Frank Anderson – Treating Complex Trauma Clients at the Edge: How Brain Science Can Inform Interventions

Outline

Experiential Treatments – Integrating neuroscience and psychotherapy

• Necessity of utilizing physical, emotional and relationship aspects in therapeutic intervention

Problems with traditional phase oriented treatment

• Negative evaluation of symptoms – ignoring their protective function

Internal Family Systems

• Understanding symptom presentation as positive efforts pushed to extremes
• Welcoming and integrating all parts of an individual
• Identifying intent of symptomology, importance of avoiding shaming

Redefining trauma related diagnoses and integrating overactive protective mechanisms

• Disorganized attachment
• Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder

Therapist factors – vulnerabilities

• Impact of therapist parts acting as separately as the clients we work with
• Responding effectively to personal triggers

Symptoms of post trauma

• Hyperarousal, hyperarousal, psychic wounds
• Importance of obtaining permission before addressing psychic wounds

Experiential exercise – self-awareness, response to triggers
Mind-brain relationships

• Neuroplasticity, neural integration
• Neural networks associated with trauma
• Implicit nature of trauma memories

Autonomic nervous system

• Role of cortisol
• Sympathetic hyper-arousal
• Characteristics of extreme symptom activation and mixed states

Therapeutic responses

• Choosing compassion or empathic responses
• Providing auxiliary cognition
• Strategies to avoid contributing to hyperarousal
• Top down strategies to separate or unblend

Case presentation – example of permission seeking, direct access and unblending
Polyvagal Theory

• Dorsal and ventral branches
• Activating strategies, responding to hypo-arousal, blunting