Trauma Education Archives

August 28, 2020 by Jamie English Leave a Comment

Helpful Resource–Healing TREE

This week I want to share a resource with you. I had the pleasure of learning about this agency a couple of months ago. The website is rich with information around trauma. Healing TREE. Note the letters in TREE are all capitalized, as they stand for Trauma Resources, Education, and Empowerment. The mission alone is worth noting:

Healing TREE (Trauma Resources, Education & Empowerment) advocates healing from abuse and trauma rather than coping with the symptoms, in order to transform lives and, ultimately, society. We achieve this by providing trauma-focused resources and education and by producing and partnering with relevant film, television, and theatre, empowering the social change necessary to create a healing movement.

They have a plethora of articles you can read, several book recommendations, as well as videos to watch. Their resources are spot on. I know and love many of the books. You could spend a great deal of time learning as you read the articles and watch videos, and it would be time well spent.

Please check out this website to learn more about trauma. And, if you need a therapist recommendation, they offer an approved care network, which they have taken the time to interview and learn their qualifications and treatment theories and modalities. I know this because I went through the process and am honored to be a part of their approved care network.

July 31, 2020 by Jamie English Leave a Comment

Book Recommendation—Talking to Strangers

Where do I even start with this book recommendation? It was first recommended by a friend when we were discussing the upsetting events that provoked the Black Lives Matters protests in late May of this year. My husband and I share an Audible account, and he listened first. He was sucked in from the beginning and talked about it so much, encouraging me to “read” it to discuss it.

If you can get Talking to Strangers, by Malcolm Gladwell, in the Audible version, I believe that is the recommended way to go. In the audio version, you hear clips of several events and interviews discussed by the author. Get ready for some paradigm shifts. Gladwell sets out to understand the circumstances around Sandra Bland, whom you might recall was an African American pulled over for a traffic violation that quickly escalated and led to an arrest, followed by Bland killing herself while in custody. Gladwell discusses various nuances of communication, as well as beliefs that may be misguided. He reviews several cases, beyond the conflict between African Americans and police. He brings it full circle by explaining the many factors that played a role in the tragic loss of Sandra Bland’s life.

Within this book, there are some valuable pieces around understanding victim responses to trauma and narratives around how we can “read” people’s body language and know definitively if someone is being truthful (spoiler alert—no, we can’t). My takeaway point from the book is to be careful not to blame it on the other person when there’s a misunderstanding. Let’s take responsibility for truly understanding each other, checking our presumptions at the door so that we can better talk to strangers.

Be careful if you read this book, as some content can be difficult to read about—and even more impactful when you hear the actual recordings of some interactions.

affiliate link in the post

May 1, 2020 by Jamie English Leave a Comment

Is Fear Real?

There was a movie a few years ago that, full disclosure, I never saw. It starred Will Smith and his son. Even though I never saw it, I saw the previews and the trailers. There was a line that I really, really liked. He was teaching son about fear. He said….

Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. Do not misunderstand me, danger is very real, but fear is a choice.

How much of our anxiety is all around stories we are making up in our heads? I do not want to minimize our experiences. Our brains appropriately react to dangerous stimuli. And there are times when our brains have adapted and gone into overdrive based on very real experiences. Retraining our brains is not a simple task. But for the moment, it can be helpful to look at fear as not real. When our fear response is not overactivated, it is a gift in scary situations. When we run into the tiger in the jungle, our brain does what it needs to run really fast or maybe wrestle with the tiger. But when the tiger isn’t there, what are the thoughts causing us problems?

June 14, 2019 by Jamie English Leave a Comment

Tangled

Earlier this week, I wanted to wear a necklace, but it had somehow gotten tangled up with several other necklaces. My husband and I worked on that bundle of necklaces for a while. We were able to free the one I was wanting to wear, but the others remained a tangled mess to be tackled at a later time. Oh, how I wish I had taken a picture because it ended up being a great metaphor that I used several times throughout the week.

In the EMDR world, which is one of my favorite modalities to use in therapy and one in which I believe almost everyone would benefit from, we need to identify a “target.” The target is generally an emotionally activated memory that is underlying the symptoms (anxiety, depression, etc,). It would be great if we were aware that one certain memory is the cause of the anxiety, and maybe sometimes we at least have a sense. More often, we don’t even realize that the emotionally charged memory is running in the background. It takes some therapeutic work to determine the target we want to work on. Here’s the kicker…..our memories are tangled up neural networks that interconnect with other memories. Even when we identify the memory to work on, it is quite common for other memories to show up in the processing. And, we therapists will see if that particular memory can “process out” while processing the target memory. Sometimes we have to refocus on the target and come back to the other memory later. It’s just like the necklaces.

While trying to retrieve the one necklace, we might get sidetracked for a moment because another necklace shows up that we are focusing on. The therapist then has to work with the client to see if that other necklace will free itself quickly and return to the target necklace….or if we need to go back to the necklace we originally targeted. When working on the necklaces that morning, I did free another one before the targeted necklace. But had to save the bundle of other tangled necklaces for later. If you are still with me and this metaphor, I did free the necklace I wanted to wear and that felt good. That is not unlike EMDR. Ideally, we work on a memory until there is substantial relief. And the other tangled up necklaces are left to work on the next time.

Since I didn’t have the foresight to take a picture of my tangled necklaces, I searched for a picture with similar metaphor qualities. I chose one that most of us are similarly acquainted with. Same idea with the wires and cords. Read more about EMDR here.

Helpful Resource–Healing TREE

Book Recommendation—Talking to Strangers

Is Fear Real?

Tangled

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