+PORGES’ IMPORTANT NEW BOOK TO HELP INFANT-CHILD ABUSE SURVIVORS

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I have absolute confidence that this new book authored by Dr. Stephen W. Porges that is nearing its release will be of the greatest help to survivors of severe early infant-child abuse and trauma:

The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation

This title is available for pre-order at Amazon.com by clicking on this title, and at a very reasonable price!

Product Description

A collection of groundbreaking research by a leading figure in neuroscience. This book compiles, for the first time, Stephen W. Porges’s decades of research. The world’s leading expert on the autonomic nervous system, Porges is the mind behind the groundbreaking Polyvagal Theory, which has startling implications for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and autism.

About the Author

Stephen W. Porges, PhD, is a professor of psychiatry and the director of the Brain-Body Center at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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I encountered reference to Porges’ work on the polyvagal theory several years ago, and as patience would have it – here comes HIS BOOK!

I posted this reference a week ago to his Australian seminar to be held November 2, 2011:

Polyvagal theory, oxytocin and the neurobiology of love and attachment:  A two day seminar with Stephen Porges and Sue Carter

The objective of this workshop is to describe current research and theory in behavioural neuroscience that can be translated into demystifying the features of many emotional, psychological and behavioural problems faced by children, young people and adults. It will provide invaluable insights into breaking maladaptive cycles to enable clients to experience states of calmness and to feel safe with other people.

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I fully believe that Porges’ book will do exactly this:  “…provide invaluable insights into breaking maladaptive cycles to enable clients to experience states of calmness and to feel safe with other people.

In this short sentence I found a great resonance with what my body knows:  I DO NOT feel safe with other people!

What does Porges’ work have to teach me about this consequence that was built into my body from birth at the same time that GREAT harm and danger ‘from other people’ so traumatized me?

I am most curious to find out!

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+TRUE HEALING POSSIBLE – MY #1 CHOICE FOR TREATMENT

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I have nothing but good to say about the information contained in this post and the article referenced here.  This is the most comprehensive, practical and hopeful information I have found on healing yet.  This would be my NUMBER ONE pick as a healing technique for infant-child abuse survivors.  Please spend some time looking this over – I have also ordered this book:

The Oxytocin Factor: Tapping the Hormone of Calm, Love, and Healing

BY: Kerstin Uvnas Moberg

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WEBSITE:  The Rosen Institute

Rosen Method Bodywork and Movement

What is Rosen Method Bodywork?

What is Rosen Method Movement?

Benefits of Rosen Method
Bodywork & Movement

It appears that accessing this therapy is difficult but not impossible within the United States  —  it looks to me to be the real thing.  Can demand help stimulate increasing supply even though there are not the billions to be made off of REAL therapy that addresses our REAL problems and can REALLY help us to REALLY heal — like there are to be made within the psychopharmacalogical industry of pills, pills, pills and more pills and drugs, drugs, drugs and more drugs?

I haven’t personally tried this therapy — but I sure would if I could or will if I can!!

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Resonance, Regulation and Revision:  Rosen Method Meets the Growing Edge of Neurological Research

BY:  Dorothea Hrossowyc

Rosen Method Bodywork Practitioner

Introductory Workshop Teacher and Bodywork Teacher in Training

Northfield, MN

hrossowyc@gmail.com

Published in Rosen Method International Journal (RMIJ), 2(2), 2009

ABSTRACT

This article presents some of the recent research from the burgeoning field of neuroscience that supports what we do in Rosen Method Bodywork. Current neuroscience is confirming that deep listening, presence, and limbic resonance are powerful healing tools as they provide regulation and revision for human beings. The healing cascade of the human connection system, stimulated by the hormone oxytocin, regulates and revises our neurological health and our physiological functioning, modulating emotions, hormonal status, immune function, stability, and likely our fresh, creative thinking. Epigenetics, which says genes are not destiny, and brain plasticity, the ability of the brain to grow and change, may also be affected by Rosen Method touch. Turning off the fight/flight adrenaline system in the body and turning on this powerful physiological system of relationship, caring, and trust has far reaching implications for our physical and mental health and for our evolution as a species.

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(Article here for educational purposes only)

“A recent program on public television titled “The New Medicine” stirred coverage in news media for suggesting putting “the care back into medical care,” and for suggesting that the relationship between a caregiver and a client is an extremely important factor in healing.   In Rosen Method, we have long understood the term resonance, the ability humans have to sense deeply the feeling state of another in relationship.  In Touching the Body, Healing the Soul, Rosen Method Senior Teacher, Sandra Wooten, long ago referred to affective resonance in psychotherapy, as the matching that takes place on an emotional level between a client and a listener.   But she states further, “In the physical, somatic realm of touch, I have coined the term, somatic resonance to define the matching that takes place with gentle, therapeutic (Rosen Method) touch between the client and the practitioner, allowing enhanced inward attention and perception for both” (Wooten, 1995, p 24.   In Rosen Method, we know that when we touch someone sensitively and inquisitively, we can often sense the emotional state in the other, that two people, even strangers, can be attuned to the inner state of each other through deep listening, and that this, in itself, is a powerful healing tool.

“The idea of “limbic resonance” is getting a lot of attention currently by scientists like Thomas Lewis and Stephen Porges, and in such body psychotherapies as Hakomi Experiential Psychotherapy, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing and others.   It seems this is something that human beings have always known how to do, and now we are remembering its importance.  Though scientific confirmation has not been necessary to know the benefits of Rosen practice, I find it exciting that now neuroscience is confirming what we have long known or believed.  Knowledge of the basic findings of neuroscience may also contribute in the long- run to Rosen practice.

Limbic Resonance

“Thomas Lewis tells us that contact and connection, or physical and emotional closeness and connection, actually affect the physiology of human beings in regulatory ways (Lewis et al., 2000).  Neurological research in animals and in human beings shows that humans are wired for connection, i.e. we have neural circuits that foster interpersonal connection.   According to Lewis, many of these circuits are located in the limbic system, the feeling part of the brain.   The neocortex has a large part of the thinking, cognitive functions of the brain where abstraction, learning, and voluntary behavior reside.  The limbic system, which evolved in mammals, has to do with socialization, social communication, care of the young, bonding, relational attachment, and play, i.e. with caring, and emotionality.   From a young age, we need caring connections to promote healthy development of the limbic system.   From research with both monkeys and infants, Lewis tells us that we mammals need relatedness or connection for our “neurophysiology to coalesce correctly.”  We are designed this way, he says, for the “shaping physiologic force of love” (Lewis et al., 2000, p 218).

“A mother who is functioning well with her child is attuned in both a feeling sense and a physiological sense, what Lewis calls “limbic resonance,” sensing the child’s inner state and responding appropriately.   The mother’s contact with her infant affects the physiological state of the infant, and her physiology is affected as well by this contact, connection, and physical and emotional closeness.   The child knows this instinctively, and senses the physiological need for the mother in times of stress or pain.   Consider the ill child who wants to be held all the time, or the vigorous protest during times of separation.   Lewis says, “The first part of emotional healing is being limbically known, having someone with a keen ear sense your melodic essence” (Lewis et al., 2000, p 170).   In Rosen Method we might call this presence, being conscious and aware in the present moment, taking the whole of another in, listening deeply, attuning, sensing the feeling, sensing the essence, reflecting back.

“The idea of this mutual regulation via limbic resonance is supported by very interesting recent research by Michael Meaney, co-director of the Sackler Program for Epigenetics and Psychobiology at McGill University, who studied rats with varying levels of maternal licking and grooming (Meaney, 2001; Fish, Shahrokh, Bagot, Calji, Bredy, Szyf, & Meaney, 2004; Swan, 1997).   Rats with attentive mothers grow up with more receptors for neurotransmitters that inhibit the activity of the amygdala, and fewer for stress hormones like adrenalin and corticotropin releasing hormones.  The amygdala is the part of the limbic system that senses and conveys fear responses.

“Rats raised with high maternal contact, lots of licking and grooming, grow up with adequate but lower responses to stress hormonally and so are less fearful, more curious, and more exploratory.  Those with low physical contact grow up to have more receptors for stress hormones and are more timid, more withdrawing, and more fearful in novel situations. Low physical contact pups grow up to be low contact mothers (Fish et al., 2004).

“Meaney’s research further shows that in rats, low physical contact affects epigenetic changes.  Epigenetics is the idea, supported in some of the newest genetic research, that “DNA is Not Destiny” (Fish et al, 2004, Watters, 2006).  While the DNA sequence is not changed, epigenetics is the process by which environmental factors and chemical modification of inherited genes can affect whether a particular gene is expressed or not expressed, silenced or activated like an on/off switch for genetic expression.  Meaney tested the methylation of a gene important to the stress response.   Methylation is a chemical marker of an epigenetic process, i.e. the state of methylation is critical to gene activity and to whether the gene expresses.   He found distinct differences, after birth, in methylation patterns between pups with high licking mothers and low licking mothers.   Before birth there is normally no methylation, so the difference in genetic expression happens after birth according to low or high physical contact.   Equally interesting is that low contact pups showed reversal of the effects when they were placed later in life with high physical contact mothers, or into nurturing, playful, low stress “social” situations around healthier rats.   Physical contact as late as adolescence still changes the epigenetic processes, suggesting that the adverse effects of low physical contact are reversible by more physical contact later (Meaney, 2001; Fish et al., 2004; Swan, 1997).

“Meaney’s research suggests that genes responsible for controlling the stress hormonal response are epigenetically regulated by maternal care, in particular, the physical contact of licking and grooming.   This means that the way the genetic material is expressed is affected, and that these epigenetic changes can be altered later. I suggest that this is what Lewis calls “revision”, revising the physiology through contact and connection (Lewis et al., 2000).

“What if physical contact and touch actually reverses the effects of stress responses that occurred in human infancy and childhood as well as in rats?  Lewis suggests this regulation and revision involves more than just touch for humans, however.   It involves touch with a limbic resonance, what Sandra Wooten calls “somatic resonance,” a presence with a relationship to the feeling state of the other.   Lewis calls this “somatic concordance” not just normal, but necessary for human development (Lewis et al., 2000).

““Without rich limbic resonance, a child doesn’t discover how to sense with his limbic brain, how to tune in to the emotional channel, and apprehend himself and others.   Without sufficient opportunity for limbic regulation he cannot internalize emotional balance. Children thus handicapped grow up to become fragile adults who remain uncertain of their own identities, cannot modulate their emotions and fall prey to chaos when stress threatens” (Lewis et al., 2000, p. 210).

“Lewis goes on to say that anxiety and depression are the consequences of disconnection.  Monkeys deprived of early limbic regulation lose billions of neurons they would ordinarily develop in caring environments.   They suffer neural disorganization and lose the capacity to modulate aggression   If the isolation stretches out, and they survive physically, they are marked by lethargic despair with the accompanying outpouring of stress hormones and neurotransmitters with unpredictable negative physical effects. Moreso, “they become erratically, unpredictably and chaotically vicious” (Lewis et al., 2000, p. 218).

“Lewis describes the limbically damaged human, seriously neglected, seriously deprived of human care, or living largely without physical and social contact and connection, without limbic regulation and revision, as deadly: “a functionally reptilian organism armed with the cunning of a neocortical brain, lacking compunction about harming others” (Lewis et al., 2000, p.218).   He challenges us to imagine and act on how society might be different if we were intolerant of childhood abuse and neglect.   Parents, and the physicians and others who guide them, need to understand the importance of emotional presence and resonance, holding, and gentle, contactful touch.

“Lewis reminds us that children don’t grow up to be fully self-regulating, even with good contact as infants and children.   Adults are still social animals, requiring stabilization outside themselves.  Physiological stability means finding people who regulate you well and staying by them. (Lewis et al, 2000).   Babies know this instinctually, and it is why they don’t want to be left alone.   It is why hurts around attachment, abandonment, and aloneness are so big in the adults we see as clients. Rosen work is so powerful, helpful, and effective as it recreates a special experience of limbic resonance, regulation and revision, a deep, resonating connection providing neural lessons missed earlier, and changing neural pathways. And what if it also provides a revision of genetic expression?

“In Rosen work these are all happening:

  • • There is resonance, in the Rosen practitioner’s deep, listening presence, attending to, really tuning in to someone, “catching the melodic essence”, the client being limbically known, reflected, and the client “knowing,” sensing himself/herself.
  • • There is regulation, with the change happening in the breath, in the release of body tension, in increased circulation and aliveness, in relaxation, the body working as it should, physiology regulating itself through resonance.   Limbic regulation thus allows the ability to modulate emotions, neurophysiology, hormonal status, immune function, sleep rhythms and stability (Lewis et al, 2000).
  • • There is revision, changing one another’s brains through limbic revision.   The Rosen therapist supports the client to bring long repressed emotions into consciousness, and these are received and affirmed by the therapist without judgment. The Rosen therapist supports the client to bring unconscious behavior patterns into consciousness where there is choice about them, even if the choice has to be made consistently and persistently against longstanding neural patterning and conditioning.  Neurobiologist and author Candace Pert tells us that the more we exercise choice against our neural patterning, the more we “exercise” that part of our brain that makes us uniquely human: our free will, the freedom to choose against conditioned neural patterning.   And the more we exercise our free will against one pattern, the freer we are to choose against all of our conditioned patterning (Pert, 1999; 2006). And there is the possibility of epigenetic changes described by Meaney and colleagues.

“The possibility of “limbic revision” indicates that the therapist needs to do her own work, get her own mental and emotional house in order, because the client regulates and revises to and through the therapist.   As much as we in Rosen Method would like to not have to pay attention to the “clinical relationship”, and do not consider ourselves mental health therapists, the clinical relationship is already there, a vital part of the work.   And it is crucially important that Rosen is taught experientially.  We learn the work by doing it and by receiving it, revising and regulating our own physiology and neural pathways.   In this way we meet the “…urgent necessity of the therapist to get his own house in order.   His patients are coming to stay, and they may have to live there for the rest of their lives” (Lewis et al., 2000, p. 187).

Oxytocin and the Human Connection System

“Science is just beginning to explore the physiological importance of human connection and Rosen work has been indirectly involved in some of the scientific research into the human connection system in Sweden.   The oxytocin cascade is an understudied part of this system, just beginning to get a lot of scientific attention. Kerstin Uvnas-Moberg is a researcher from Sweden who published many scientific articles on this hormone and its subsequent cascade, and also a book called The Oxytocin Factor: Tapping the hormone of calm, love, and healing (Uvnas-Moberg, 2003). It is worth noting that in Sweden, the book was titled Calm and Stillness Though Touch.

“While studying attachment and mother infant bonding, Uvnas-Moberg became fascinated by oxytocin, which is both a hormone and a neurotransmitter.   Knowing it is stimulated by touch, she researched the effects of touch on the production of this bonding, relaxation hormone.   She used massage practitioners in her research, some of whom are also Rosen practitioners, though they did not use Rosen Method in the sessions that were in the studies.  I first heard about Uvnas-Moberg’s  research before the book was published in English, from her good friend, Swedish Rosen Senior Teacher Annika Minnbergh, in her lecture at Calistoga, California, in 2001 at one of the first international Rosen gatherings.

“There has also been more research of this connection hormone by scientists in the US including Susan Carter, who did a study about oxytocin levels in the species of voles, small rodents like mice, who mate for life.  Carter is the wife of Stephen Porges, who developed the polyvagal theory, and the theory of the social engagement system, or human connection system facilitated by the vagus nerve and the oxytocin cascade.

“The polyvagal theory postulates that humans have three hierarchical systems of protection in the body, the freeze system, the fight/flight system and the social engagement system.   The social engagement system, or the human connection system, was the latest to evolve, and Porges suggests it is really a whole complex physical system of communication and connection facilitated by the ventral or front part of vagus nerve, and stimulated by oxytocin.   He suggests that fight /flight is connected to the central part of the vagus, which comes to the area of the diaphragm, and that the freeze system is connected to the dorsal part of the vagus nerve, which comes in to the lower part of the spine (Porges, 2001; 2006).  Carter and Uvnas-Moberg have published together about oxytocin and bonding, and are friends.  Porges’s work is related.

“Thus, the oxytocin cascade is proposed as part of a whole physiological system in the body we are just beginning to understand.   This is the study of human connection, and the physiological system that supports human connection, or social engagement.  We know a lot about the fight/flight and the freeze systems in the body, and it is time we learn as much about the human connection system, or the social engagement system.

“If one thinks of this social engagement or human connection system as a biological system in the body, and as the latest to evolve in humans, then one might say it is evolutionary for humans that it is being studied now in human history and that we are just beginning to understand its importance and its workings.   Even if we are not so proficient at it, it is part of the design, available to develop and bring into consciousness.   According to these researchers of the oxytocin cascade and the social engagement system, oxytocin is the bonding hormone, highly activated at birth and in nursing mothers.  It is not just a female hormone, however, but present in both females and males (Uvnas-Moberg, 2003).   It is the hormone that helps a parent get up many times in the middle of the night, not go completely crazy, and still love her baby.

“But when adrenalin is high, the oxytocin sites shut down (Minnbergh, 2001; Uvnas Moberg, 2003).  Adrenalin is about firing up the musculature and organs for fight or flight capability.   Often, intense physical tension and pain in the body is a result of chronic activation of this system, and the result of a chronic production of stress hormones such as adrenalin, cortisol, and noradrenalin.

“These stress hormones have many beneficial effects as they facilitate the fight/flight response.  When needed, they stimulate increased cardiac output, increased blood pressure, and increased heart rate to do the strong physical tasks we require.  But these effects can be unnecessarily sustained and lead to a sustained stress response.   The increase in blood pressure and heart rate can be sustained even when no longer needed, or when the limbic brain perceives threat that isn’t there anymore.   These chemicals are harsh on the body when sustained over long periods, and can produce chronic tension and physical pain and wear the body down.   Other potentially adverse effects of these hormones include adverse effects on the heart, increased blood glucose, increased blood pressure, decreased memory, negative effects on sleep, impaired immune function, and they are linked to higher rates of weight gain and obesity.   Persistent or sustained increases in stress hormones also suppress nonessential functions in a fight/flight situation, or a perceived fight/flight situation.   Even in a perceived flight/fight situation, there can be adverse effects on the digestive system, reproductive system, and growth processes (McMahon, 2009; Minnbergh, 2007).

“From stem cell research, Bruce Lipton found that cells responding to stress or fear do not grow (Lipton, 2005).   The body turns off any nonessential activity, like digesting your food, if it thinks you have to pay attention to fighting or fleeing, even if the threat is only perceived, not really happening in present time.

“There is also new research from Nuno Sousa and colleagues in the Life and Health Sciences Foundation in Portugal that shows chronic stress in rats produces what looks like “thinking in a rut”, repeating the same patterned, ineffective behavior again and again.   Sousa found parts of the brain that are associated with executive functions and goal-directed behavior had shriveled in chronically stressed rats, and those parts of neural circuits linked to habit formation had grown.   “Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal directed-behaviors when that would be the better approach” (Angier, 2009).   Sousa’s research supports the idea that when we are in chronic stress, we are more likely to rely on distressed, patterned behavior rather than fresh, clear, creative thinking.

“Sousa also found, as Meaney’s studies did, that taking the stressed rats out of the stressful situation and putting them “on vacation” with healthier comrades, even for just 4 weeks, helped them to rewire, and use innovative skills again.  “Atrophied synaptic connections in the decisive regions of the prefrontal cortex resprouted, while the overgrown dendritic vines of the habit-prone sensorimotor striatum retreated” (Angier, 2009).

“This plasticity in the brain is another aspect of our newly understood neural circuitry and a finding in many new research studies.   Bruce McEwen, head of the neuroendocrinology lab at Rockefeller University, describes the brain as “…a very resilient and plastic organ.   Dendrites and synapses retract and reform, and reversible remodeling can occur throughout life” (Angier, 2009).

“In contrast to the stress responses, oxytocin and the oxytocin cascade — stimulated through touch, connection, and presence, and possibly regulated by the vagus nerve — is about calm, nourish, digest, relax, restore, connect and grow: the trust system in the body. Give it to roosters and they act like mother hens, showing nurturing behavior. Give it to rats and they come out of their cages with less fear, recognize their littermates, and socialize with other rats less fearfully.   Give it to stockbrokers and they are not afraid of risks and act more trusting with their money.

“The oxytocin cascade, or the human connection system, is about stress release, pain release, and it plays a larger role than we have known in the recovery from illness, injury and disease.   It may also play a role in creating fresh, innovative responses, new possibilities, and clearer thinking.   Moberg describes it as an open loop, one that feeds upon itself.  The more you have, the more you get.   Then the more you connect with others, the more of this neurotransmitter is stimulated, the whole cascade is stimulated again, so then the more you are able to connect, to yourself, to others, to something larger than yourself (Uvnas-Moberg 2003; Minnbergh, 2001).

“If you think of this as a protection system in the body, the implications of this theory are great:  social engagement and connection as the highest most evolved form of human protection rather than the adrenalin/fight/flight system in the body, one which possibly produces fresh, innovative thinking, and even more human connection, than other patterned responses.

“Moberg’s research shows oxytocin is elevated after sessions of touch therapy, but it goes back down.   After 4 sessions, it tends to go up and stay elevated.   After 7 sessions, it tends to stay elevated for longer periods.   And the research shows it is best stimulated by gentle touch, not heavy, deep tissue work, and especially by stroking on the belly (Minnbergh, 2001).   Uvnas-Moberg also found that the oxytocin levels in the practitioner increase as well through contactful touch.

“We know this healing cascade is stimulated largely by touch with other humans, by doing fun things, by being with other people, by connecting.  It is also stimulated by alcohol, nicotine, and the process of smoking, and by high fat foods (comfort foods) (Uvnas-Moberg, 2003).   So if you are not getting your social connection system stimulated any other way, have no other way of turning off the adrenalin or fight/flight system in the body, then you may turn to one of these less healthy alternatives.   It is not surprising that these are addictive substitutes for something else that the body needs.

“In Porges’ polyvagal theory, we learn that humans have inherited three forms of protection:  The first and most evolved form of protection is the ability to connect in relationship to other humans through complex and instantly read facial expressions and the human voice, this connection system being regulated by the upper end of the vagus nerve and stimulated by oxytocin.   Fight/flight is the second level of protection in this evolutionary hierarchy.   The freeze response, going numb, going unconscious, checking out, withdrawing, isolating or dissociating is the third and most primitive (Porges, 2001; 2006).

“Each of these is a necessary form of protection for the human.   We need to know how to go unconscious in an accident, for example, to conserve all resources for the tremendous job of healing that has to happen, and also to withstand the pain.   But chronic numbness or chronic unconscious living, chronic isolation, chronic aggression or fighting, chronic stress is obviously not life-enhancing for humans, and physically harmful.

“Porges theorizes from research with autistic children that relaxing areas where the vagus nerve comes close to the surface, i.e. the occipital ridge, the back and sides of the neck, the face, especially around the ears, and of course, the diaphragm, can help turn on the social engagement system.   These are all areas  we commonly work in Rosen Method.   Porges uses sound waves to relax the vagus nerve through the ears in autistic children (Porges, 2001; 2006).

“Rosen Method uses touch, presence, and limbic resonance to relax the whole body, which likely turns on this system.   Perhaps when the vagus nerve can function well, uninhibited by muscular tension, the social engagement system or human connection system may be encouraged to function well also.

Conclusion

“So relationship, through the healing cascade of the human connection system, regulates and revises our neurological health and our physiological functioning.   In loving and caring, in connecting through touch or otherwise, we modulate each other’s emotions, neurophysiology, hormonal status, immune function, sleep rhythms, and stability.   When you find someone who regulates you well,  someone with whom you feel good, with whom you can share at least some physical closeness and touch, around whom you can revise, then stick with that person.  And that is why your clients should stick with you.
“We know, and neuroscience is confirming, the importance of touch and caring, and of understanding and stimulating this biological system in the body, for recovery from illness, disease, injury, but also for human development and peace in the world.   We can use touch, presence and limbic resonance for the evolution of a new human species that will use connection to other human beings as its first form of protection.  Through touch, and also through the connection that is the essence of Rosen work, we are stimulating a whole physiological system in the body, the physiological system of trust, and human connection, facilitating the evolution of the human species toward more and deeper intimacy, connection and safety.”

References

Angier, N. (2009).   Brain is a co-conspirator in a vicious stress loop.   The New York Times, August 17, 2009.

Fish, E., Shahrokh, D., Bagot, R., Calji, C., Bredy, T., Szyf, M. & Meaney, M. J. (2004).   Epigenetic programming of stress responses through variations in maternal care.    Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1036, 167-180.

Lewis, T., Fari, A. & Lannon, R. (2000).   A general theory of love. Random House.

Lipton, B. (2005).   The biology of belief. Hay House.

McMahon, M. (2009, in preparation).   Common effects of stress hormones on the body.

Meaney, M. J. (2001).   Maternal care, gene expression, and the transmission of individual differences in stress reactivity across generations.   Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 1161-92.

Minnbergh, A. (2001).   New research from Sweden on the oxytocin hormone and touch.  Lecture presented at the International Rosen Method Gathering, Calistoga, CA.

Minnbergh, A. (2007).   Comparing the adrenelin/stress response and the oxytocin cascade.   Lecture presented at the Rosen Method Global Congress, Imatra, Finland.

Pert, C. (2006).   The biochemistry of consciousness.  Lecture presented at the Continuum Center,  Minneapolis, MN.

Pert, C. (1999).   The molecules of emotion.   Touchstone.

Porges, S. W. (2001).   The polyvagal theory:  Phylogenetic substrates of a social nervous system.   International Journal of Psychophysiology, 42, 123-146.

Porges, S. W. (2006).   The polyvagal theory. Lecture presented at Hakomi International Conference, Boulder, CO.

Rosen, M. (with Brenner, S.) (2003).   Rosen method bodywork:   Accessing the unconscious through touch.   North Atlantic Books.

Swan, N. (1997).   Maternal care. Radio interview with Michael Meaney, Radio National Home, The Health Report, November 17.

Uvnas-Moberg, K. (2003).   The oxytocin factor:  Tapping the hormone of calm, love and healing. Da Capo Press.

Watters, E. (2006).   DNA is not destiny.  Discover Magazine, November, 33-75.

Wooten, S. (1995).  Touching the body reaching the soul: How touch influences the nature of human beings. Chimes Printing.

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READ ABOVE ARTICLE ONLINE HERE

SEE ALSO:

Rosen Method International Journal

Alan Fogel, Editor

Rosen Method Bodywork Practitioner, PhD, LMT

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DON’T MISS THE WEALTH OF INFORMATION FOR YOUR READING/STUDY/RESEARCH AND HEALING FROM INFANT-CHILD ABUSE PLEASURE AT THIS LINK

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Must be why I was drawn to buy myself this amazing electric piano keyboard so I can learn to play – and use music to ‘heal my abused infant brain’:

Porges uses sound waves to relax the vagus nerve through the ears in autistic children (Porges, 2001; 2006).  “

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+CALM THE CRYING BABY — IMMUNE SYSTEM STIMULATES VAGUS NERVE TRAUMA ALTERED DEVELOPMENT

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I have been in HOT pursuit of an idea all day.  This thought has lingered inside of me for 4 years in a ‘body knowing’ place because of what I know as a survivor of severe abuse and malevolent treatment from birth until I left home at 18.

In order for this idea to be given form I need to link it to other people’s related thoughts, and many of these ideas are only recently appearing as science races into a new place of truth about what it means to be a human — and how we develop in interaction with our environment from out conception.

I am not a scientist.  Even if I come up with a theory, and develop an hypothesis, I cannot create or perform research to either prove or disprove my ideas.  So, I have to use the interactive thinking the web provides and see what I can come up with.

And I found something very exciting – but I could not find it until I included the words ‘fish’ and ‘evolution’ into my search on the ‘vagus nerve’ and ‘the immune response’.

It has been my thinking that there has to be a point within the body — and within the body of a developing infant-child exactly ‘where the fire meets the gunpowder’.  A tiny person is powerless to stop trauma that happens to it from outside of its body.  It is therefore forced to try to stop the trauma ON ITS INSIDES.

This STOP action is the job of the vagus nerve as it controls the parasympathetic STOP arm of our Autonomic Nervous System and interacts with our immune system.  Right at this point where the developing body has to try to STOP the force of the impact of trauma ON ITS INSIDES is where Trauma Altered Development is forced to kick in.

It is RIGHT here, at this present moment in time where I cannot think into the future and must patiently await for science to confirm what I know is true – that RIGHT here where the fire meets the gunpowder, where a developing infant-child has to adapt within a malevolent environment and alter who it is becoming that EPIGENTIC forces that interfere with normal development by altering the immune system-vagus nerve-Autonomic Nervous System and brain interactions in preparation for survival within a toxic, malevolent unsafe and insecure attachment environment come into play.  The research proving this point is coming, but it is not entirely here yet.

This, I believe, is where and how what Dr. Martin Teicher calls evolutionarily altered development happens.  When a tiny growing body cannot STOP the ongoing affects of trauma happening to it from outside its body, the STOPPING happens on the inside.

This form of Stop the Storm of the impact of trauma — within a developing little body — causes things to happen like what happened to change my mother into the monster she became.  She could not afford to experience the suffering deprivation-trauma caused her so her body found a way to STOP it.

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My idea goes back to the very beginnings of how severe abuse and neglect in a malevolent environment force a newborn to begin to alter its development in adaptation to the deprivation-traumas that surround and impact it.

Thinking about how a tiny little body has so much work to do to grow its Central Nervous System including its brain, and about how its Autonomic Nervous System is able to at least control its heart rate and breathing from birth, knowing that an infant’s immune system is already in operation, I think about how all these developing processes interconnect.

I believe that it is the job of the immune system to protect and defend us within our environment.  I therefore suspect that it is our immune system that responds to the toxins in our environment – and if our earliest caregivers actually maltreat us and are themselves toxins in our early world, then our immune system must respond accordingly.

In this response to threat, to trauma, all our development is changed.  I suspect that there is an intersection within us where our immune system affects our Autonomic Nervous System (ANS).  The vagus nerves are intimately connected with the parasympathetic STOP arm of our ANS.  (I have collected pages of information and active links today on the subject.)

I think about how development altered through trauma ends up often making people into such changed people that their lives become very difficult in adulthood, both for themselves and for those around them.  I think about my mother’s birthday post I wrote for her last night, and I think about how compassionate would be the opposite of the way she turned out.

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I have spent the best part of this day searching for information I read online a few years back about how information transmitted through the vagus nerve reaches male brains differently than it does female’s.  I remember reading that men receive the information from one branch of the nerve – the left one – only while women receive information into both sides of their brains through both branches of the vagus nerve at the same time.

I combed through every gender and the brain link I presented last Sunday, and found nothing about this!  So I have been on the hunt, in pursuit, ever since.

I just found a fascinating article connecting the vagus nerve to compassion—something that my mother, through her trauma altered early development, did not grow up to possess – compassion.  Something about her adaptation to early deprivation and trauma changed her – and eliminated the possibility of having this experience from her for the rest of her life.

This article 9referenced below) follows exactly my line of expanding thought about how early trauma interacts with our immune system, our developing brain, and impacts our Autonomic Nervous System’s development.  It seems very probable to me that the evolutionarily altered person Dr. Martin Teicher describes due to developmental changes through early exposure to trauma experiences changes related to what this article is describing.

Compassion at the Core of Social Work: A – Florida State University

This article by Dan Orzech contains the following:

THE SEAT OF COMPASSION:

THE VAGUS NERVE?

 

“… Dacher Keltner, PhD, believes that the seat of compassion may just lie somewhere else: the vagus nerve. Keltner is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and coeditor of Greater Good, a magazine about prosocial behavior such as compassion and forgiveness. For the past several years, he has been examining the novel hypothesis that the vagus nervea bundle of nerves that emerges out of the brain stem and wanders throughout the body, connecting to the lungs, heart, and digestive system, among other areas-is related to prosocial behavior such as caring for others and connecting with other people.

The vagus nerve is considered part of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. That means it’s involved in relaxation and calming the body down-the opposite of the “fight or flight” arousal for which the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system is responsible. Medicine has traditionally focused on the vagus nerve’s role in controlling things such as breathing, heart rate, kidney function, and digestion. But researchers lately have experimented with stimulating the vagus nerve to treat epilepsy as well as drug-resistant cases of clinical depression (see sidebar).

Keltner has been exploring the idea that the vagus nerve-which is unique to mammals-is part of an attachment response. Mammals, he says, “attach to their offspring, and the vagus nerve helps us do that.” Researchers have already found that children with high levels of vagal activity are more resilient, can better handle stress, and get along better with peers than children with lower vagal tone.

In his laboratory; Keltner has found that the level of activity in peoples vagus nerve correlates with how warm and friendly they are to other people. Interestingly it also correlates with how likely they are to report having had a spiritual experience during a six-month follow-up period. And, says Keltner, vagal tone is correlated with how much compassion people feel when they’re presented with slides showing people in distress, such as starving children or people who are wincing or showing a facial expression of suffering. Among other things, Keltner is interested in the implications of these findings for human evolution. “Much of the scientific research so far on emotions,” he says, “has focused on negative emotions like anger, fear, or disgust”-what Keltner calls the “fight or flight” emotions. “We tend to assume,” says Keltner, “that evolution produced just these fight/flight tendencies, but it may have also produced a biologically based tendency to be good to other people and to sacrifice self-interest.

Evolutionary thought is increasingly arising at the position that the defining characteristic of human evolution is our sociality We are constantly cooperating, constantly doing things in interdependent fashion, and constantly embedded in relationships. From an evolutionary perspective, that suggests that we should have a set of emotions that help us do that work.”

MORE:

WATCH THIS VIDEO – HE SAYS WHAT I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR – THE VAGUS NERVE CONTROLS OUR IMMUNE SYSTEM!!  I believe that it is here that an abused developing infant-child experiences the start of its Trauma Altered Development.

 

Dacher Keltner in Conversation

43 min – Feb 5, 2009
Why have we evolved positive emotions like gratitude, amusement, awe and compassion? Dacher Keltner, professor of psychology at UC Berkeley
fora.tv/2009/02/05/Dacher_Keltner_in_Conversation

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HIS BOOK:

Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life by Dacher Keltner

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The Evolution of Compassion

Dacher Keltner

University of California, Berkeley

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Dacher Keltner
Professor
Ph.D., Stanford University

Campus Contact Information
Departmental Area(s): Social/Personality; Change, Plasticity &
Development;
Director: Berkeley Social Interaction Laboratory

Interests: Social/Personality: emotion; social interaction; individual
differences in emotion; conflict and negotiation; culture

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Well, this is enough thinking and research for one day!  I am not going on to read the following today!!  It has just always made perfect sense to me that something in a traumatized tiny developing body causes its immune system to respond – and triggers the vast array of changes that we see in severe infant-child abuse survivors.  I believe the answer lies along this track.

What happens to an infant’s physiological development when no one calms the crying baby?

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PARENTS HIT AND TERRIFY THE BABY?  Immune systems changes to development through interaction with the vagus nerve, that’s what.

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Vagal activity, early growth and emotional development – Elsevier

by T Field – 2008 – Cited by 1Related articles
The vagus nerve is a key component in the regulation of the autonomic nervous system and Infant growth and development. Several studies have documented a ….. including the hypothalamic-pituitary–adrenal axis and the immune system

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Parental Meta-Emotion Philosophy and the Emotional Life of …

by JM Gottman – 1996 – Cited by 228Related articlesAll 5 versions
nerve. The tonic firing of the vagus nerve slows down many physiological processes, such as the …. a central part of the immune system that is …..

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Calm Sleeping Baby – Baby Massage

Relaxation and enhancement of neurological development. Massage provides both stimulation and relaxation for an infant, Massage stimulates a nerve in the brain, known as the vagus nerve. Strengthens the immune system. Massage causes a significant increase is Natural Killer Cell numbers.

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Tears – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Strong emotions, such as sorrow or elation, may lead to crying. lysozyme) fight against bacterial infection as a part of the immune system. A newborn infant has insufficient development of nervous control, so s/he “cries without weeping. of the facial nerve causes sufferers to shed tears while eating.

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TOUCH IN LABOR AND INFANCY: Clinical Implications

Increases in infants’ vagal activity during massage may lead to an increase As noted earlier, massage has been shown to increase activity of the vagus nerve, As in animal studies, massage has shown immunesystem benefits in humans. autonomic nervous system; a disturbance in the development of sleep-wake

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INFANT IN PAIN

Oct 29, 2009 Does your infant suffer from colic? Reflux? Projectile Vomiting? In her book, Molecules of Emotion,8 Dr Candice Pert (a recognized system interference are a hindrance to normal immune system function. Scientists are still discovering exactly how the immune and nerve systems interrelate.

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[PDF] Emotion

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – View as HTML
vagus nerve— a branch of the parasympathetic autonomic nervous system — may be involved in positive …. New research on the immune system suggests a biological …… Handbook of infant development

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[PDF] Phylogenetic origins of affective experiences: The neural …

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat – Quick View
by SW Porges – Cited by 3Related articlesAll 3 versions
The healing power of emotion: Affective neuroscience, development ….. how the autonomic nervous system interacts with the immune system, nervous system. The vagus nerve exits the brain stem and has branches …… Porges SW, Doussard-Roosevelt JA, Portales AL, and Greenspan SI (1996) Infant regulation of the

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Evolution and Emotions

File Format: Microsoft Powerpoint – View as HTML
Neurological Development and the Limbic System. R-Hemi has closer connections to limbic system than L-Hemi. R-Hemi develops earlier in infancy than L-Hemi. Emotions appear in Stim vagus nerve, slows Heart 1 (H1). ….Effectiveness of the immune system; ability to ward off illness,

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The Brain and the Neuro-psycho-immune System – Anne Baring’s Website

When Cannon stimulated the vagus through electrodes implanted in the …. Emotions are in the digestive system, in the immune system, The nervous system consists of the brain and network of nerve cells We remember most the most vivid memories – this was probably of great help in evolutionary development,

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Vagus Nerve Is Direct Link From Brain To Immune System

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Deep Brain Stimulation … – Blogs – Revolution Health

which explains how the brain and the immune system are interconnected through the vagus nerve. “It turns out that the brain talks directly to the immune

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How the Dalai Lama can help you live to 120… « Terryorisms

Oct 5, 2006 … it is the way the immune system responds to the mind. Let me explain. You immune system is controlled by a nerve call the vagus nerve

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The Dana Foundation – Seeking the cause of deadly inflammation ….

May 3, 2007 And the vagus nerve story is progressing on multiple fronts, for device development, for understanding classical physiology, meditation, “Look, everybody knows that meditation is good for your immune system.

 

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Breakthrough “Neuro Nutrition” Targets the Brain and Vagus Nerve

Jul 6, 2008 … The Vagus Nerve is the body’s most powerful anti-inflammatory … the Vagus Nerve, has a direct ability to restore the human immune system

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NSLIJ – Scientists Figure Out How the Immune System and Brain …

When they stimulated the vagus nerve, a long nerve that goes from the base of Many laboratories at The Feinstein Institute study the immune system in

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Cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway – Wikipedia, the free …

Kevin Tracey found that the vagus nerve provides the immune system with a direct connection to the brain. Tracey’s paper in the December 2002 issue of

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The vagus nerve, cytokines and depression

The vagus nerve mediates behavioural depression, but not fever, in response to peripheral immune The immune system, depression and antidepressants

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Article: Scientists figure out how the immune system and brain ….

Jul 21, 2008 Scientists figure out how the immune system and brain communicate When they stimulated the vagus nerve, a long nerve that goes from the ……..In a major step in understanding how the nervous system and the immune system Pain & Central Nervous System

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Brain ‘talks’ directly to body’s immune system – The Hindustan …

Brain ‘talks’ directly to body’s immune system – Report from the Asian News Pain & Central Nervous System Week, Vagus Nerve Stimulation Can Suppress

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FASCINATING IDEAS HERE — DOES THE VAGUS NERVE HELP ORGANIZE CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE SELF?

[PDF] Does vagus nerve constitute a self-organization complexity or a …

File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
by B Mravec – 2006 – Cited by 3Related articles
nervous system modulates immune functions via vagus nerve (5, 6). from the immune system to the brain via the vagus nerve

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[PDF] Evidences for vagus nerve in maintenance of immune balance and …

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Brain ‘talks’ directly to body’s immune system

post: Nov 14, 2007

He discovered that the vagus nerve speaks directly to the immune system through a neurochemical called acetylcholine.

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Vagus Nerve Schwannoma: effects on internal organs?

I just gave a talk the vagus nerve and the immune system–the vagus nerve > probably plays a very important role in many important chemoregulatory

 

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BiomedExperts: The vagus nerve mediates behavioural depression ….

We propose that behavioural depression is mediated by the vagus nerve indicate that the recently proposed vagal link between the immune system and the

 

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MY MOTHER’S DREAM – March 29, 1960
The whole family was out walking and suddenly we looked up to see a dark rainbow appear – then it got bright and behind it a skyline appeared outlining massive dormed buildings such as I’ve never seen and skyscraper buildings – then it all disappeared and a big wind came.

We realized it was a hurricane. We could hardly stand up against the wind. We saw big apartment buildings on the sides of the streets but the entrances faced another street and we were on the wrong side. The wind grew stronger – finally a door appeared and we went in the building and the person asked us what was wrong? We told her of the great wind but as we pointed outside – all was silent and the wind was gone … and I awoke.

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Stop the Storm of the intergenerational transmission of unresolved trauma carried on through the maltreatment of little infant-children.  If we don’t do this, changes in development will continue to rob these children of their own life free from Trauma Altered Development.

If we don’t stop the trauma from happening on the outside, the tiny developing body will do everything in its power to stop its affects on the inside.  This is what happened to my mother.

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Don’t forget to check out — Brain Facts – A primer on the brain and nervous system

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