Healing Tools for ACEs & Trauma

Hi Cissy, 

I don't know. But I think it would be good for a group to use the system together.  That would be a great way to work together with the emotions that may come up.   You could email or contact them to see.  Here is a link to the system.  I would imagine they might look at ways to increase their visibility in this field as it grows.  I have seen some systems that are a little more expensive that you could buy but would need to learn protocols. The reason I kind of like this system first is that you get an idea of how it works etc and then if you were to get an amplifier -- and would need a standard computer-- one could use this with multiple different protocols forever.  Maybe the Eeger site would also be a sight to contact to see what they have to say.   Then you could let us know.  It does state it is for folks too far to go to a provider.  Who knows however.  They may make exceptions, after all it is business. 

Thanks Tina (And I am sorry about my writing skills - I make punctuation errors, typos etc). 

https://neurofeedbackhomeuser.com/inquiry-form/

Tina,

Thank you for sharing your experiences. If neurofeedback were more affordable I would try it (and will when I can). I think costs will eventually come down and/or be insured more. I know some people are able to get it covered on insurance. But, I've not read many first person accounts of what people have done/are doing at home and how it feels and seems. So thank you! I'm totally interested and learning and glad you are sharing.

Can people share the machines and technology? I ask because I wonder if a motivated group could go in on a system and share not only the machine/program but the experience?

I bet in 25 years there will be such effective and varied treatments we will look back on these days amazed and a bit horrified at what was not yet known and how brave people were trying, figuring and studying all the varied techniques, facts and info.

At this age and stage of my life the experts I most like to hear from are others sharing what does and doesn't work. Thank you.

Cissy

Oh, 

I don't know what to say.  But I want to say something.  I think maybe that generally animals aren't abandoned by their parents. When they are, they usually die.  I think humans somehow keep going along developing severe disorganized attachment and in this strange world of computers and technology and all this unnatural stuff we have  and then this very severe trauma gets locked in the deep brain structures.  For sure it is there.  It has no connection with the cortical structures (or very little).  I agree, you can NEVER talk it out. No way... you can understand what happened to you and can rationalize it but that doesnt do anything about getting rid of it and after a time (maybe depending on how early or severely you were traumatized at least) talking about it can actually make you worse. When I first talked about the stuff that happened to me, I was a suicidal wreck.  Talk was terrible and I could even talk about it a year ago but my hands got pale, cold and white and I felt sick to my stomach and sometimes even vomited. I think that there is trauma that  is procedural memory that becomes locked - the memory in the realm of riding a bike only this is memory of no escape.  Only it is the body stuck in the freeze of trauma. I froze a lot as a kid. Had to. I would have been killed if I hadn't.  I tried to be invisible.  Had to.  Life could be taken at any time. I doubt that Dr. Levine thinks that animals don't get traumatized, though I have never talked to him... my guess is that Generally -- animals are able to release--- I mean we have all seen a video of some african animal in the grips of a lions jaw that somehow gets free... That animal has to be able to exit the freeze fast and run.  Generally this is when animals are working together as a herd. I know that kids kind of freeze, pack all sorts of very horrible emotions inside and keep going as if nothing happened.  Think of those two teens in Detroit a 14 yr old and a 17 year old living with their mother who killed two siblings and had the kids but their brother and sister in the freezer.  The teens said nothing. Not because they were "bad". I am sure they had years of indoctrinated trauma that they experienced. I would not have said anything either, I am certain.  This was an uncertain world.   I know animals hurt though. I have seen abused dogs and how they cower and have seen videos of "grieving" elephant mothers after their baby elephant has been killed.  It makes me want to cry. 

Kathy, thanks for the complete link to the video of Dr. Levine. I may have seen this particular one before but I cannot remember it and if it was a first time seeing it - I liked it and if It was a refresher that I don't remember well that was good too. I think there is certainly something to his somatic experiencing. I have wanted to try it for a long time but there is no one who does that where I live. Anyway everybody is right - animals get traumatized and trauma is locked in the bodies of adults and most of us don't even know it.  Oh and Kathy, here is a virtual hug.  

Thanks everyone.

I need to do another neurofeedback session.....  

Hi Louise and Jane --

    No one said animals don't get traumatized.  All that was said is that many, if not most, mammals can't survive long in the wild in a traumatized state, so they've developed a re-set process. And that most humans resist doing the re-set, because to our big thinking brains, it feels irrational and overwhelming. Clearly most humans do not do it, or we'd not be debating whether it even exists.

    I beg we be careful citing trauma experts when they speak of each other; we love them all for helping us, but I've been saddened to find there is ego. I've spoken to Dr. van der Kolk, Dr. Bruce Perry, and Dr. Levine in person at enough length to be shocked to hear each of them, unfortunately, dismissing the work of the others. They'd never do so in print or public; should we quote them doing it?  If Levine were a quack, would Dan Siegel have him speaking at many of his UCLA conferences?

      I was doing full-body sobbing of the kind that bang an entire car seat with shaking, gasping, and the whole nine yards of the "polar bear dance," for most of my life.  Especially during my work on the Grief Handbook for three full years 2009-2012, before I ever heard of Levine in 2012. Reading his book and doing his exercises merely confirmed what my body had been telling me for decades.

       Unless one has studied the Polyvagal Theory on the hierarchical development of the brain across evolution, and how the vagal nerve functions in trauma, as cross-confirmed by the competing work of Bruce Perry and Stephen Porges, perhaps dismissing it may not be appropriate. [See http://attachmentdisorderheali...om/Porges-Polyvagal/ ]

      Many comments here on animals being traumatized are about primates. All brain scientists agree the "thinking brain" originates with primates, not just humans -- that's why Harlow's distressing traumatization of the monkeys turned out to be applicable to humans. I wish I'd said "primates resist the re-set dance."  I'm ignorant on hyenas but makes sense that any animal with structured social hierarchy such as you've described would be traumatized by it; that kind of social structure is primate-like. 

      Plus when humans intervene and domesticate animals but treat them badly, all bets are off.

      The point being: over-thinking it keeps us in freeze.  If you think you've getting out of trauma by thinking your way out, think again. You can't. Trauma is a bodily reaction primarily in what Siegel calls the "downstairs brain" which is everything other than the thinking frontal cortex:  the limbic mammal brain, the brain stem, and the huge ganglia around the heart and viscera.  These areas of the brain and body do not think and do not obey thinking. Check "General Theory of Love" again.

You are a "fav" of mine too. Thanks and good luck with all the grant writing. I am a terrible writer....

Tina, I got sidetracked with two of my fav people on ACES Connection and the sophistries of trauma science. However, I couldn't pass your entries by so casually - you are a brave lady indeed to be lifting the rock and even more for describing to us the experience of discovering what lies under it. My friend has a son who is highly reactive due to trauma. They have been using a little device that fits on a finger and measures heart rate variability. It has really helped him calm down. The good thing is that it is a whole lot less expensive than some of the other equipment I've been reading about. Got to get back to grant writing now, but "bon courage!" my friend and other fav person on ACES Connection!

Oooh! The traumatized in the wild argument! This is the one reason I had pause with Peter Levine's theory. Animals in the wild do get traumatized. There is a video on this site that shows what happens to monkeys when dominated by alpha males. The researchers were taking samples of the colony's cortisol levels. When the alpha males all mistakenly got poisoned and died, the cortisol levels of the remaining monkeys went down and the now-more-mellow monkeys wouldn't let any aggressive males join their colony.

However, I know that shaking has been used in healing for centuries. Look at the Quakers and some of the charismatic Christians who believe this is a sign of the Holy Spirit at work.

I actually asked Bessel when he was here for our conference about this whole argument and he responded in typically Bessel fashion: "It's all BS!" Although, he did speak with great respect about Levine and Porge's work in all other regards.

I think you answered my question. Hyenas and baboons (and chimps, etc.) live in highly complex social environments where dominance and submission are behaviors integral to an individual's life course. Hyenas, for example, learn to recognize dozens of individuals and their place in the dominance order, so that when one hyena interacts with another, the submissive one has to literally grovel to avoid being attacked (and sometimes even groveling doesn't help). All males are submissive to all females, which are larger and more aggressive, partly because of an overload of male hormones. (Hyenas have a genitourinary system unique to the animal kingdom.) 

So, in wild animal societies that are socially complex, many individuals are traumatized, and live that way every day. They don't get to walk away from it.

I'm not sure how that explains the bird-brained pecking order of chickens. Their societies don't seem so complex. But a chicken researcher might take issue with that statement.  ;-))  

Hi Jane,

I'm no animal expert, just citing Dr. Peter Levine and his 30-year colleague Dr. Stephen Porges on the "re-set button" for trauma in the vagal nerve, thus "Polyvagal Theory."  Levine writes extensively about his field trips to Alaska to interview polar bear experts, to Africa to interview game wardens, etc. and on how the human brain resists doing the "reset dance" because the dance i's so "irrational" and overpowering. Humans think our thinking brain needs to run everything, and it can not run that reset dance!

Whereas they write in general, other mammals in the wild do not resist doing the dance.

Having said all that, of course I've seen my beloved cats traumatized by events they can't control -- and that's the issue.

Animals in the wild, usually, either get eaten/killed  OR they do the reset dance -- and then they walk away as if nothing happened.

But now we humans have pets, and we put them thru a third thing which is neither be killed nor do the reset dance:  We hit them without killing them.  Or we put them in carriers and take them to vets to help them  -- but they are being held down, restrained, controlled.  And yeah that's traumatic -- but it's not "natural," it's another human intervention.

As to wild animals traumatizing each other, I've got to plead ignorance.

I think Levine and Porges are writing about broad generalities, and there can be plenty of exceptions to every rule as you point out.

Hi, Kathy: I think mammals do get trauma. Certainly I've come in contact with dogs and cats that have been traumatized and suffer the consequences (distrust, fear, anxiety). Zoo animals, circus animals. 

Even animals in the wild get traumatized and live difficult lives. Hyenas and baboons come to mind. At least, in hyenas, the alpha female and all the other females in the group are higher in rank than the alpha male (sorry....couldn't resist!). Even chickens (pity the bird on the lower end of the pecking order!). 

What do you think? Am I missing something? 

Hello Tina

Thank you for warning: "Don't Try This at Home" by yourself; get supervision (title of my book you mentioned).  Folks: Tina is a highly-trained professional plus she's been confronting deep trauma within for many years.  BUT most people like me do NOT have her training or toughness.  Yes let's warn everyone: do this kind of deep deep healing under professional supervision if possible.

Please see my writeup of how I did healing body work -- it emphasizes  "do it with an attachment therapist -- at http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/featured-topics/healing-body-work/ 

Dr. Peter Levine in "Healing Trauma," his older book with CD which I used to heal, does say that if you can't find a professional, try it with a friend present. We are MAMMALs, we need another mammal present to feel safe to do this stuff.  My writeup above explains more.

My writeup also has Levine's video of the polar bear shaking and trembling. And again, just like Tina: that was exactly what happened to me.

When I feel deep infant grief, it still happens pretty much every day in short bursts. Then I feel better.

Tina writes :"I wasn't just thinking this poison was coming out of my body, but I was feeling it." 

AMEN, once we get into this "polar bear dance" as I call it, we are FEELING the tension being released from our body.  It's such a huge experience that our human thinking brain is the only mammal which fights it and refuses to feel it, which is why we humans get trauma, other mammals don't.
It's fantastic that BrainPaint can help our human brain allow this "polar bear dance" which Levine calls the trauma "re-set button." 

But the bigger the trauma -- the more overpowering is the polar bear release. So we need someone there!

I forgot to say that during the session my body was shaking like really shaking. It reminded me of some of Peter Levine's discussions and the video he has of the polar bear shaking. It was incredible. I wasn't just thinking this poison was coming out of my body but I was feeling it.  I was shaking worse than if I had been locked for several hours in a deep freezer..... 

It really was amazing....

Oh and it is okay to share, but I would like people to know.... It might not be good for everyone to do this alone, like the title of your book --- I have been working on this for decades --- and so I have an ability to tolerate this intense experience..... I kind of think, unless someone is willing to take chances.... and is pretty strong (I didn't know how strong I am) that person might get really shaken up. It would probably at least be good to have a standard therapist to discuss what is happening and to process those deeply brainstem based emotions.. or have a group of healing friends.... some type of support.... would be helpful

For me.... I might be doing better if I had a therapist too... but I have so little confidence in that.... and I am in a rural area where everyone knows everyone so I don't feel comfortable and especially with prior bad experiences with psychiatry I just am very reticent to that..... However, many considering this may really be helped but might want access to formal support. 

So I just wanted to add that...

Dear Tina,

 It is so moving what you are writing. It's incredible what developmental trauma does to injure our brains, and how that pain gets locked into our bodies -- and decades later, it's still there stuck in our bodies.

I am so sorry this is costing you such a huge emotional pain and effort to release all this pain.

Wow are you brave! I wish I could fly to Michigan just to give you a huge hug for being willing to go through all this to heal. 

I feel so grateful and relieved that you are getting these releasing results--even though it is costing you so much.  I just don't want to minimize how brave you are and how much suffering you're having to bear in order to get these results which I know from personal experience, unfortunately can only come by this route you are taking: being willing to walk through the pain.

Ouch, it hurts so much what you are doing.  Thank you for having the courage.

I also want to validate you for something where I experienced the same thing:

When I started doing the Peter Levine "body work," I had a similar experience where I could not stop sobbing during the session, or after, for hours on end.  Sometimes hours became days on end.
I also had first to get in touch with a huge amount of repressed anger. When our survival is threatened, the brain stem takes over and anger is its main language. If it didn't get angry, we'd die. So if we don't feel through our anger and experience it to release it, we often can't get at other emotions buried under it.

After I felt a vast fury at my mother for trying to kill me -- one day suddenly I was sobbing "I love my mommy" and as with you, suddenly my anger was replaced by a huge sea of grief and loss for all the love lost in my childhood, avoidant marriage, etc.
Please know I am with you in this.

Kathy

PS:  I hope you don't mind but to help others out, I'm posting here the answers you sent me via email to questions about the cost of BrainPaint, because a lot of people would like to know:

-------------------------------------------

Dr. Tina Marie Hahn wrote:

There is another home system I found but it did not allow us to use different protocols for changes to be made to specifically treat the fear-driven Amygdala. So I chose BrainPaint which did. I also chose it after reading three books on neurofeedback.

BrainPaint is not cheap but mental health and well-being? Priceless. The BrainPaint set I got has a minimum two months rental at $675 per month for shipping and a deposit; I initially paid $1,875. The deposit comes back when you send the rental back. The make and model I got is a desktop; it’s the file VideoBrainPaint-All-2012-4-28.mp4 on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?...h-OU&app=desktop

Thank You for the update, Tina. Glad to hear the neurofeedback machine is helping. Best to you and the pups.

Okay, 

I haven't responded here in a while so I think it is time. It has been about three weeks since I have had my home neurofeedback machine. Tomorrow will be the 21st day that I have had this.  I want to respond as a user/patient (NOT as a doctor).  

I had been doing about 1.5 - 2 hrs of neurofeedback a day. I think that is a little much for me as a beginner.  I gave myself a brake for the last two days. However, after my second alpha - theta training (April 19th).... I am embarrassed to say (due to shame based childhood programming) that I could not stop sobbing during the session or after for 4 hours straight. It was cathartic.  I wasn't re-traumatized and I let go of a lot of stuff. I saw that my mother did the best that she could. I could see myself letting go of the residual anger and it was replaced with the this tremendous well of grief and loss. I realized that I was full of so much (and probably still am)  grief over what could have been and how my life might have been different if this had not happened to me --- how my mother's life would have been different if she had been able to feel love from her children instead of being so stressed or whatever the cause was that she allowed the most horrific things to happen to her kids.  I thought about how my brother wouldn't be psychotic if he hadn't been hurt so much.... How he could know happiness instead of his constant fear.....

That is all I want to say for now except I think this is a powerful tool.....

I need a good chair and most of you will have a good chair. I have folding chairs they don't work no matter how resourceful you are..

anyway i did an alpha theta session today and it was wierd

so here it is

I am stuck inside an ostrich shell.  I am really stuck. I am little but grown.  I am pushing on the shell.  It doesn't move and all around me is space .... lots of space.. me in a shell... then I flash into the basement.... it is dark but there is a window a small window that is in the basement and I look outside trying to see the outside where it is light and bright and trees and leaves and I am stuck... I don't fight I just flash back into the egg shell, I try to mix myself poor with the richest and it doesn't work, then poor with the earth worms and it doesn't work.... I  have tears coming from my eyes as I see how alone I am and have always been.. then i think I cannot push this open... I will try to melt it away into infinity ..the infinity of equanimity ..... then it was done.... 

First session..

Before tomorrows, I will have a decent chair...

Wow Tina that is terrific!  I'm so glad you're getting better sleep.

I want that too, Makes me want to quit my other tools I’m doing but…

oh well, I don’t want to jump all over the place…

I posted everything you said on my site, too: http://attachmentdisorderhealing.com/resources/tools/

Keep letting us know what's happening, this is sooooo  cool to get your reports!

Hugs

Kathy

Yes Kathy, 

It is Brain Paint. There is another home system I found but that system did not allow one to use different protocols that would allow for changes to be made to specifically treat the fear driven Amygdala.  I did get the system because I live too far away from a provider after reading three books on neurofeedback.  It will likely be a lot cheeper than going for sessions also and you can pay extra for help if you need it but you do get 45 minutes of assistance by phone along the way every month you rent the system.  It is really very easy to set up and use.  I will be texting or calling my "assistant" Friday as I will probably be ready to start some more specific protocols then.  I was first sent a video showing me how to set up the system and then yesterday before the first session had an 1.5 hr tutorial.  It was really good and as good as anything you could get in the office.  I then did a couple more sessions throughout the day yesterday. I slept the best I have in months.  

And please post on your blog. I will keep this updated as I go. Thanks a Bunch!!!!

Hi Tina,

This sounds so promising, I'm excited for you.

Could you just clarify: This is using BrainPaint, right?  And you bought their home system because you live too far from a provider?

Sure, go ahead and post all your responses and observations here, I bet it will help a lot of people if you go ahead and tell it as it happens.

And can I put it also under my blog where it originally appeared on my website, to help my readers?
Kathy