Transcript Bouncing Back: Rewiring the Brain for Resilience and Well

Marin CAMFT, January 17, 2014
Linda Graham, MFT
www.lindagraham-mft.net
[email protected]
Resilience and Well-Being
 Dealing with challenges and crises –
 The core of resilience and well-being
 Developing flexible strategies –
 The heart of therapeutic process
All the world is full of suffering.
It is also full of overcoming.
- Helen Keller
Effective Agents of Brain Change
Consciousness
Self-Awareness
Mindfulness
Self-Reflection
Compassion
Empathy
Attention Circuit
Resonance Circuit
Self-Directed Neuroplasticity
Therapeutic Modalities
AEDP
Internal Family Systems
EFT
Gestalt
Sensorimotor
EMDR
MBCT
DBT
Psychoanalytic
Existential
Control Mastery
Client-centered
Jungian
Intersubjective
Object Relations
Transpersonal
The field of neuroscience is so new,
we must be comfortable not only
venturing into the unknown
but into error.
-Richard Mendius, M.D.
Neuroplasticity
 Growing new neurons
 Strengthening synaptic connections
 Myelinating pathways – faster connections
 Rebuilding brain structure
 Re-organizing functions of structures
 ….lifelong
 Evolutionary legacy
 Genetic templates
 Family of origin conditioning
 Norms-expectations of culture-society
 Who we are and how we cope…
 …is not our fault
 Given neuroplasticity
 And choices of self-directed neuroplasticity
 Who we are and how we cope…
 …is our responsibility
The brain is shaped by experience. And because
we have a choice about what experiences we
want to use to shape our brain, we have a
responsibility to choose the experiences that
will shape the brain toward the wise and the
wholesome.
- Richard J. Davidson, PhD
Conditioning
 Experience causes neurons to fire
 Repeated experiences, repeated neural firings
 Neurons that fire together wire together
 Strengthen synaptic connections
 Connections stabilize into neural pathways
 Condtioning is neutral, wires positive and
negative
It is not the strongest of the species that
survives,
Nor the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is the most adaptive to change.
- Charles Darwin
Attachment Styles
 Secure – safety and trust, stable and flexible, open to
learning; flexible focus
 Insecure avoidant – mistrust of emotions and
relationships, over-focus on self-world, rigid, neural
cement
 Insecure-anxious – mistrust of self, over-focus on
relationships, chaotic, neural swamp
 Disorganized – checked out, lack of focus
Secure attachment kindles maturation of the
brain itself.
Re-parenting in therapy recovers maturation of
the brain itself.
Pre-Frontal Cortex
 Executive center of higher brain
 Evolved most recently – makes us human
 Development kindled in relationships
 Matures the latest – 25 years of age
 Evolutionary masterpiece
 CEO of resilience
Functions of Pre-Frontal Cortex
 Regulate body and nervous system
 Quell fear response of amygdala
 Manage emotions
 Attunement – felt sense of feelings
 Empathy – making sense of experience
 Insight and self-knowing
 Response flexibility
Mechanisms of Brain Change
 New conditioning – focused attention
 Re-conditioning – juxtaposed attention
 De-conditioning – de-focused attention
New Conditioning
 Choose new experiences
 Create new learning, new memory
 Encode new wiring
 Install new patterns of response
Re-Conditioning
 “Light up” neural networks
 Juxtapose old negative with new positive
 De-consolidation – re-consolidation
 New rewires old
De-Conditioning
 De-focusing
 Loosens grip
 Create mental play space
 Plane of open possibilities
 New insight, new behaviors
Modes of Processing
Focused
Self-referential
Tasks and details
Constellate a representation
New conditioning and
Re-conditioning
Models of Processing
De-focused
Default network
Fertile neural background noise
Plane of open possibilities
Mental play space
De-conditioning
6 C’s of Coping
 Calm
 Compassion
 Clarity
 Connections to Resources
 Competence
 Courage
Calm
Serenity is not freedom from the storm
but peace amidst the storm.
-author unknown
Window of Tolerance
SNS – fight-flight-freeze
Baseline physiological equilibrium
Calm and relaxed, engaged and alert
WINDOW OF TOLERANCE
Relational and resilient
Equanimity
PNS – numb out, collapse
Hand on the Heart
 Touch – oxytocin – safety and trust
 Deep breathing – parasympathetic
 Breathing ease into heart center
 Brakes on survival responses
 Coherent heart rate
 Being loved and cherished
 Oxytocin – direct and immediate antidote to
stress hormon cortisol
Touch
 Hand on heart, hand on cheek
 Head rubs, foot rubs
 Massage back of neck
 Hugs – 20 second, full-bodied
Reconditioning through
Soothing, Comforting, Caring
 Hand on the heart
 Progressive muscle relaxation
 Friendly body scan
 Movement opposite
Self-Compassion Break
 How am I doing?
 Is there any suffering here?
 Ouch! This hurts!
 Oh, sweetheart!
 Take one moment to be mindful and kind
 May I be safe from inner and outer harm.
 May I be free of suffering, from all causes of
suffering, and from causing any suffering.
Clarity
Mindfulness: focused attention on
present moment experience
without judgment or resistance.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
Mindfulness and Psychotherapy
 Even-hovering attention
 Unconditional positive regard
 Observing ego
 What are you noticing now?
Mindfulness
 Pause, become present
 Notice and name
 Step back, dis-entangle, reflect
 Monitor and modify
 Shift perspectives
 Discern options
 Choose wisely
Between a stimulus and response there is a
space. In that space is our power to choose
our response. In our response lies our growth
and our freedom. The last of human freedoms
is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of
circumstances.
- Viktor Frankl
Notice and Name
 Thoughts as thoughts
 Patterns of thoughts as patterns of thoughts
 Feeling as feelings; cascades of feelings as
cascades
 States of mind as state of mind
 Belief systems as belief systems
 All patterns of neural firing
Mindfulness
 Open, spacious awareness
 Open possibilities
 Epiphanies, insights, revelations
 True nature, essential goodness
 Inform, transform sense of personal self
Connections to Resources
 People
 Love guards the heart from the abyss - Mozart
 Places
 ….I rest in the grace of the world…Wendell
Berry
 Practices
 As an irrigator guides water to his field, as an
archer aims an arrow, as a carpenter carves
wood, the wise shape their lives. - Buddha
Positive Emotions
 Help us feel and function better
 Put the brakes on negativity
 Antidote survival responses
 “Left shift” – open to experience
 Better coping with stress and trauma
 Possibilities, creativity, productivity
 Cooperation and collaboration
 Flexibility and resilience
Negativity Bias
 Right hemisphere
 Emotional-social processing
 Neuronally connected to lower brain
 Withdrawal, avoid stance toward experience
 Left hemispere
 Language and logic
 Less connected to lower brain
 Open, curious, approach stance toward experience
 Left Shift
Cultivate Gratitude
 2 minute free write
 Gratitude journal
 Gratitude buddy
 Carry love and appreciation in your wallet
Positivity Portfolio
 Ask 10 friends to send cards
 Assemble phrases on piece of paoer
 Tape to bathroom mirror or computer monitor
 Carry in wallet or purse
 Read phrases 3 times a day for 30 days
 Savor and appreciate
Taking in the Good
 Notice: in the moment or in memory
 Enrich: the intensity, duration, novelty,
personal relevance, multi-modality
 Absorb: savor 10-20-30 seconds; felt sense in
the body
 Repeat; persevere; little and often
Shame De-Rails Resilience
Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of
believing we are flawed and therefor unworhty of
acceptance and belonging.
Shame erodes the part of ourselves that believes we
are capabel of change. We cannot change a nd grow
when we are in shame, and we can’t use shame to
change ourselves or others.
- Brene Brown, PhD
Re-conditioning
 Memory de-consolidation – re-consolidation
 “Light up” neural networks of problematic memory
 Cause neural networks to fall apart temporarily and
instantly rewire by:
 Juxtaposing positive memory that directly contradicts
or disconfirms;
 Focused attention on juxtaposition of both memories
held in simultaneous dual awareness
 Causes the falling apart and the rewiring
Wished for Outcome
 Evoke memory of what did happen
 Imagine new behaviors, new players, new resolution
 Hold new outcome in awareness, strengthening and
refreshing
 Notice shift in perspective of experience, of self
Do One Scary Thing a Day
 Venture into new or unknown
 Somatic marker of “uh, oh”
 Dopamine disrupted
 Cross threshold into new
 Satisfaction, mastery
 Dopamine restored
I am no longer afraid of storms
for I am learning how to sail my ship.
Louisa May Alcott
Marin CAMFT
Linda Graham, MFT
www.lindagraham-mft.net
[email protected]