“No longer is the skull a black box, its clockwork invisible as it was to Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and I will add here, Reich and Lowen and the seminal thinkers and clinicians who have shaped 20th-century psychotherapy. For the past decade, in well-funded university neuroscience laboratories from Boston to Madison to San Francisco, the black box of the skull has been opening and spilling out diamonds” (Butler, 2005, p.28). These studies have informed and shaped the theories and treatment of traumatic events and attachment disorders.

“Recent findings from observing caretaker-infant pairs have confirmed what therapists working with the body have known for a long time; that is that early attachment experiences are encoded in the right brain, they remain there unsymbolized and are available through communicating with the body in relationship. Recently, the psychoanalytic literature has begun to focus on the empirical infant, the one who is known from infant observation and derived from investigating a diverse population of caretaker-child pairs. This research has led to the same conclusion regarding preverbal states and the importance of working with the body and touch in psychoanalysis.” (Resneck-Sannes, 2002)

“The relentless privileging of language . . . has in the past conveniently shielded clinicians from the vast wealth of confusing and even “messy” nonverbal data that is used consciously and more often, unconsciously, in work with patients. In recent years, however, therapists have come increasingly to understand the significance of nonverbal experience in human development. The explosion of research on the human infant has illuminated the astonishingly rich and complex nature of the continuing social dialogue that takes place between the infant and the mothering one, a dialogue that at least on the part of the infant, is primarily nonverbal.” (Toronto, 2001, p.40)

“Allan Schore has summarized this work, focusing on the right brain-to-right brain communication that occurs between the infant and her caretaker. Because of the infant's undeveloped and restricted coping capacities, the primary caregiver is the source of the infant's stress regulation, and therefore sense of safety. Indeed, the regulatory systems that integrate mind and body are a product of developing limbic-autonomic circuits (Rinaman, Levitt, & Card, 2000), and since their maturation is experience-dependent, during their critical period of organization they are vulnerable to relational trauma. Schore has extended the findings from infants relating to their caregivers to the therapeutic process. He asserts that the communication between clients and their therapists is derived from somatosensory cues that the therapist, like “a good enough mother” interprets, then provides the correct intervention required by the client at that time.” (Resneck-Sannes- 2002, p.111)

Also, in the last decade an enormous amount has been learned about the differences between memories of everyday experiences and those of overwhelming events. These memories are different, depending on the age at which the trauma occurs and the social support systems of the victims. Recent neuroimaging studies suggest where in the brain these memories are stored and what the mechanisms might be of the recovery of traumatic memories. While ordinary memory is an active and constructive process, traumatic memories are stored in ways that are different from the memories of everyday experience, namely as dissociated sensory and perceptual fragments of the experience. As Bessel van der Kolk states: “Since traumatic memories often are dissociated and may be inaccessible to verbal recall or processing, attention should be paid to the somatic re-experiencing of trauma-related sensations and affects which may serve as engines for continuing maladaptive behaviors (Van der Kolk, b, 1996, p.281 )

Bibliography

Butler K (2005) September / October, Psychotherapy Networker: 28.
Resneck-Sannes H (2002) Psychobiology of Affects: Implications for a somatic psychotherapy. Bioenergetic Analysis: 111–122.
Toronto, E. (2001) The human touch: An exploration of the role and meaning of physical touch in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalytic Psychology, 8,1.
Van der Kolk, B., McFarlane, A., Weisaeth, L. (1996) Traumatic stress: The effects of overwhelming experience on body, mind and society, New York: The Guilford Press.

Objectives

1. Learn how the brain develops in relationship, which in turn informs our interventions as therapists
2. Learn how traumatic memories are stored and processed
3. Learn which interventions are effective for treating strain trauma vs. acute posttraumatic stress
4. Learn how to regulate your own body, so as to be the best possible therapist for this particular client as this particular time
5. Learn how the current research on the brain determines the choice of treatment for anxiety disorders vs. depression

Schedule

8:30-9:00    Registration

9:00-9:30    Into Our Bodies

9:30-10:30   The Brain (as an anatomical structure) and the Mind (as an information processing system)

1. The Orbitalfrontal Cortex -- Regulation of the Autonomic Nervous System
2. Limbic Brain and Attachment- - “What is that zing and is it a good or bad thing?”
3. Optimal Stress

 

10:30-10:45    Break

10:45-11:15    Therapeutic Relationship

1. What Is Empathy and How Does One Embody Empathy as a Therapist?
2. Right Brain to Right Brain Communication
3. Mirror Neurons

11:15-12:00   Dyadic Exercise on Limbic Attachment

12:00-1:00   Lunch

1:00-2:00     Psychobiological Regulation in the Therapeutic Relationship

2:00-2:15     Break

2:15-3:30     Depression, Anxiety, and The Brain

1. Depression -- Cognitive and somatic interventions
2. Anxiety and managing overarousal

 

 

3:30-4:00    Wrap-up and questions

Wear comfortable clothes, as the workshop will entail some exercises and movement.

Workshop Leader

Helen Resneck-Sannes, Ph.D.
216 Suburbia Ave., Santa Cruz, CA 95062
831 426-2768, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Helen Resneck-Sannes, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Santa Cruz, California. In addition to having taught in several university psychology departments, she is a member of the faculty of the International Institute for Bioenergetic Analysis, has assisted in trainings for Peter Levine and Somatic Experiencing and has trained and lectured in Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand, and the United States. Her articles have appeared in various psychological journals and books, and she has served as coeditor of the Journal for the International Institute of Bioenergetics Analysis. She has a chapter in the book, Love is Ageless: Stories about Alzheimer’s Disease (Jessica Bryant, Ed.), and a book entitled: Father’s Rooms about her own journey with her father’s Alzheimer’s disease.

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