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May 2, 1013.  I am in effect writing what feels like a guest post on my own blog this morning.  My dear friend and fellow sojourner on the road of search for the truth about what surviving severe early trauma actually does to change our experience of our life, Sandy Mitchell, sent me an email this morning that includes reference to one of the fantastic trauma recovery sites he has just discovered online.

Sandy is a master lay scholar!  I am extremely grateful to him for providing this source of information which I consider valuable enough to present here in this post.  Please take a look!

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“Because the stress response disrupts  general information processing, survivors of trauma live in a somatic world  rather than a world of language.”— McFarlane

I am not sure who McFarlane is (at this point) but Sandy also sent me this quote.  I agree with the truth of these words absolutely!

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Very clear information about what trauma does to us is presented on Dr. Janina Fisher’s website.  She is a psychotherapist, consultant and trainer (expert) in the field of trauma.

At this link you will be able to click through a series of 4 of the 22 images that Dr. Fisher has created in a flip-chart format about trauma consequences to humans (makes sense we must buy the rest to view them):

“A Psychoeducational flip chart with 22 diagrams and charts summarizing the most current research and theoretical concepts in trauma treatment in simple graphic designs. The use of these simple diagrams increases the ability of the client to understand the nature of the symptoms and the treatment. Clients feel a sense of relief as their puzzling and disturbing reactions begin to make sense,* and therapists find the flip chart a road in to helping the change process begin. Topics covered: common symptoms and difficulties related to experiences of trauma, effects on the nervous system and brain, traumatic attachment, addictions and trauma, dissociative phenomena, and stages of treatment.“

TRAUMA FLIP CHART HERE – sample of 4

The information about how to order this flip chart with reasonable cost with choice of sizes is AT THIS LINK.  This page includes this information:

Psychoeducational supports for trauma treatment

Available in two convenient sizes:

A small size: 10X13. $45 (plus shipping and handling).

A large size: 17X22. $80 (plus shipping and handling).

Download an order form to see shipping charges.

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This is exactly the kind of information that I believe all in the ‘helping’ profession have to have in their own minds as they need to be prepared to offer this information to all clients!  The knowledge presented through the work of Dr. Fisher is most empowering to trauma survivors!  It takes the primitive guesswork out of all attempts to “figure out” how we are changed by early trauma and therefore different from ordinary people in many, many significant ways that we need to understand.

Please take a look!

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Dr. Fisher says on her TRAUMA MODEL TREATMENT page:

“We don’t survive trauma as a result of conscious decision-making. At the moment of life threat, humans automatically rely upon survival instincts. Our five senses pick up the signs of imminent danger, causing the brain to “turn on” the adrenaline stress response system. As we prepare to fight or flee, heart rate and respiration speed oxygen to muscle tissue, and the “thinking brain,” our frontal cortex, is inhibited to increase response time. We are in “survival mode,” in our “animal brains.” Later, we may pay a price for these instinctive responses: we have ‘made it’ without bearing witness to our own experience.”

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I am actively involved in the “bearing witness” to my own experience stage as I work through my book writing (my official self-assigned break is over tomorrow).  Looking out over the vast sea of those who survived severe abuse, neglect and related unsafe and insecure attachment trauma during their earliest most formative stages of life I would be there are so few who can access the kind of therapy that Dr. Fisher offers that they could hardly be seen.

Yet I am highly respectful of and appreciative to the work offered on this site because it offers those of us who cannot access therapy at least a beginning place to reframe how we see ourselves in our life.  Those who do attend therapy can recommend this site and make dang sure their therapist is open to learning this info (if they don’t already know it).  I would seriously question the effectiveness of any therapist who does NOT know these facts presented on this site.

We ultimately are the experts about our own body.  Resources like this one give us the language we need to understand what we already know!

Thank you yet again Sandy for your brilliant research abilities!!

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Related info:

+BELOW THE SURFACE – THE CONNECTION BETWEEN SEVERE EARLY CHILD ABUSE, EAGLES AND BUZZARDS

+A COLLECTION OF LINKS ON BODY-BRAIN CHANGES CAUSED BY EARLY INFANT-CHILD ABUSE

+THOUGHT SALAD: HAVING ‘THIS’ TO SAY ABOUT ‘THAT’

Please click here to read or to Leave a Comment »

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