14
The Impact Of Trauma
By: Dudley Chewning EdD, LMFT, ICP
Childhood trauma can take 20 years of a person’s life.
People can be consumed with fear and faint. Steven
the disciple appears to go to sleep right before he was
stoned to death. We can say now, that was probably a
Vagal reaction, fainting instead of sleep.
The Polyvagal Theory ties heart rate viability (HRV) with
the autonomic nervous system; plus it tells us about
three switches (reactions) now instead of only the two
(flight and freeze ). Dr Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, tells us
the vagus nerve and autonomic nervous system has a
master switch called “social engagement”, this lead
switch hands reactions over to the Autonomic nervous
system (ANS) if the vagus interprets (fear), unknown to
thought processes. Then it activates the sympathetic
nervous system (SNS) to activate flight or fight, a “danger
response”. If the vagus senses “life threat” the third
switch activates the parasympathetic Nervous System
(PSNS) and shutdown begins. Caution your clients that
they can also vacillate between the two SNS and PSNS.
This happens a lot in therapy and in social interactions.
So we can see which of the two ANS they are struggling
with. Are they a tiger, turtle or a snapping turtle? The
answer is “Yes”.
Now we can see that having a “gut feeling” bares more
truth than we thought. The second brain, the longest
nerve in the body, the vagus nerve tells the brain stem
to take action by passing thought processes. The vagus
can react quicker than the”mind”. The ANS’s’ job is to
allow one to enjoy life and to keep you alive, a program
loaded on your hard drive before birth.
If fear exists you have the Vagus Nervous System (VNS)
causing social disengagement, flight, or shutdown
but with safety (trust) social engagement you have
community not disengagement, play not fight, and
relaxation not shutdown by the ANS. So we should fear
“fear”.
As a marriage and family therapist and former combat
vet, I started to focus on trauma in the combat PTSD
families or how the family is contaminated by the
behavior of a trauma person’s-unknown vagus ANS
reactions. Something a person is not aware of via the
frontal cortex. In other words, the trauma memory sets
up a persons behavior and they don’t know “what or
why”. Like a wolf, they bark at the family, not knowing
the cause.
This led me to the ACE survey, a childhood trauma
assessment. Those significantly traumatized can
develop biological problems and lose twenty years
of life. I connected the dots by studying Dr. Porges’
Polyvagal Theory. Insight therapy, my career field was
coming to a standstill, my clients and I were stagnating
in PTSD recovery. I soon validated insight therapy was
detrimental to helping most forms of trauma clients.
The release of cortisol can be easily activated because
the brain is sensitized by trauma and each new trauma
event has a larger adverse reaction to the next trauma
event. It seems the cortisol faucet is not shut down or
we have a damaged neuro system. Trauma Memory
(TM) behavior can be activated by thought/insight
quickly.
Treating childhood trauma ( Dr. Van der Kolk uses the
term development trauma disorder), unfortunately
it is not adopted into DSM yet. There are two issues
needing correction: Neuro damage and negative
reality development, the child learns to accept abuse
as normal.
If you use the ACE Survey to assess children, you will
likely run into having to notify the authorities. But
utilizing the ACE on an adult, you can detect his or her
trauma history which leads to the sensitization of the
brain neuro system.
Treating a vet who thought he had combat PTSD,
had me convinced, but after assessing all his combat
situation he was devastated by finding out about his
wife’s affair while he was deployed. Thus the cultural
form of combat trauma, was highjacked by relationship
trauma. It appeared as if the horror of war took a back
seat to his relationship trauma but cortisol doesn’t
care. The requirement to stay on high alert takes it’s
toll (stress), while addressing other life matters. Thus
constant stress can lead to an event that causes TBI, but
the event by itself wouldn’t necessarily seem to have
that much impact.
Now my theory is the social engagement switch can
be called the “faith or trust” switch. When we lose hope,
faith, and or trust, where are we? Victims of rage and
gut issues.
Fortunately for me, a former PTSD/TBI client directed
me to IASIS. My understanding is IASIS can do the
detoxing, thank goodness, and some therapy will
be required to reset reality in DTD, and change the
hierarchy in chaotic families.
As IASIS cleans out some hormone contaminated
neuro pathways, it helps reset the CNS and it’s sub
systems. Our journey appears to be how can we assist
and treat the damage that the high octane cortisol
has left behind? I think frequencies do the scrubbing
to clean the damaged neuro endocrine system. They
are using modulated music to correct those with ear
muscle dtysfunctioning (autism) and IASIS could be
doing the same.
Relationships sustain life when they are functional.
Adrenaline keeps us alive when events or relationships
give us danger or life threat.
My research pointed to the Polyvagal therapy instead of
talk therapy. Yoga, Feldenkrasis, relaxation techniques,
deep breathing, Emotion Freedom techniques
(tapping), acupuncture, cold water exposure, throat
vibrations (singing, gargling, Mongolian throat singing),
praying and others are bypassing thought processes
and assisting the vagus nerve reset and control what
“fear” (the automatic reaction trigger) sets in motion, so
social engagement, trust needs to be addressed. It’s my
belief IASIS can do this quicker but these homework
tools can supplement IASIS just as the IR light therapy.
Case study: I helped a child correct most of his behavior
problems, even after PTSD therapy from another source
failed. I was tasked to restore faith in therapy gone
wrong, another form of trauma. It didn’t take long
to realize he was trapped in a chaotic environment
of no trust and understanding, my pleas to suspend
corporate punishment went unheard. I assessed the
clients environment, using the ACE survey and the
Global Assessment of Relational Functioning (GARF).
This addresses systemic change measures instead of
just behavioral change. I tasked the guardian to contact
the school to determine if they assess for trauma and
do they know how to interact with a trauma child. The
negative answer led to switching to a school that treat
trauma children differently. The child went from failing
all classes to some “A”s in the new school.
Caution: As providers we must realize that our facial
expressions are signaling the client to be fearful or not,
their trust factor is contaminated. It’s not only what
we say, sometimes it is “how we say it”, that sets the
therapeutic process in motion. Everyone’s ANS reads
another’s facial expressions, but we don’t see our own
facial expression, it is set by our ANS. Our duty face
maybe disturbing to the client but our compassion
face, offers hope.
First responders and IASIS providers can create hope
in someone by expressing compassion in their face,
Don’t let the client’s trauma face, body language set
your facial reaction, note it and watch their body, face
language changes during your treatments. I see the
change about halfway through the IASIS session. It is
worth helping someone feel better and live longer. To
see a child’s face turn flat from trauma to a thankful
grin is truly priceless. Helping a parent is helping a
child that becomes a parent one day that builds trust
in another child.
Should we look into family required treatment? I
trained our juvenile courts to accept this challenge. Will
they? I was only able to point to the pathway, the culture
usually resist a homeostasis change. Something else
to chew on. Correcting the hierarchy in dysfunctional
trauma families is another story that needs to be told
but let’s chew and digest this first. Collaboration among
Iasis providers will bring improved practices.
dudleychewning@bellsouth.net
Dudley Chewning EdD, LMFT, ICP
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