Mindfulness, Trauma and the Brain

I wanted to share this article for people to read because the neurosciences are providing new hope for the individuals, families and communities who are dealing with the sometimes horrific effects of complex trauma.


Until recent times, normal psychology in the academy, “has had no pressing need to pay attention to the nature and structure of subjective experiences such as the present moment. Psychology’s new alliance with the neurosciences has changed that and a more fruitful dialogue is now taking place” (p. 137). The dialogue now reveals that there are not only objective brain correlates and limits to the mind known through subjective encounter, but that concepts of interpersonal neurobiology and neuroplasticity are disclosing how the mind shapes the brain (Gallese, 2001; Lewis et al., 2000; Lipton, 2005; Siegel, 1999).

In particular, recent technology is beginning to show the ways in which mindfulness helpfully affects the brain through such things as left prefrontal activation that enables people to not be fused or blended with emotional activation or obsessive-compulsive behaviors (Germer, 2005a, p. 22-23). Rather, impulses may be witnessed as they arise, and choice introduced in terms of a variety of responses (Austin, 1998; Libet, 1999; Schwartz & Begley, 2002; Schwartz, J. 1996). This ability supports the contention of Popper and Eccles (1981) that the best word for describing the unconscious is “disposition.” We are disposed in many ways through biochemistry, object-relations, conditioning, cultural and societal influences, but not absolutely determined. As the work of Kurtz (1990) demonstrates, these various dispositions can be mindfully studied and possibly modified as they arise or are evoked.

Nowhere is this more important than in work with trauma. Some studies report that nearly half of all Americans have experienced trauma, though perhaps not in the technical sense of a perceived threat to life (Kessler, Sonnega, Bromer, Hughes, and Nelson, 1995). For those who have experienced a real or perceived threat to their lives, the primitive reptilian and limbic brains have been activated and organized around fight, flight, or freezing (Levine, 1997, Herman, 1992). Clinically speaking, this implies that normal psychological counseling after traumatic incidents employing the neocortex in ordinary consciousness can be counterproductive or even serve to re-traumatize (Ehlers et al., 2003; Groopman, 2004).

What is needed is a form of therapy that addresses the need for bottom-up processing that respects the power of primitive sensory-motor and limbic processes to immediately start a trauma vortex that leads to dissociation when memories are evoked too quickly through top down processing that generally seeks meaning, understanding, and a coherent narrative (LeDoux, 1996; Van der Kolk, 2002).

One recent approach that has been exciting through its clinical effectiveness is Ogden’s Sensorimotor Psychotherapy that employs mindfulness in the service of bottom-up processing for those who have suffered trauma. Ogden and Minton (2000) write:

In Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, top-down direction is harnessed to support rather than manage sensorimotor processing. The client is asked to mindfully track (a top-down cognitive process) the sequence of physical sensations and impulses (sensorimotor process) as they progress through the body, and to temporarily disregard emotions and thoughts that arise, until the bodily sensations and impulses resolve to a point of rest and stabilization in the body. The client learns to observe and follow the unassimilated sensorimotor reactions (primarily, arousal and defensive reactions) that were activated at the time of the trauma. (p. 6)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mindfulness is the key to clients becoming more and more acutely aware of internal sensorimotor reactions and in increasing their capacity for self-regulation. Mindfulness is a state of consciousness in which one’s awareness is directed toward here-and-now internal experience, with the intention of simply observing rather than changing this experience. Therefore, we can say that mindfulness engages the cognitive faculties of the client in support of sensorimotor processing, rather than allowing bottom-up trauma-related processes to escalate and take control of information processing. . . .[Mindful questioning invites] the client to come out of a dissociated state and future- or past-centered ideation, and experience the present moment through the body. Such questions also encourage the client to step back from being embedded in the traumatic experience and to report from the standpoint of an observing ego, an ego that ‘has’ an experience in the body rather than ‘is’ that bodily experience. (p. 14)

Morgan (2002) echoes Ogden’s wisdom of dealing mindfully with signs and symptom of traumatic activation:

In excessive arousal the higher processing is shut down, and the tendency is to be overwhelmed by input from the emotional and sensory systems. The left brain and verbal centers are under-active and distressing memories are more likely to be activated by the more active right hemisphere. The hippocampus is under-functioning so a sense of sequence, context, and ability to make a story is dampened. (p. 9)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Mindfulness calms the system, allows the person to focus attention. The . . . mindfulness induction has been shown to heighten mental imagery, disconnect attention from external sense and increase the blood flow to the anterior cingulated cortex. This is the brain area that allows attention to be focused on internal events. Candace Pert (1999), in her discussion of neuropeptides, talks of the system being able to digest information when there is focused attention on the body. This allows information to flow upwards, be filtered, and be processed. When the client reports experience to the therapist the verbal areas are kept active, which will help balance the two hemispheres. Memory fragments are gathered by the hippocampus and the frontal lobes, and these can be brought together in a meaningful way. Movement between the left and right hemispheres is crucial for memory consolidation. This could involve feeling something, speaking about it, expressing emotion, linking this to a remembered event, feeling the body, making some sense of the feeling. Freezing in the body can melt, and energy be released in movement, heat and trembling. Going slowly, mindfully allows processes to complete. (p. 9)

Therapists learning to encourage mindfulness in relation to bodily signs of primitive activation is a promising way to avoid dissociation while pursuing completion and integration of traumatic fragmentation.

printed from:

A Survey of the Use of
Mindfulness in Psychotherapy

by
Gregory J. Johanson, Ph.D., FAPA, FAAIM, LPC
Hakomi Educational Resources

The Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association
Vol. 9 No. 2. (Summer 2006):15-24

Food For People

One of our assignments in our MSW program at Humboldt State University was to create a Youtube video for our Social Work 643: Community Work class. Two of my classmates and I decided to make a video about an amazing program in our community called Food for People. I am including a list of all the programs that are available through this organization.

Food for People, Inc.
The Food Bank for Humboldt County
307 W. 14th St.
Eureka, CA 95501
(707)445-3166
(707445-5946 fax
www.foodforpeople.org


FOOD FOR PEOPLE, INC. – 2008-2009 PROGRAMS LIST

Food for People first opened its doors in 1979 as a small food closet, designed to fill a void in the County’s social service programs. Our programs and services have grown and matured over the past 30 years, thanks to the generous support of the local community and the various grant making foundations that have provided funding for new and existing projects. Federal and state contracts specific to the distribution of USDA, FEMA and other purchased or donated foods provide approximately 32% of our annual funding. We rely on grants and local donations for the remaining 68%, which makes it possible for us to provide food for over 10,000 low income children, families, seniors, people with disabilities and other individuals each month. According to data provide through the California Health Interview Survey, Humboldt County has one of the highest rates of hunger and food insecurity statewide.

Food for People is a member of the California Association of Food Banks and is designated as a subsidiary distribution organization by Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks. We are also members of the Northern California Association of Nonprofits, which helps to build and strengthen our focus on local partnerships and collaborations.

The programs offered by Food for People are intended to serve as a safety net for those whose circumstances have left them at risk of hunger and food insecurity. Our goal is to provide individuals and households with the emergency and supplemental food they need, while working to address the root causes of hunger in our county.

The California Department of Social Services Emergency Food Assistance Program has designated Food for People, Inc. the Food Bank for Humboldt County.

Our mission:
Food for People is working to eliminate hunger and improve the health and well being of our community through access to healthy and nutritious foods, community education and advocacy.

Food for People, Inc. currently operates a total of 12 programs, each of which is designed to address the needs of those who are experiencing hunger and food insecurity. Last year, our food bank received and distributed a total of 1.3 million pounds of food.

Our programs include the following:

• The Food Bank coordinates the distribution of food through all designated program areas, and also oversees the direct distribution of food every Wednesday and Friday to an average of 1000 households (2800-3000 individuals) each month.

• Our Emergency Food Pantry Network provides food for 18 pantries and 3 congregate meal programs (soup kitchens) located throughout Humboldt County. Food for People monitors each site in accordance with USDA regulations and provides technical assistance, as needed. Collectively, these food pantries serve approximately 9,000 to 10,000 people each month.
• The Senior Brown Bag Program has been in operation since 1987, and currently provides a bag of groceries for an average of 620 low income seniors each month. Volunteer drivers deliver bags to those who are unable to pick up their own food.
• Our Homebound Delivery Program provides a monthly bag of groceries for 60-70 individuals who are too ill or disabled to leave their homes. Some of our recipients are recovering from surgery, while others may be coping with a terminal illness. Referrals are accepted from hospital discharge planners, social workers, home health workers, etc.
• The Summer Food Service Program, also known as the Children’s Summer Lunch Program, served 12,713 lunches at 15 community sites last summer. Free sack lunches are provided to low income children whose families cannot afford the additional cost of the extra meals once school is out. The majority of the children served qualify for free or reduced cost breakfast and lunch during the school year.
• The After School Snack Program was initiated in October 2006 and provides healthy snacks in after school settings at various schools and youth programs for more than 445 children per day. Many of the sites are also partners in the summer lunch program.
• The Backpacks for Kids program provides a backpack filled with kid-friendly food every Friday during the school year for children who are considered at risk for hunger over the weekend. This year, the program will serve up to 260 children at schools in Eureka, Fortuna, Blue Lake, Rio Dell, Redway, Manila and Willow Creek.
• The USDA Commodity Supplemental Food Program provides a 30-40 pound box of nutritious food monthly for 300 program participants. Our target population includes income eligible seniors, pregnant or nursing mothers and children up to age 5 who are not enrolled in WIC (Women, Infants and Children program).
• The Nonprofit Food Network allows 26 local nonprofit organizations providing residential, rehabilitation or after school programs to access food obtained through the Feeding America Food Bank Network at a low, per pound cost. Food must be used by programs serving only low income children and adults.
• The Farm Gleaning Program is overseen by our Local Food Resources Coordinator and accesses donations of fresh produce from commercial farms, orchards and backyard gardens. It also encompasses the national “Plant a Row for the Hungry” campaign, which encourages backyard gardeners to plant an extra row of food to donate to a local food pantry. Volunteers helped glean 58,385 lbs. of fresh produce last year.
• Community Education and Outreach Programs include Hunger 101, a hands-on curriculum designed for children and adults of all ages which provides insight into the tough decisions low income households face daily when trying to obtain adequate nutrition. Our Food Stamp Access Outreach Project advocates for the elimination of bureaucratic barriers to food stamps for working families and seniors. Cooking and nutrition classes are offered monthly at the Eureka Coop demonstration kitchen.
• The Emergency Food and Disaster Program links Food for People with our local chapter of VOAD, Volunteer Organizations Active in Disaster. Should a disaster strike Humboldt County, Food for People would work with other local groups to make food available to any community experiencing hardship.

Unfortunate Humor

Ford Unveils New Car For Cash-Strapped Buyers: The 1993 Taurus

Between the hysteria of this week's SEMA Show and Chrysler's never-ending (and partially baffling) revelations yesterday, a shocking announcement by Ford Motor Company has been nearly drowned out. But rest assured, your Autoblog team never rests (even after huffing down 9,000 calories apiece at Vegas' Wynn Buffet!) and have tracked down this astounding piece of news. Ford has taken a long, hard look at the state of the American automotive scene and has decided to do the (almost) unthinkable – sell us a car for $650.
-Copied from Onion News

I thought this was real at first, but I understood that it was a comedy sketch after watching it twice. Unfortunately, people would probably buy a cheap car to live in if they could. When you are homeless, a car may be safer than the streets.

IMAGINE A WOMAN

Wangari Muta Maathai is a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She received her education in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica College and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya. Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. In 2004 she became the first African woman, and the first environmentalist, to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for “her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”

Angela Davis is an American political activist and retired professor from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She was director of the university's Feminist Studies department. Her research interests are in feminism, African American studies, critical theory, popular music culture and social consciousness, and philosophy of punishment (women's jails and prisons). Davis is the founder of Critical Resistance, an organization working to abolish what it calls the prison-industrial complex. Davis was an activist during the Civil Rights Movement and a candidate for the U.S. Vice Presidency on the Communist Party ticket. Since leaving the Communist Party, she has identified herself as a democratic socialist. She was found innocent of murder in the August 1970 abduction and killing of Judge Harold Haley in Marin County, California.

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I read this a long time ago and kept it hanging on my refrigerator for my daughter and me to read every day so we didn't forget what it means to be true to ourselves, always.



Imagine a Woman

Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is
a woman. A woman who honors her experience and
tells her stories. Who refuses to carry the sins of others
within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who believes she is good. A woman who
trusts and respects herself. Who listens to her needs and
desires, and meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who has acknowledged the past's influence
on the present. A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life. A woman who
exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf. Who refuses to
surrender except to her truest self and to her wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods. A woman who
imagines the divine in her image and likeness. Who designs
her own spirituality and allows it to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body. A woman who
believes her body is enough, just as it is. Who celebrates her
body and its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the face of the Goddess in her
own changing face. A woman who celebrates the accumulation of
her years and her wisdom. Who refuses to use precious energy
disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.
Patricia Lynn Reilly
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Maya Angelou is an American autobiographer and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adulthood experiences. The first, best-known, and most highly acclaimed, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), focuses on the first seventeen years of her life, brought her international recognition, and was nominated for a National Book Award.

Arandhati Roy is an Indian writer (in English) and activist who won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and in 2002, the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize. She is also a writer of two screenplays and a number of collections of essays. Roy is a well-known activist for social and economic justice.

Winona LaDuke is a Native American activist, environmentalist, economist, and writer. In 1996 and 2000, she ran for vice president as the nominee of the United States Green Party, on a ticket headed by Ralph Nader. She is currently the Executive Director of both Honor the Earth and White Earth Land Recovery Project.

Becoming a Visionary of Change in Social Work Community Practice

We know from our reading that “professional social work practice requires ethical, ideological and emotional grounding” (Hardcastle & Powers, 2004). “Personal fortitude, integrity, and dedication” are also mentioned in our text as necessary personal attributes for skillful practice in community work. Interpersonal skills are extremely important in direct service provision as well as in community work. These skills include such things as “awareness of the feelings of others and attentiveness to our body language when we are uncomfortable or annoyed” (Ibid, 209). It is extremely important to be able to flow with a client and to have internal and personal boundaries so, as clinicians and caseworkers, we are not hypersensitive to the thoughts, feelings or words that we hear in our work and that we do not take any of these things personally. If feelings of resentment or anger towards a client appear, it is our responsibility to look within ourselves to discover the reasons or “triggers” for these feelings. Our clients can be the mirrors for deeper learning about ourselves if we are willing to do the interpersonal work.

It is also our responsibility in our positions to be able and willing to communicate with our coworkers and supervisors in a genuine and authentic manner. We cannot avoid communication opportunities that may produce positive and healthy outcomes in uncomfortable situations and relationships because it is easier to do so. It is also unproductive to take the problem to someone else because of our inability to effectively participate in the communication process for true understanding between individuals to occur. I would not want a client or coworker to take a complaint about me to a supervisor instead of respectfully talking to me about the problem, especially if I had made it clear that I looked forward to such exchanges. We show respect for ourselves, and others, by our willingness to fully engage in the process of honest and genuine communication efforts, especially in times of conflict.

It is equally important to pursue learning and continue to take advantage of educational opportunities that will broaden our skills, knowledge and awareness that can be applied in our lives and work. If I am unwilling to engage in learning opportunities because I don’t think the knowledge applies to my life or the work I wish to do, I have limited my interpersonal and professional growth, which is the antithesis of being a student of higher learning.

A few years ago I read a media report that received attention because it focused on accomplishments that improve women’s self esteem. Completion of a graduate program appeared on that list because this endeavor was seen as highly effective for improving self-esteem, and transforming self-awareness and emotional intelligence in women. I know that many women wish they had the resources, time, and emotional and physical support to accomplish this goal. I feel honored to have this opportunity to participate in the social work graduate program at Humboldt State University. I am thrilled and humbled to have an opportunity to pursue my dream and to accomplish such an important and worthy pursuit in my life instead of staying in a job that was unfulfilling and meaningless. I am also aware that many women do not have this opportunity because of oppressive class, power, and financial structures that keep them buried in a daily struggle to survive. I am privileged because of my skin color, ethnicity and educational background and it is clear that I have a political, spiritual and moral responsibility to challenge the status quo and to become a “visionary of change” for the oppressed, subjugated and powerless in this world (Hardcastle & Powers, 2004).

I have walked a long road of healing that began when I was a young child and realized that I carried around a seed of hope within that saved my life. I have seen first hand what violence, rage, and refusal to face our deepest insecurities and fears can create in the external world. Our society is physiologically addicted to violence and suffering. We see it every day played out in movies, television shows, news coverage and in our own relationships. We see it played out over and over again in places like Viet Nam, Cambodia, South Africa, Lebanon, Palestine, Guantanamo Bay, Pine Ridge, South Dakota, Big Mountain, Arizona…. People turn away from the homeless who often display their misery for all to see because it strikes something deep inside that is too uncomfortable, too fearful, too real. I appreciated the pictures in Dr. Yellow Bird’s class for this reason. I never want to forget that people suffer and die on this planet and in my own back yard. Would someone help me if I was homeless and dying on the street? What am I doing to help them? What am I doing to stop my government from continuing the practice of genocide and oppression in my own backyard, and around the planet? I need to look at the pictures and be reminded of all that I have and all that still needs to be done.