"Healing Developmental Trauma" by L. Heller and A. LaPierre

[Laura]

There is a meditation at this link _http://drlwilson.com/Articles/PUSHING.PRO.htm (thank you bm for bringing this to my attention in another thread) which I'm finding a helpful adjunct to the book. I do it on the days I don't do EE. It focuses on calming the sympathetic nervous system which trauma puts in a permanent state of hyper-arousal. I find it particularly helpful for those of us with strong dissociative tendencies. It focuses initially on the right hand, one finger at a time, bringing awareness back to the hand when we find our attention wandering, then both hands and eventually all the way down to awareness of the toes, grounding deeply all the while having the dual attention from the centre of the head looking out between the eyes. Laura has talked about different forms of seeded meditation, hearing, seeing or sensate and this works powerfully for me for bringing my awareness back to my body, my right hand twitches a lot, always a lot of tension in my hands and wrists, as well as pelvic area and sitting with it, noticing it but not trying to do anything about it, make it go away is all rewiring gently, one breath at a time. I used to do the Dispenza meditations and found relief from the tension but it was a dissociative kind of meditation. I'm learning now to feel safe and relaxed IN my body and bringing in more life force. I also remember Laura mentioning during EE if/when you see light to bring it into your body. This meditation is a conscious and disciplined way of cultivating this ability.

I realized the other day that this book, meditation and work directly relates in a tangible way to increasing receivership capability by healing the nervous system in a deep way.

I may have missed it, Bluefyre, but have you done any sessions with the NeurOptical system?

 

[Breo]

Very helpful thread for me. I am working with my dissociations. So much to take in.

 

[Bluefyre]

I started neurofeedback after the Nora Gedgaudus book/interview and before my little trip to the hospital. I completed half of the 20-session set. Coincidentally I've been thinking the last few days that it is time to revisit and do the whole set, now that I've done the CBT and EMDR therapy. I had difficulty with feeling like it was "passive" plus a scary opening of my psychic centres. I will be contacting the person again and go the whole series this time. It's time. Thanks Laura!

 

[Hesper]

After about a week of doing Neurofeedback exercises I was surprised to find myself looking at life with very different eyes. "Healing Developmental Trauma" was recommended and, as I read through the sample chapter provided on Kindle, all sorts of connections began to fall into place. Still waiting patiently for the copy to arrive, but these are the tidbits I've gleaned from the sample.

The framework Heller and LaPierre work with concerns five basic, biological needs every human has from the get-go. Any disruption of these needs results in an adaptation and a 'survival style'. These needs and their accompanying survival styles are the Connection Survival Style, the Attunement Survival Style, the Trust Survival Style, the Autonomy Survival Style, and the Love-Sexuality Survival Style. From the sample:

NARM recognizes five biologically based core needs that are essential to our physical and emotional well-being: the need for connection, attunement, trust, autonomy, and love-sexuality. When a biologically based core need is not met, predictable psychological and physiological symptoms result: self-regulation, sense of self, and self-esteem become compromised. To the degree that our biologically based core needs are met early in life, we develop core capacities that allow us to recognize and meet these needs as adults. Being attuned to these five basic needs and capacities means that we are connected to our deepest resources and vitality. [...]

Although it may seem that humans suffer from an endless number of emotional problems and challenges, most of these can be traced to early developmental and shock trauma that compromise the development of one or more of the five core capacities. For example, when children do not get the connection they need, they grow up both seeking and fearing connection. When children do not get their needs met, they do not learn to recognize what they need, are unable to express their needs, and often feel undeserving of having their needs met.

To the degree that the internal capacity to attend to our own core needs develops, we experience self-regulation, internal organization, expansion, connection, and aliveness, all attributes of physiological and psychological well-being. Supporting the healthy development of the core capacities is central to the NARM approach.

If the five basic needs aren't met then the machine automatically adapts with a variety of responses that, over time, will become problematic and maladaptive. The basic model flows Core Needs→Caregiver/Environmental Failures→Disconnection→Compromised Core Capacity→Adaptive Survival Style

Five adaptive survival styles are set in motion depending on how well the five biologically based core needs are met—or not met—in early life. These adaptive strategies, or survival styles, are ways of coping with the disconnection, dysregulation, disorganization, and isolation that a child experiences when core needs are not met. Each of the five adaptive survival styles is named for the core need and missing or compromised core capacity: the Connection Survival Style, the Attunement Survival Style, the Trust Survival Style, the Autonomy Survival Style, and the Love-Sexuality Survival Style.

As adults, the more the five adaptive survival styles dominate our lives, the more disconnected we are from our bodies, the more distorted our sense of identity becomes, and the less we are able to regulate ourselves. Though we may feel constrained by a survival style and the physiological patterns that are part of it, we are often afraid to move beyond it. When we identify with a survival style, we stay within the confines of learned and subsequently self-imposed limitations, foreclosing our capacity for connection and aliveness.

These programmed identifications can be bipolar in nature, manifesting as shame-based and pride-based:

Each adaptive survival style has underlying shame-based identifications that develop to make sense of early environmental failure. In addition, in reaction to underlying shame, most people also develop pride-based counter-identifications, an ego ideal that reflects how they would like to see themselves or want others to see them. The pride-based counter-identifications, traditionally thought of as defenses, are an attempt to turn shame into virtue, but paradoxically, the more energy a person invests in the pride-based counter-identifications, the stronger the shame-based identifications become. [...]

NARM holds that both the shame-based identifications and the pride-based counter-identifications, while often feeling quite real, are illusions. The pride-based counter-identifications, sometimes dismissed as defensiveness, resistance, and denial, function to protect against the painful shame-based identifications that result from developmental trauma and represent their own kind of illusion. There is a danger in challenging only the protective pride-based counter-identifications, the so-called defenses, without simultaneously working through the shame-based deeper identifications, which otherwise might be reinforced. Without this understanding of the nature of these two levels of identifications, the therapeutic process can become needlessly painful and sometimes even harmful.

I'm sure many of us can see ourselves in the various survival styles. It is stunning how deep the false personality can run, and equally as stunning how fixing underlying physiological issues can result in a fundamental change in cognition. These are the various shame and pride-based adaptations, each of which clearly color the way we see the world and thus behave in it; examples of the 'criminal mind' manifesting.

Under the Connection survival style these are the shameful adaptations:

• Shame at existing
• Feeling like a burden
• Feeling of not belonging

And there are the pride-based adaptations:

• Pride in being a loner
• Pride in not needing others
• Pride in not being emotional

If the need for Attunement isn't met then the following shameful adaptations manifest:

• Needy
• Unfulfilled
• Empty
• Undeserving

And the following pride-based adaptations:

• Caretaker
• Pride in being the shoulder
  everyone cries on
• Make themselves indispensable and needed
  
• Pride in not having needs

If the need for Trust is not met then the following shameful adaptations present themselves:

• Small
• Powerless
• Used
• Betrayed

And pride-based adaptations:

• Strong and in control
• Successful
• Larger than life
• User, betrayer

Shame-based reactions for Autonomy:

• Angry
• Resentful of authority
• Rebellious
• Enjoys disappointing others

And pride-based:

• Nice
• Sweet
• Compliant
• Good boy/girl
• Fear of disappointing others

And lastly, the shame-based adaptations for Love-Sexuality:

• Hurt
• Rejected
• Physically flawed
• Unloved and unlovable

And pride-based:

• Rejects first
• Perfect
• Does not allow for mistakes
• “Seamless,” having everything together

Neurofeedback may make it possible to notice the dysfunctional nature of these survival styles, but won't erase them overnight. For that it's Work as usual.

 

[987baz]

Hey 987baz, for me personally the books I read were tremendously helpful and I don't think I would have arrived at the conclusions I did without them. That's because on a conscious level I would not refer to these emotions as 'shame-based'. They are covered with so many buffers, narratives and who knows what else that it took proper neuroscientific and behavioural explanations of their origin and analysis of their manifestations for me to start seeing the wood from the trees.

Just to illustrate the extent of my own oblivion, the first book that dealt with shame I encountered was Fear of the Abyss: Healing the Wounds of Shame & Perfectionism by Aleta Edwards. I actually stopped reading after around 20% because I'm not much of a perfectionist and the whole shame thing just didn't seem to fit. That's generally speaking. Now I can see that the picture changes drastically when a situation involves people I care about. I am quite convinced I gave up on the book too quickly, mostly due to my own poor understanding of the concept at that time.

I'm about to finish Gabor Mate's Scattered, another book I initially approached without much conviction that it would be useful. It deals with ADD and hyperactivity and I'd say maybe 60% of the traits describe me. But when they apply they apply BIG time.

Since shame-based behaviours caught your attention it may in fact be useful to consider reading the book. Here's are a couple of excerpts that may give you an idea of Mate's take on this:

[quote author=Scattered]
If hyperactivity expresses anxiety, lethargy and underarousal expresses shame. Shame, like anxiety, is an attachment emotion. "Whenever someone becomes significant to us, whenever another's caring, respect or valuing matters, the possibility for generating shame emerges" (...). The origin of shame is the feeling of having been cut off from the parent, of having lost the connection, if only momentarily.

(...) Even the most benign parenting (...) involves some use of shaming procedures to influence behavior. (...) Shame becomes excessive if the parent's signalling of disapproval is overly strong, or if the parent does not move to re-establish warm emotional contact with the child immediately - what Gershen Kaufman calls "restoring the interpersonal bridge". Chronic stress experienced by the parent has the effect of breaking that bridge. The small child does not have a large store of insight for interpreting the parent's moods and facial expressions: they either invite contact or forbid it. When the parent is distracted or withdrawn, the older infant or toddler experiences shame. Shame postures are observed in infants in response to nothing more than the parent breaking eye contact. The demeanor of the infants of depressed mothers is one of inactivity and averted gaze.

(...) Some parents are able to express anger without making the child cut off emotionally. They convey disapproval without rejection.Other parents, especially those with self-regulation problems of their own, may react with open or choked rage, punishing coldness or dejected withdrawal that signals defeat and disappointment. (...) Each time this happens, shame is evoked in the child, especially as the parent usually believes - and makes the child believe - that whatever his (the parent's) reaction is, the child is responsible for it.

(...) Like its opposite number, hyperactivity, shame began as a normal physiological state that escaped the regulation by the cortex. It become wound tightly into the self-identity of the individual.

Later in life a person experiences shame whenever they feel rejected and some aspects of that perceived rejection reminded me of Samenow's concept of "put down". There's an entire chapter on counterwill (linked to sense of rejection and shame) that seems to be similar to the criminal's responses to perceived put down. What made me build this link is the fact that I could personally relate to both Samenow's put down and the concept of counterwill quite well.

Mate links the origins of ADD and shame to early stages of infant development and deficits in the attachment and attunement process. The below fragment sheds more light on shame experienced by an infant when the mother breaks eye contact:

Attunement is necessary for the normal development of the brain pathways and neurochemical apparatus of attention and emotional self-regulation. It is a finely calibrated process requiring that the parent remain herself in a relatively nonstressed, nonanxious, nondepressed state of mind. Its clearest expression is the rapturous mutual gaze infant and mother direct at each locked in a private and special emotional realm, from which, at that moment, the rest of the world is completely excluded as from the womb. (...) Infants, particularly sensitive infants, intuit the difference between a parent's real psychological states and her attempts to soothe and protect the infant by means of feigned emotional expressions.

Mate also says that the child feels rejected and experiences shame not only when the parent openly displays rejecting behaviours but also when the parent pretends everything is fine when interacting with the child. That pretending is interpreted as rejection by the child because, although present, the parent is emotionally unavailable to them due to stress, depression, worries or other factors that preoccupy the parent's attention and divert it from the child.

The next book that I referred to in my previous post, and which described the origin of shame-based behaviours (among other things) is The Fear of Intimacy by Robert W. Firestone. The overlap between the above excerpts from Scattered and this book is the internalisation of the parent's rejecting behaviours Firestone describes. It would jeopardise the child's survival if the child openly disagreed with the parent's attitude so internally agreeing with the parent's reasons for rejection is in fact a coping mechanism the child adopted in order to continue to receive support and nurturing from the parent. Except that this mechanism continues to function well into adulthood and this is what The Fear of Intimacy focuses on.

Unfortunately I don't have my kindle with me at work so I won't be able to quote relevant fragments.
[/quote]

Thanks Ant22,

I have Fear of the Abyss on my kindle, like you I think I read about 20% of it or so and that's about as far as I got, I will get back to it once I am done with this and the other books from the reading list.

I haven't read Scattered, only When the Body Says No, by Mate, ADD is not something that I have had to deal with, but it sounds like it may be more than just that, so I will add it to the reading list as well!

The Fear of Intimacy, also sounds like it could be worth a read, again I will add it to the list.

It's interesting to me that I never thought I suffered from shame-based behaviour, but the more I read about it, maybe this is something subconscious that I haven't been able to articulate and understand about myself.

I'm sure many of us can see ourselves in the various survival styles. It is stunning how deep the false personality can run, and equally as stunning how fixing underlying physiological issues can result in a fundamental change in cognition. These are the various shame and pride-based adaptations, each of which clearly color the way we see the world and thus behave in it; examples of the 'criminal mind' manifesting.

The survival styles mentioned in the book are indeed confronting, but also liberating, for at least when you see yourself in these, there seems to be something you can do about it, which is the exciting part!

 

[Laura]

One thing I liked about this approach is that it minimizes endlessly reviewing the old, hurtful stuff, and focuses on finding strengths and resources and "growing up", so to say. People are encouraged to understand that "that stuff happened long ago, you developed this coping style for survival, it no longer serves you, so let's stay in the moment here and now, and focus on re-wiring the brain the way it should have been done then."

The method does not recommend catharsis or abreaction, but rather learning to hold the feelings and understand them and re-focus them. There are a couple of very interesting case studies presented in some detail.

 

[987baz]

One thing I liked about this approach is that it minimizes endlessly reviewing the old, hurtful stuff, and focuses on finding strengths and resources and "growing up", so to say. People are encouraged to understand that "that stuff happened long ago, you developed this coping style for survival, it no longer serves you, so let's stay in the moment here and now, and focus on re-wiring the brain the way it should have been done then."

The method does not recommend catharsis or abreaction, but rather learning to hold the feelings and understand them and re-focus them. There are a couple of very interesting case studies presented in some detail.

Yes, I very much like this idea too! I look forward to reading the case studies

The focus is less on why people are the way they are and more on how their survival style distorts their experience and their life in the present.

Heller Phd, Laurence; Lapierre, Aline Psyd. Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacityfor Relationship (Kindle Locations 417-418). North Atlantic Books. Kindle Edition.

 

[Gaby]

I started reading this book and my impression is that the work has never been so clear as it is for me now. The Connection Survival Strategy describes me down to a T.

I might have reached a point where I exhausted all cognitive approaches available to me. I never found myself comfortable working with a therapist and when I did found a therapist that I really felt connected with, she was unable to continue sessions due to her increasing responsibilities. It seems to me that the Bottom-Up approach was sorely missing in my life and the Neurofeedback sessions really opened my mind to feel and see things differently from my old usual way. It is as if I was feeling stuck in "Hotel California" and the preverbal/brain stem material explained in the NF literature and which is expanded in this Developmental Trauma book was very revealing in a very explicit form. I'm looking forward to the present with this new approach, adding it to my Top-Bottom work.

Every single aid a long the way has been useful, but this new knowledge and understanding seems to be opening a new door for a lot of us. Fresh new hope!

 

[Laura]

I started reading this book and my impression is that the work has never been so clear as it is for me now. The Connection Survival Strategy describes me down to a T.

I might have reached a point where I exhausted all cognitive approaches available to me. I never found myself comfortable working with a therapist and when I did found a therapist that I really felt connected with, she was unable to continue sessions due to her increasing responsibilities. It seems to me that the Bottom-Up approach was sorely missing in my life and the Neurofeedback sessions really opened my mind to feel and see things differently from my old usual way. It is as if I was feeling stuck in "Hotel California" and the preverbal/brain stem material explained in the NF literature and which is expanded in this Developmental Trauma book was very revealing in a very explicit form. I'm looking forward to the present with this new approach, adding it to my Top-Bottom work.

Every single aid a long the way has been useful, but this new knowledge and understanding seems to be opening a new door for a lot of us. Fresh new hope!

Indeed, that was my feeling about it. With the knowledge from Raine and Samenow as a foundation, knowing that most of therapy is simply a matter of dealing with your stuff and get over the past, and now having more explicit discussion of wounding and the tracks it makes in our brains, PLUS the tool of Neurofeedback to kickstart things by inducing the brain to correct bad tracks, I think some folks who've been stuck for a long time will make some progress.

 

[nature]

Thank you for this interesting topic. I ordered the book.

I have a silly question: Now we have new tools, are therapies like CBT and EMDR still worth it? It's impossible for some of us to do every thing, so a choice has to be made, energy (time +++) put in efficient things.

 

[seek10]

I started reading this book and my impression is that the work has never been so clear as it is for me now. The Connection Survival Strategy describes me down to a T.

I might have reached a point where I exhausted all cognitive approaches available to me. I never found myself comfortable working with a therapist and when I did found a therapist that I really felt connected with, she was unable to continue sessions due to her increasing responsibilities. It seems to me that the Bottom-Up approach was sorely missing in my life and the Neurofeedback sessions really opened my mind to feel and see things differently from my old usual way. It is as if I was feeling stuck in "Hotel California" and the preverbal/brain stem material explained in the NF literature and which is expanded in this Developmental Trauma book was very revealing in a very explicit form. I'm looking forward to the present with this new approach, adding it to my Top-Bottom work.

Every single aid a long the way has been useful, but this new knowledge and understanding seems to be opening a new door for a lot of us. Fresh new hope!

It is the same impression I was getting. Authors consolidated many of approaches we read before( ex: "you are not your brain" , peter levines body oriented approaches for trauma etc.) in to easy understandable way. The bottom up and top down approach and presented is very useful ways. It looks to me that mind over matter tend to have limitations, though it is useful. It is like a environment, each impacts others. Limitation of mindfulness(sort of self remembering that can produce anxiety) when excitation is not controlled is a realization for me. "why the heck it is happening" can create sense of helplessness and replay the trauma and we can get lost in the processing. It looks to me that pipe breathing is much more useful before challenging the thought. Of course, it depends on the mental control and habits.

I liked the explanation of survival styles- connection, attunement, Trust etc. with possible early imprinting was very easy to relate, but can be frustrating to realise it.

After seeing this picture, it made me wonder does any body on this planet not disassociated(leaving aside psychopaths). This reminded me of C's saying 50% of the children on the planet are abused and 4D STS plans to produce maximum life force from it.

 

[Marina9]

One thing I liked about this approach is that it minimizes endlessly reviewing the old, hurtful stuff, and focuses on finding strengths and resources and "growing up", so to say. People are encouraged to understand that "that stuff happened long ago, you developed this coping style for survival, it no longer serves you, so let's stay in the moment here and now, and focus on re-wiring the brain the way it should have been done then."

The method does not recommend catharsis or abreaction, but rather learning to hold the feelings and understand them and re-focus them. There are a couple of very interesting case studies presented in some detail.

Thank you Laura and everyone for the information on this book. I also think this is a great approach! From the notes shared by Hesper I also got some bells ringing in my head, so will definitely add it to the list now that I finish with the Samenow and Raine lectures.

 

[Laura]

Thank you for this interesting topic. I ordered the book.

I have a silly question: Now we have new tools, are therapies like CBT and EMDR still worth it? It's impossible for some of us to do every thing, so a choice has to be made, energy (time +++) put in efficient things.

Some people may need all modalities at some time or other, but not necessarily at the same time. I don't know much about EMDR except what I have read or what forum members have reported. It seems very useful in certain cases and situations.

I'm all about efficiency and better mousetraps, so it seems to me that NeurOptimal might be like a broad spectrum antibiotic, but in some cases, other co-occurring conditions require additional medications.

As I said, I think it is important to read "Healing Developmental Trauma" before one goes for the neurofeedback so that you have some idea of things even if the objective is not to dwell on them.

After seeing this picture, it made me wonder does any body on this planet not disassociated(leaving aside psychopaths).

Yes. And the authors say repeatedly that about everybody has some of these issues to some extent.

 

[Bluefyre]

I have a silly question: Now we have new tools, are therapies like CBT and EMDR still worth it? It's impossible for some of us to do every thing, so a choice has to be made, energy (time +++) put in efficient things.

I think it depends on the severity. Since reading the book I've wondered about the path I took. However I found EMDR useful in accessing buried memories. They surface in clusters. In my case there was so much trauma stored in the body/nervous system that I could not access. The book talks about re-traumatizing and to some extent that was the case with EMDR but in my case it was the only way to bring them up and out. Maybe I'm a bit diehard about it, but I've used the analogy of needing to throw up and the longer you fight it the worse you feel. Then once you vomit you feel so much, much better. Processing the memories from the present with the objective witness, which is what EMDR does, bring the body and nervous system more into the present each time. It was exhausting for me, but I couldn't go back and wouldn't want to. I was highly motivated, having experienced episodes of missing time throughout my life and shoving them under the carpet. The focus with EMDR is not dredging up the past, but anchoring in the present as the memories surface, dual awareness, creating the safety for the machine to release while being the responsible and compassionate adult in the present. The terminology in the book that it was the environment was deficient depersonalized in a very helpful way, the constant images stored in the nervous system of the abuse and helps me observe with benign curiosity the events. Like, if I saw an adult doing what was done to me as a child, I would be outraged. There would be no question that the child deserved it in some way, I would see the toxic nature of an out of control adult taking it out on a child. I don't know if I'm explaining it clearly, but it was very freeing.

I didn't realize it until I read the book, but working with a really caring, wise therapist started to re-wire the connection circuits and the trust circuits, in person, with someone who looked me in the eyes and saw me.

 

[nature]

Thank you very much, Laura and Bluefyre !
I can't wait to read the book, but I'm still at speculum mentis, and have Raine, Samenow to read before.
I don't remember any traumatic event in my childhood; at the contrary I had a happy life, and very caring parents. But I stay open to the possibily, considering all my health issues, and considering health worsening after marriage and divorce. I have an appointment with an EMDR and CBT practitioner, and will see what she'll tell me.