One reason for this difficulty is that talk-therapy, and even “gold-standard” treatments (e.g. Cognitive Processing Therapy) rely on neocortical activity. This means that the bulk of the treatment consists of processing the traumatic events/story in the “thinking center” of the brain, which is responsible for executive functions such as problem-solving, rational thought, day-to-day tasks, etc. It can feel extremely relieving to tell one’s story for the first time to a compassionate and validating therapist; this type of talk therapy can assist the client in making sense of their timeline, and notice patterns that have emerged post-trauma. However, neocortical processing can only go so far. 

So, where’s the trauma? 

The simple reason for the limitations of cognitive-based therapy is that unprocessed trauma does not “live” in the neocortex, but rather within the subcortex and brainstem. These brain regions develop earliest in life, and contain the structures responsible for emotions, memory and autonomic functions (breathing and heart rate, for example) amongst many other critical functions. 

Ideally, when a traumatic event occurs, the brain will consolidate the experience to long-term memory such that the events are experienced as contained within the past. When this ideal process does not occur, the brain will often attempt to protect the individual by encapsulating and burying those memories to avoid thinking about the traumas again. When these “capsules” are triggered, the individual will repeatedly experience emotional flooding, flashbacks, and, in the case of more complex traumas, even physical issues such as chronic pain and stomach aches. 

What fires together, wires together.  

Within the developing brain there exists over 4 quadrillion synapses that create the neural pathways connecting emotions, memories, and automatic functions associated with each impactful event. How do these pathways develop? By firing and wiring together: For example, perhaps there was a time when you were 3 months old, and you woke up hungry and in need of a diaper change. You naturally cried out in that moment, but no one came to you. At the same time, you were hearing, for example, the screaming and yelling of a violent fight between your parents. As that infant, you cannot verbalize or understand what you’re feeling in that moment, but your brain may be wiring together fear and anxiety, while connecting it to the stomach pain of being hungry and uncomfortable in a dirty diaper. When this preverbal trauma is untreated, you might continue feeling somatic (body-based) symptoms when experiencing worry or fear; this will connect on the same pathway in the brain that it did when you were an infant--even if you are now an adult. 

Brainspotting for trauma

Brainspotting (BSP) helps to unwire the pathways so that the trauma network is disconnected from everything that has ever happened in your life. So that when something makes you afraid today it’s no longer attached to everything in your life that has caused fear. It causes the brain to take the traumatic memories and consolidate them to long term memories, moving them out of the reactive areas of the subcortex and storing them properly. 

In my next post I will explain how this revolutionary therapy resolves trauma, including what to expect in a session, more in-depth.