Courtney Armstrong – New Rules for Treating Trauma: Integrating Neuroscience for Resilience, Connection and Post-Traumatic Growth

Outline

The Emotional Brain: A User-Friendly Guide

• Simple ways to understand the brain
• A healthy emotional brain & how it develops
• 7 primary emotional systems
• How trauma and disrupted attachment alter the brain
• 3 neuroscience breakthroughs that change how we treat trauma
• Resilience, connection and post-traumatic growth

The 3-Phase Model of Trauma- Informed Treatment
Interventions for Assessment, Safety and Stabilization

• 5 simple questions to assess for PTSD
• Beyond words: build trust and safety with right brain to right brain communication
• Help clients understand trauma responses
• Calm fear with mindfulness and imagery techniques
• Deal with dissociation: practical tools for grounding and orienting
• Shift shame and nurture self-compassion
• Defuse anger with play and humor
• Empower with movement and metaphor

Reprocessing Traumatic Memories: A Less Painful Approach

• Revise not relive: why exposure can retraumatize
• Memory reconsolidation: a mechanism for healing trauma
• 5 simple steps for reconsolidating a traumatic memory
• Create the future-self template and the brain’s blueprint for healing
• Neutralize negative beliefs with resourceful emotional states
• Facilitate corrective emotional experiences with powerful imagery, metaphor, music and movement techniques

Facilitating Post-Traumatic Growth

• The 3 qualities of post-traumatic growth
• Create a positive post-trauma identity
• Nurture a secure attachment system after trauma
• Find meaning and purpose after trauma
• Happiness and the power of intention

Applications for Special Populations

• Sexual trauma survivors
• Childhood abuse and neglect
• Traumatic grief after sudden or violent deaths
• Medical trauma, car accidents and disasters
• Military, police and first responders
• Children and adolescents after trauma
• Cultures and faith traditions
• Prevent burnout and vicarious trauma