death, or the fact of being dead the accidental or inadvertent losing of something dropped, misplaced, stolen, etc.
Trauma an experience that produces psychological injury or pain.
Attachment an emotional bond between an infant or toddler and primary caregiver, a strong bond being vital for the childs normal behavioral and social development.
Brain StemRegulates breathing, heart rate, etc. Most basic functions to maintain life. Forms very early in utero.
AmygdalaEmotion Center; Fight, Flight, or Freeze. Where we feel fear or pleasure. Present in utero and at birth.
HippocampusShort-term memory. Helps regulate the Amygdala. Develops by age 5.
Orbitofrontal CortexSocial/Emotional Control Center. Works w/ Hippocampus to regulate Amygdala. Develops by age 25.
Why Is Attachment Important? Our ability to regulate our own emotions is dependent on our first experiences with co-regulation.
Our behaviors are tied to our emotions. We behave to soothe negative emotions or increase positive emotions.
Emotional regulation is a skill we must have in order to behave in positive and pro-social ways.
The brain will either become strong with ability to hold soothing memories, or it will be deficient to manage necessary life tasks.
All of these milestones are important and when successfully navigated, we feel belonging and are more emotionally healthy.
Since all of us have had some level of difficulty, there is some level of trauma in all of us.
Attachment helps grow our brains ability to handle loss.
3 Ways Our Emotional Regulation System Becomes Damaged We can have struggles because we never built a proper brain structure for co and self emotional regulation, due to traumatic care.
We can have genetic predispositions towards conditions like anxiety, depression, etc.
We can suffer later insults to the previously intact emotional regulation system due to loss and the resulting crippling grief.
We see the need for more than just Cognitive approaches, since we are dealing with internal states that are deeply dependent on lower brain structures.
Sympathetic system activated: Acceleration of autonomic nervous system response increased heart rate and blood pressure, increased blood flow to large muscles, etc.
Lessons from Poly-Vagal Theory According to Poly-vagal theory: trauma, loss, or other stressful events can really mess with our autonomic states, and therefore our behaviors follow in response to try and modulate those autonomic states.
Our digestive system along with other internal organs are also affected by our stress.
People who have suffered trauma or who never really developed a healthy emotional regulation system have a more difficult time regulating with the ventral vagal nerve, and may swing back and forth from Hyper Arousal or Hypo Arousal or may get stuck on either side.
Staying in the window of tolerance is adaptive and helpful for our emotional and physical health.
The idea is to help a person stay in the window of tolerance through connectedness, relationship, soothing and they will be optimally repairing the grief from the losses they experience.
The Effects of Traumatic Losses The earlier the traumatic loss the more profound the effects may be.
Major losses, even if it is a loss of trust in a safe world, can be seen as disruptions in the development of a healthy brains ability to regulate the emotions.
When others do try and help it may not be as easily recognized as helpful.
The Effects of Traumatic Losses Losses can happen at any stage in our lives. We are deeply affected by the loss of what we once organized our ability to regulate our emotions on.
Think about how a person has to readjust at the loss of a parent. Without a healthy functioning emotional regulation system there is more reliance throughout the life span on substances or other instant gratification means.
Applications for Treatment Effective treatment for losses should focus on the very same pattern that helped us feel safe and soothed from the beginning: Our attachment relationships.
We can not ignore the underlying losses that clients are experiencing.
A Substitute for Attachment? Is it any wonder that one of the highest risk times for substance abuse is with the loss or feared loss of close interpersonal relationships?
With so much hurt on the line, should we even form attachments? If we never do, we never form the true capacity for emotional regulation and are forced to regulate from substance to substance or from instant gratification to instant gratification.
Ever searching and never feeling true satisfaction.
One possible explanation could be that women seem to have stronger social networks.
We cannot change anything unless we first accept it. Condemnation doesnt liberate, it oppresses.
Finding ourselves takes time. It is hard work and it is worth doing.