Quote:
Originally Posted by BudFox
I cant comprehend that there are Ts who don't already understand attachment theory, developmental trauma, and how this might manifest in therapy. It's like performing surgery without having fully studied anatomy & physiology.
Seems Ts also need basic training in neurobiology. If a client has regressed the way Seahorse is describing or is in the grip of overwhelming emotions, it would helpful if the T knew that trying to work through this rationally (boundaries, termination, intellectual insight) might be completely wrongheaded. Couple quotes on this (Bessel van der Kolk MD):
"When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it."
"For a hundred years or more, every textbook of psychology and psychotherapy has advised that some method of talking about distressing feelings can resolve them. However the experience of trauma itself gets in the way of being able to do that. No matter how much insight and understanding we develop, the rational brain is basically impotent to talk the emotional brain out of its reality."
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This is what I discovered a long time ago. I can't understand how come real research data gets completely bypassed by the professional community and how come speculative theories become more important than empirical data.
Why on earth the works of Van der Kolk, the research conducted by Dan Siegal, Alan Shore, Peter Levine, the works of John Bowlby and many others who were truly dedicated to putting psychotherapy practice on the scientific ground, the discoveries of neuroscience aren't a REQUIRED coursework in the psychology curriculum in every graduate school? This is the material upon which the whole practice of psychotherapy should be built because this is real factual information.
There are many prominent researchers and educators in the field who have been telling their professional community that talking about one's pain, especially using the pscyhobabble terminology is not nearly enough to address the core issue of trauma because the major traumatic information is coded into implicit memory and is stored in the body, therefore, the body has to be addressed directly and talking could be a supplemental component of therapy which could help to process information that comes out as a result of working with the body.
Shamefully, most therapists, as well-intended as they may be, don't have even basic knowledge of how trauma works. The whole professional education and training system needs an overhaul.