Big T and Little T Trauma
I've been listening to a webinar on trauma hosted by Gabor Mate, Bessel Van Der Kolk and Tim Fletcher. I've written about Gabor before, but the other two are equally synonymous with the understanding and treatment of trauma. I wanted to share with you what I gleaned from Tim Fletcher’s presentation from Day 1, as there is always more information to know and more to share in the field of therapy and in the search for a deeper understanding of ourselves and those around us.
Two Types of Trauma: Fletcher delineated two different types of trauma: Big T trauma and Little T trauma. Big T is what we used to only think of trauma- a car accident, natural disaster, physical abuse- any negative event that happened to you. Little T trauma is the absence of something good happening to you. Some examples of this are a conditional or transactional parent where love is on a string; not being comforted, getting yelled at or being ignored when distressed or emotional as a child; a parent who was addicted; ; financial hardship; a chronic illness or a family member with a chronic illness; a critical caregiver; witnessing abuse; a dissociated/emotionally detached parent; having a family member who struggled and all the energy was on that family member.
In this particular presentation, family life and parenting was the focus. Although that may not apply to you or someone close to you, you can insert your experience with trauma here. It is worth noting that 80% of the population has experienced Little T trauma.
More on Little T Trauma: A child should be loved, allowed to be authentic, their needs met, and not neglected. However, in many homes that was/is simply not the case. Little T trauma is invisible because nothing bad happened on the outside per se, but to the nervous system and brain, terrible things happened. As a result, the child was left to make sense of it- “I’m not worthy,” “I can’t connect to others,” “I feel alone in the world.” Now, when there is an absence of good in the house, or even the presence of the bad, in the outside world an adult would go into fight or flight: run away or defeat it. However, that doesn’t work for a child because they can’t fight their caretakers and they are too little to run away. So, a child will go into freeze to escape to their internal world where they feel safe (dissociation) and fawn (people pleasing) in an attempt to get the difficult person to love them. The child learns to adapt in many ways to become who others want them to be to get the love they crave. Essentially, adaptation after adaptation in order to survive. Those adaptations are: Don’t trust anyone; wear masks; I have to manipulate to get my needs met. However, when trying to live with those same adaptations as an adult it becomes destructive in relationships and the self. This type of trauma in kids, known as Complex Trauma, does not reveal its impact until 20-30 years down the line when those adaptations become maladaptive.
2. Trauma is on a spectrum. However, all trauma results in at least one of the four responses: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Also, all trauma impacts the nervous system, affects how you cope and affects your relationships.
3. Memories and trauma: When in a stress response, cortisol triggers adrenaline and the body goes into fight or flight. However, it is supposed to be a quick burst of energy - to run away from danger, to play in a game, to deliver a presentation. However, when a child never gets to safety, cortisol is always pumping and starts to impact the brain, specifically the Corpus Callosum. This part of the brain bridges both the left and right brain, but cortisol erodes it. So, if that bridge is gone or damaged, an individual may have memory gaps but have emotional flashbacks and not know why. Or, they may have details of what happened but disconnected from it and no emotion when speaking about it. This is because there is no connection between the left and right brain- the emotional and the logical. The good news is, once the cortisol levels decrease, this bridge will start to heal and memories can happen. This is why often in session, clients will start out with no memories of their past but as they continue in therapy, they start to recall.
Impulsivity and Trauma : Complex trauma keeps an individual in the Limbic brain. This is because prolonged or repeated exposure to stress re-wires brain circuitry to prioritize survival. The limbic system controls emotions and memory becomes so overactive that it disconnects from the prefrontal cortex,which is the center for rational thought and executive functions. This is why many kids are misdiagnosed as having ADHD or ADD, as the effects of trauma mimic those diagnoses. The child becomes an adult who still operates from: “what will make me feel good.” They can only think in instant gratification and thus engage in impulsive behaviors and/or decisions.
Self defeating beliefs: Subconscious self defeating beliefs develop in trauma. Kids’ basic instincts are for authenticity and unconditional love but if they get rejected or punished for being authentic- this includes emotional expression- instead of learning that authenticity leads to connection with safe people, they learn that authenticity leads to punishment or being ignored and that their authenticity is bad. Their natural instincts start to disintegrate and this lie becomes their truth and subconscious programming: I’m not valuable, not good enough. So, they find any way to get value and it continues into adulthood: I must have a perfect body or a beautiful face; I must make a ton of money; I must make others happy; I have to earn love to get love. Perhaps the most profound sentence from this webinar for me was: “When a child isn’t loved by a parent, they don’t stop loving the parent; they stop loving themselves.”
How to heal from trauma…
I am a firm believer in the bottom up approach. Meaning, addressing the physical part of healing by calming the self through somatic exercises, movement, breathing, tapping, yoga, acupuncture. All things that are helping you signal to your nervous system that you are safe while physically manipulating yourself out of the stress response. It then creates enough space and tolerance for talk therapy to be even more effective. If we keep it only cerebral without physical interventions, it may take much longer to get to where we want to get to or your nervous system will simply shut it all down at triggering topics.
EMDR is another incredibly effective treatment for trauma. More on how and why later. However, I am happy to announce that in the next 4-5 months I will be EMDR certified for those who would like to give it a try. I am a true believer in the power of this technique.
You can’t heal trauma unless you’re with safe people. The therapy room may be (or have been) the start of safety for some people where a corrective emotional experience is created and there is proof that safety and unconditional positive regard exists in the world. In his autobiography, Bruce Springsteen wrote about the “Magic Trick” where there is a transcendent moment of connection between him and the audience. He goes on to explain how the magic trick is about making sure the shared experience between performer and audience feels real, creating a sense of unification and synergy, where the connection between his band and the audience creates something greater than the individual parts. This struck a chord for me and for what I see take place in my office, daily. As research shows, the most significant factor in a successful relationship with your therapist is the experience of “feeling felt” (Gottlieb). LIke Springsteen with his audience, it removes the isolation that may be real or perceived, and starts to repair the impact past experiences have had on the mind, body and soul.
If you found any of this interesting, visit this link as the 3 day webinar is posted to view at any time.
https://go.mentorshow.com/live/replay-healing-days-event-new-york?utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9lRLI_jCVFUey-3rmbGGIo9OvT5NmTIp2p4QQpb-9SWzompiHvJe7sdavvm1q6HaQMb10uUAq-7ERCBRGSwCQmDfnilQ&_hsmi=382916744&utm_content=382916744&utm_source=hs_automation