Trauma Full Day - SWEET INSTITUTE - Continuing Education for Mental Health Professionals

Trauma: Are We Being Attacked?

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 14:00:00 +0000

Do you feel like you are being attacked when you see someone who looks like the person from the past who you reacted to as being dangerous, threatening, or deadly? Do you feel attacked when you are in a situation that reminds you of such a thing? Do you feel attacked when you hear a certain sound, or a certain word, or a certain color? [1] By now it may be obvious to you that the certain sound, color, or place is totally neutral; it has nothing whatsoever to do with how you are reacting to it, with what you are identifying it with, or with what meaning you are assigning to it. By now, it may be obvious to you that that thing that triggers you, that puts you on an alert, and that makes you ready to run away, or fight, or freeze [2], has nothing whatsoever to do with any of these reactions of yours. If you perceive the glass as half empty, the above may be really “bad” news for you. Yet, if you perceive the glass as half full, the above can be one of the most empowering insights you can be reminded of. But, whether you perceive the glass as half empty or half full has nothing whatsoever to do with glass, it also has nothing to do with how much water the glass has. It has everything to do with how you perceive the glass at any given time. This then helps us realize that when we perceive that we are being attacked, not only are we not being attacked, but our perception of being attacked has nothing to do with the person we think is attacking us, or with the situation, circumstance, time or space. This level of awareness may sound so radical that it may be a hard pill to swallow. Yet, it becomes rather simple once we have reviewed and fully understood the following Truths: Nothing we perceive has any meaning whatsoever. This includes anyone that we may perceive, any gesture that anyone may be making, any sound, any color, any place, situation, or circumstance. Note this is not a belief, rather the Reality about the world. And, if we resolve to truly live in the Truth, the Truth will surely set us free We and only we are assigning and can assign our meaning to anything that we perceive We assign meaning through the use of our attitude and belief, which takes place in the form of thought When we feel anything is being done to us, we are actually doing it to ourselves through our thoughts Truth # 4 may sound like we are to blame for anything and everything that happens to us. But if we do that, we will be attacking ourselves, and reinforcing our feeling of being attacked by others. The way it works is that we attack ourselves, unknowingly. Our protective personality helps us deal with that by projecting all these attacks unto the world. These attacks then are perceived as someone in the outside attacking us. And this makes it more tolerable for us, and our protective personality. It is much more bearable to us to know that we are being attacked or persecuted by others, by the outside, or by a specific group, then to come to the conscious understanding we and only are attacking ourselves, and we have been doing it to ourselves all along. This explains why many who have been traumatized are more likely to be retraumatized compared to the general population. This also explains why many of those who have been involved in accidents are more likely to be involved again and again in subsequent accidents compared to the general population. [3] All this takes place because this is an inside-out world. There is no world without us. There is no event without us. And we activate any event through our thought and our thought alone. The next time we feel we are being attacked, instead of turning to the outside stimulus, which is simply bearing witness to our inner world, let us turn inside, to our inner world, where it all started, where it all happens, and let us choose a different thought, and this is how we will be able to put an end to the cycle of flashbacks, hypervigilance, and intrusive thoughts in trauma and trauma reactivity [4]. Are you a clinician who would like to truly help your patients put an end to their cycle of trauma reactivity, if so, please join us on Friday, April 9th for our 6 CEU full-day webinar on trauma. Click here to register and See you then, Karen and Mardoche [1] Bhandari, Smitha. “What Are PTSD Triggers?” WebMD, WebMD, 11 Sept. 2001, www.webmd.com/mental-health/what-are-ptsd-triggers. [2] Nunez, Kirsten. Fight, Flight, or Freeze: How We Respond to Threats. www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/fight-flight-freeze. [3] Robinson, Lawrence. “Emotional and Psychological Trauma.” HelpGuide.org, www.helpguide.org/articles/ptsd-trauma/coping-with-emotional-and-psychological-trauma.htm. [4] Badour, Christal L, and Matthew T Feldner. “Trauma-related reactivity and regulation of emotion: associations with posttraumatic stress symptoms.” Journal of behavior therapy and experimental psychiatry vol. 44,1 (2013): 69-76. doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2012.07.007

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3 Steps to Escape from Trauma

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Mon, 05 Apr 2021 15:36:06 +0000

In our previous article, entitled, How to Escape from Trauma, we explained that we can escape from trauma because the cause of the trauma was never the event, or the situation, or the circumstance, rather, our own thought. We added that since the cause of trauma is the thought, the solution is at the level of our thought, and it consists of giving up our attack thoughts related to the event, situation, or circumstance. In this article, we are going to learn the steps to do that. Step 1: identify the cause, or rather, identifying all of our attack thoughts [1]. We do this through the use of an Attack Thought Log. An Attack Thought Log consists of a list of attack thoughts in every single aspect and area of our life. The effectiveness of this step depends on how well it is done. Let us follow the following sub-steps. Preview in new tab Brainstorm on as many attack thoughts as possible that you may have. Write them down using the process of free association. Do so uncensured, without consciously thinking, without judging, criticizing, and without letting any unwelcome feelings deter you. Experience the feelings, but keep going. This may be an is done along with a therapist or coach. Without reviewing the sub-steps above, repeat them, but this time, focus only on attack thoughts you have towards or about yourself Repeat sub-steps 1-3, separately for each of the following individuals: 1. Your current spouse or romantic partner (if applicable); 2. Your mother (whether dead or alive); 3. Your father (whether dead or alive); 4. Any authority figure who served as a caregiver to you, growing up (whether dead or alive); 5. Any authority other than your caregiver, figure who had a major influence on you growing up (dead or alive); 6. Each one of your siblings (if applicable, and whether dead or alive); 7. Each and every one of your children (if applicable, and whether dead or alive); 8. Your current boss and any past boss of yours; 9. Friends (past or present); 10. Co-workers (past or present). Repeat these sub-steps for each of the following categories: 1. Your neighbors; 2. People in general; 3. Strangers in particular; 3. The world; 4. Life [2] Repeat these sub-steps for any category that has not been captured. If done well, this first step will be one of the most revealing exercises, and is guaranteed to raise our level of consciousness. It may also be cathartic and therapeutic. Let us briefly mention the next two steps. Step 2: Letting go of our attack thoughts. Identifying them alone will help start the process of letting go. But letting go [3] requires the mastery of some key components and we will be addressing them during our Full-Day webinar on Trauma Step 3: Replace them: Once we identify our attack thoughts, then let go of them, we ought to replace them. This third step takes place when the first two steps are done well. This means, we have to spend as much time as possible in doing Step 1 and doing it well. Are you a clinician who would like to master these skills and gift them to your patients so they too can escape from trauma and cease suffering? If so, please join us on Friday, April 9th for our 6 CEU full-day webinar on trauma. Click here to register and… See you then,Karen and Mardoche [1] DiPirro, Dani. “Thought Attacks: What They Are + How to Defend Yourself.” Positively Present, www.positivelypresent.com/2013/09/thought-attacks.html#:~:text=If%20you’ve%20ever%20faced,before%20it%20had%20even%20happened!&text=As%20real%20as%20our%20thoughts,don’t%20know%20for%20sure. [2] Dewhirst, Natasha. “The 7 Categories of Life and How to Succeed in Each.” 29 Apr. 2020, natashacarltondewhirst.com/2020/02/14/the-7-categories-of-life-and-how-to-succeed-in-each/. [3] Fulmore, Adam. “4 Steps to Let Go of Stress, Negativity, and Emotional Pain.” Tiny Buddha, 22 July 2016, tinybuddha.com/blog/steps-let-go-stress-negativity-emotional-pain/.

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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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Trauma and Consciousness

Mardoche Sidor, MD and Karen Dubin, PhD, LCSW — Wed, 09 Dec 2020 15:00:00 +0000

As you can see, while you do have to do a thorough screening to uncover Shame in your patients with trauma, once uncovered, it is not so easy to deal with.

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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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