Trauma is Prevalent<\/b><\/p>\n
\u201cI think this man is suffering from memories.\u201d This paraphrase of Sigmund Freud was used by Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk upon hearing the story of the unique and misdiagnosed symptoms of a war veteran.[1] This quote is quite poignant when it comes to the conversations around trauma and its presence in the lives of more people than most of us realize. Trauma is the result of exposure to extremely stressful and emotional experiences that leave suffers in a heightened emotional and physical state[2]. Further, these traumas not only affect the person who suffers from trauma, but it affects those closest to the person even being passed on to future generations[3].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Breakthroughs in Understanding\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n \u201cPeople cannot put traumatic events behind until they are able to acknowledge what has happened and start to recognize the invisible demons they\u2019re struggling with\u201d[4]. This is the contribution that Kolk makes to the understanding of trauma. It is a recognition that these experiences continue to impact the mind and body of those who experience traumatic events. Kolk begins his book with a startling statistic from the CDC: \u201cone in five Americans were sexually molested as a child; one in four was beaten by a parent\u2026one in three couples engages in physical violence. A quarter of us grew up with alcoholic relatives, and one out of eight witnessed their mother being beaten or hit.\u201d[5]. The prevalence of traumatic events and the effects it continues to have on the mind and body is a startling reality that needs to be recognized. As Kolk explains, traditional story-telling approaches to therapy do not work with trauma because, \u201cIn contrast, when people fully recall their traumas, they \u2018have\u2019 the experience: They are engulfed by the sensory or emotional elements of the past\u201d[6]. The physical aspect of trauma has led to new insight to the way that traumatic events shape the lives of those who continue to carry these events.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Treatments for Trauma\u00a0<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n Developments in neuroscience has led to breakthroughs in how trauma can be treated. One of the treatments that Kolk highlights is EMDR[7]. Kolk defined the strengths of EMDR treatment as: \u201crapid access to loosely associated memories and images from past\u2026heal from trauma without talking about it\u2026and [treatment] even if the patient and the therapist do not have a trusting relationship\u201d[8]. Kolk also shares his own experience as a patient and learning this new technique and how it unlocked childhood memories associated with his own recent traumas[9]. One of the interesting features of this treatment is the connection between EMDR and Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep cycle and how people who have experienced trauma are not able to enter into REM sleep, yet EMDR allows patients to recover this important sleep cycle, which is critical to the healing process[10].\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Conclusion<\/b><\/p>\n Trauma is a concept that is familiar to most people, and often comes up in casual conversation, yet the prevalence of trauma is quite startling. It made me wonder how the extend of trauma is shaping the lives and daily decision making of people all around us, even in ways that most people may not truly realized. It made the old adage, \u201cpeople are fighting battles that we don\u2019t know about\u201d more true than I realized. It also made me wonder what experiences are shaping the choices I have made in my life. How have my own experiences shaped who I am today in ways I know and ways I have not named? Since this is the case, how can we help more people gain access to treatments that can help them live whole and resilient lives that can bring healing to the generations that will be impacted by the healing of one person?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Trauma is Prevalent \u201cI think this man is suffering from memories.\u201d This paraphrase of Sigmund Freud was used by Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk upon hearing the story of the unique and misdiagnosed symptoms of a war veteran.[1] This quote is quite poignant when it comes to the conversations around trauma and its presence in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":163,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2766],"class_list":["post-32514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bessel-dlgp01","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/163"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32515,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32514\/revisions\/32515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n