What Is Trauma Therapy Like? Part 2: How Neurobiology Informs Trauma Therapy

Therapy and the Brain It seems ironic that after Freud, as a neurologist, abandoned his studies on brain functioning to replace them with the studies of the unconscious — and that he actually abandoned his studies on traumatization — the trauma therapy world is arriving to a point comparable to the point where he started: the understanding of the brain as the basis of understanding the mind. Trauma therapy is leveraging neuroscience because having an understanding of how traumatization affects the brain helps to not only dismantle common misconceptions and to stop victim-blaming statements, but it also explains many of the common behaviors and experiences of survivors experiencing either excessively stressful events, or prolonged intensely dysregulating circumstances. After a focus on treating the brain with drugs (medication), and the mind with words (talk therapy), today neuroscientists have broadened the scope by studying the molecular, cellular, developmental, structural, functional, evolutionary, computational, psychosocial and medical aspects of the nervous system.  These advances are finally finding solutions in the same ways that the father of psychology was trying to find them almost a hundred years ago. Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920), a physician, physiologist, and philosopher, started his interest in human behavior as an assistant of Hermann Helmholtz, one of the principal founders of experimental physiology, when psychology was part of philosophy and biolo...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Neuroscience PTSD Trauma Treatment Autonomic Nervous System complex post-traumatic stress disorder Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Trauma Informed Care Traumatic Memories traumatization Source Type: news