Trauma - SWEET INSTITUTE - Continuing Education for Mental Health Professionals

How to Escape from Trauma

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 24 Mar 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Trauma is characterized by fear, and by terror. And the way out of fear is by giving up our attack thoughts. Other than that, nothing else will work. If this sounds absolute, it is because it is. For our response to trauma is thought. Our reexperiencing of trauma is also thought. And whatever we may try to do to escape from our trauma is always thought-based. Yet, we are using the actual cause of the problem to solve the problem, without addressing the actual cause. In other words, the cause of anything that takes place in trauma is “thought,” the solution to anything related to, or that takes place in trauma must be thought and thought alone. Everything else is meaningless. And whoever has any doubt on this can go ahead and continue to do whatever they’ve been doing for the past 10 years and see if there will ever be any result different from what they have gotten so far. It will not be any different until the real problem is addressed. And the real problem is in our thought [1]. Everything else is meaningless, regardless of how much meaning we’ve been assigning. The Reality is that every thought we generate makes up some segment of everything we perceive in ourselves, others, our surroundings, our life, and in the world [2]. Can you see how we cannot pretend to escape from trauma if we don’t give up our attack thoughts? It matters little how much people around us rearrange things to make us more comfortable and accommodated. It matters little how many techniques we have to deal with our intrusive thoughts, our nightmares, our flashbacks, or with our hypervigilance. It does not matter how good these techniques are. They only work short term, and partially, and we know that [3]. We have experienced that with our patients. Short-term relief to their symptoms of trauma. This is so because everything on the outside is merely the effect of our thoughts. This is so because everything we experience in our life is the result of our thoughts. Now, if this piece of insight makes anyone of us lament, we ought to understand that this again would be our thought in the making. When we pay attention to what’s going on around us, to our surroundings, our triggers, our circumstances or our situation, we are also paying attention to ourselves; the maker of all these images we are see in the world. It is all Projection. Things do not come from the outside-in, rather, they go from the inside-out. Things originate in our thoughts, and while we may have spent all our life believing the contrary, it is now time for us to make the shift. If we are truly want to escape from “trauma,” we do this by giving up our attack thoughts. End of story. When we are ready to give up our attack thoughts, we first do so by putting an end to judging or criticizing ourselves, others, situations, or the world. We give up our attack thoughts by putting an end to hating or condemning ourselves, others, situations, or the world. We give up our attack thoughts by putting an end to resenting ourselves, others, circumstances, or the world. We are not trapped in our “trauma.” The cause of our “trauma” was never in any event, situation, or circumstance, to start with. The cause has always been our own thought before the event, during the event and after the event. And the cause can be changed, and we can learn how to do this. If you are a clinician would like to learn how to best help your patients escape from trauma, then join us on Friday, April 9th, for our 6 CEU full-day webinar on Trauma. Click here to register, and We will see you then,Karen and Mardoche [1] Eva Keiffenheim, MSc. “To Transform Your Life, Start Changing Your Thoughts.” Medium, Change Your Mind Change Your Life, 24 May 2020, medium.com/change-your-mind/to-transform-your-life-start-changing-your-thoughts-fc0efc423b69. [2] Morin, Amy. “This Is How Your Thoughts Become Your Reality.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 15 June 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2016/06/15/this-is-how-your-thoughts-become-your-reality/?sh=420c561528a0. [3]Foa, Edna B et al. “Challenges and Successes in Dissemination of Evidence-Based Treatments for Posttraumatic Stress: Lessons Learned From Prolonged Exposure Therapy for PTSD.” Psychological science in the public interest : a journal of the American Psychological Society vol. 14,2 (2013): 65-111. doi:10.1177/1529100612468841

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Trauma and Education

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 17 Mar 2021 14:00:00 +0000

It is not the trauma. It is not the traumatic event. It is not what happened. This may sound cruel and insensitive, especially given the collectively held belief that suggests that it is, but we know that this belief has been detrimental in our lives. If nothing that takes place in our life is a result outside our thoughts, and if noting that we experience is outside the effects of our thoughts, then how we respond to whatever takes place in our life cannot be the result of what happens in our life, rather, the result of our thoughts. [1] If we think about it, there is nothing more empowering, transformative, freeing, and more liberating than this single piece of insight and awareness. If you think about this, this piece of insight cuts through all the clutter and goes straight to the heart of the matter. Most people do not really know what arouses their anger, their fear, or their impulsive behaviors. Most people only try to make sense of them and often associate their emotions with something salient in their brain – a past “trauma,” a past “traumatic event,” a situation, or circumstance [2]. Yet this is because the essence of what really is, of how things really work, of who we really are, and of what it means to be a human being, lies outside of our awareness. We spend decades in school, either in formal college, university, or in trade school, then get a job, earn money, raise a family, accumulate things, retire and die. As a society, we have agreed that this is how things work, and we have all been working hard to maintain this way of being. However, this has been detrimental to most of us. For we have not truly been educated. We have not learned how to think, and the decades we spend in school are spent accumulating information, almost all of which has been part of our collective programming [3]. This has had a profound effect on: How we think about health, including physical and mental health How we understand life Our understanding of who we are What it means to be a human being What we think truly matters How Life truly works Our relationship with others and the rest of the world How all this has been playing out with our patients is that we have been supporting the belief that what happened to them in the past is the single most significant determinant of the rest of their life. In doing so, we have stripped them of their nature as human beings. We have made them believe that they are weak; that life is against them; that they are the victims of outside circumstances; and they’ll have to spend the rest of their life, “working out” something that happened to them 40 years ago, or when they were 10 years old, or 3 years old. We have given them a death sentence when we think we are helping them. Of course, because this has been part of the collective belief, it sounds “normal.” In fact, the opposite has been regarded as “abnormal.” In other words, we have been led to believe that it is abnormal to face a situation, and respond to it in a way that helps us grow. The concept of growth mindset is foreign to us when working with this patient population. Instead, we adopt a fixed mindset, and, as a result, they have come to understand that what is going on right now with them, their anger, their emotions, their intrusive thoughts, are because of a “traumatic event,” and this it will be for the rest of their life. We teach them to manage their symptoms rather than to live their lives fully and completely. Today, we are raising the bar, we are taking a stand to help cease suffering throughout the world, and it all starts with raising the awareness. It all starts with making sure that all of us clinicians and all patients we serve, know the following: Our perception of a situation and not the situation itself, determines the feelings and behaviors that follow, as it is well explained in CBT We are never upset for the reason we think we are Feelings come from our associated thoughts and not from “things,” people, events, situations, or circumstances The way we respond to anything has nothing to do with how “bad,” or how “good” such a thing is; rather, on the meaning we assign to such a thing Every thing, everyone, every situation, event, or circumstance is neutral, and we and only we, g assign meaning to it Once we change the meaning we assign to anything, we change how we focus on it, which changes our associated thoughts and therefore, our feelings The type of meaning we assign to things is determined by how we are perceiving them, which, is determined by our overall attitude and beliefs, which, in turn, are decided upon by our level of consciousness. What is needed then is to raise our level of consciousness, and help our patients do the same. Then and only then can we see a decrease in suffering in our current patient population affected by “trauma.” Would you like to learn how to best do so? Then join us on Friday, April 9th for our 6 CEU Full Day Webinar on Trauma. Click here to register, and We look forward to seeing youKaren and Mardoche [1] Morin, Amy. “This Is How Your Thoughts Become Your Reality.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 15 June 2016, www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2016/06/15/this-is-how-your-thoughts-become-your-reality/?sh=420c561528a0. [2] Harms, L., Talbot, M. The Aftermath of Road Trauma: Survivors’ Perceptions of Trauma and Growth, Health & Social Work, Volume 32, Issue 2, May 2007, Pages 129–137, https://doi.org/10.1093/hsw/32.2.129 [3] Hough, Lory. “What’s Worth Learning in School?” Harvard Graduate School of Education, www.gse.harvard.edu/news/ed/15/01/whats-worth-learning-school.

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The Formula to Understand and Treat Trauma

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 02 Dec 2020 15:00:00 +0000

It should be evident that those who are more likely to become overwhelmed by an event or a circumstance and respond with intense fear, terror, and helplessness, are more likely to have shown beliefs about themselves that are not serving them.

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What it takes to heal from Trauma

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 25 Nov 2020 15:00:00 +0000

In trauma, the question is, however traumatic an event may be, why are some people affected while others are not, even after accounting for genetics and environment? The answer lies in something simple: The nature of who we are. But, not simpler: The nature of who we are is counterintuitive to how we’ve been socialized.

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Trauma: Misunderstandings and Mistreatment

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 15:00:00 +0000

There are so many individuals suffering from the effects of trauma. Yet, no matter how much we know about trauma, very little of the latest scientific advances have been implemented in clinical care.

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New Strategies for Managing Patients and Clients with Traumatic Brain Injury: 5 Things to Know

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 11:00:00 +0000

“Challenging” is a term we use loosely, one that may have different meanings based on comfort level and the level of experience and training. However, there is a particular patient subgroup population, so “unpredictable,” so “labile,” and so “aggressive” one minute, then so “kind and nice” the next. This subgroup describes individuals affected by Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

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