When a client is afraid, there’s a practice that can help them stay grounded in the present . . .
. . . instead of getting hijacked by panic and “worst-case scenario” thinking.
And that practice is mindfulness.
In the video below, Tara Brach, PhD will get into how mindfulness disrupts the neurobiology of fear, and she does it with a powerful metaphor that you could share with your clients.
Dr. Brach: Sure, one of my favorite ways of describing this is from my colleague and friend, Dan Siegel, who many might have heard of, and he has a kind of metaphor of the hand as a brain. If you see my hand here, if you close your fist, this is your brain. If you start looking at it, inspecting it, you see the wrist this is the brain stem, or the spinal cord leading into the brain stem. My thumb is the amygdala and the limbic system, and the four fingers are the frontal cortex. The way our brain processes stimuli is that information comes up the spinal cord, and it goes in, and the brain stem and the limbic system operate together to work with arousal. Then, there’s a down-regulating that happens from the frontal cortex that lets us know, “Wait a minute, that was then, and now is now, and maybe we don’t need to react this way.” So, when the brain is integrated, when everybody’s communicating, we’re in good shape. Well, what happens when we get stressed and we’re not in balance is really interesting, because the information comes up, but, because we’re not really in communication with an integrated brain, you get the stimuli saying, “Warning! Warning!”, and we flip our lid. We basically lose contact with the part of our brain that has perspective, the part of our brain that’s the site of empathy, the part of our brain that’s really the site of our moral capacities. When we get triggered and we get caught in fear, we lose access, and then there’s just a subcortical looping going on. In other words, we’re basically hijacked by our survival brain. So, what mindfulness does, and this is the key, is it strengthens the activation in the frontal cortex. It helps us to reintegrate our brain, so in a moment when we’re off, if we can have enough remembrance to notice what’s happening and to do a little bit of witnessing, we begin to come online again.
Dr. Buczynski: Tara, that was one of the best explanations of brain integration that I’ve heard. We talk a lot about how the brain needs to be integrated, but so many times, we’re not really clear on what we mean by that. Thank you, that was really helpful.
Dr. Brach: When we start cultivating the muscle of mindfulness, we actually are able to sustain our attention on what’s right here, on the wave of the moment, without distractions. There’s this ability to remember to be here. When there’s that quality of heart, there’s space for the wave to move through. So, in terms of the brain, mindfulness directly activates the frontal cortex. I’ll give you an example, Ruth, and all of you who are listening, which is, to me, a really interesting study. It found that a main strategy in mindfulness, which is naming what’s here, UCLA discovered that when we name an emotion, it activates the frontal cortex, and it deactivates the limbic system. In other words, we’re able to occupy more of that mindful witness and be less tossed around by the waves. In a similar way, when we’re able to regard what’s going on with that presence and with that heart capacity, again, rather than that limbic hijack, we’re able to inhabit a more whole and integrated sense of our being.
When a client begins to develop their “mindfulness muscles,” that client is more likely to be able to stay centered and calm in a triggering moment . . .
. . . and that can make all the difference between a hasty reaction and a wise response.
Now we’d like to hear from you. What are some questions you have about applying mindfulness in your clinical work? Please let us know in the comments below.
If you found this helpful, here are a few more resources you might be interested in:
The Neuroscience of Worry During Quarantine
A Simple Mindfulness Practice to Restore Vitality
I just want to take a moment to check my understanding of the explanation of mindfulness from a recent short course from NICABM “How to help client’s come back from Trauma related dysregulation – NOTE-I did hear the warning in addition to what I have written below ‘that care needs to be taken in using mindfulness with people who have deep trauma issues’.
Firstly trauma interrupts the communication between the reptilian part (the survival part) of the brain and the prefrontal cortex(the thinking part)
Mindfulness is a method to re-establish a solid communication connection between the prefrontal cortex and the reptilian brain. The reason is the sensory component (hearing, seeing, smell reptilian brain) and engagement in mindfulness connects to the prefrontal cortex with the noticing component of I can hear the birds, see the trees, smell the coffee, thus, using both the prefrontal cortex and reptilian part of the brain at the same time and this helps rebuild/(or perhaps re-engage is a better term?) the communication lines between these two parts of the brain allowing the person to be more aware of their emotions and thus, have more control and therefore able to respond more appropriately rather than react.
Have I understood this correctly? This is particularly important to me.
I am 58 years old and I was sexually abused by my father (that was very securely locked away in my brain except for the same recurring nightmare) and then endured further trauma in my 20s and 30s as my family of origin exploded as the secrets came out of the closet.
I have since been working on trying to behave “normally” as I feel very tossed around by my emotions with little control I have been studying psychology as a change of career path after 33 years in finance. However, I think my secret reason has been to “fix” myself.
I began to practice mindfulness with the above reasoning in mind and it has made such a difference I feel I can almost “feel” the difference if that makes any sense.
Please correct any misunderstanding, I hope there is none as this conceptualisation I am finding helpful and freeing. In conjunction with my understanding of parts trauma (fragmented selves – from work by Janina Fischer).
I would really appreciate your comments, I think this lines up with the explanation in the video, that I found to be very good. If you can see any expression or use of language that is causing my understanding to go off track I would appreciate the correction. Thank you.
thank you , a very clear explainasion.
Great explanation. It made good sense and helped me see how mindfulness is helping me recognise where I am at and others may be at, in the reactions and responses to circumstances.
Thank you, that was the best explanation !!!!
A great explanation about the connection between anxiety and calm I can use with clients.
Thank you.
A concise and effective description of regulation and mindfulness. Thank you.
This is a lovely and useful analogy.
But it seems to raise the alternative issue of limbic functions — like empathy — being overridden by the frontal cortex.
Whence psychopathy.
(I’ll refrain from stating the obvious political context that brings this contrast to mind.)
Very interesting comment which makes me think a lot !
If one equates, at least in first approximation, mindfulness with frontal cortex activity, this doesn’t automatically mean cold and mechanical reasoning without any emotion.
This is true that it’s high time to put an end to a long-lasting ambiguity. Indeed I have noticed that mindfulness – in particular as so relevantly taught by Tara Brach – more and more claims its companionship with compassion. They are, as Tara mentions, the two wings of a bird !
Great job with the video display this time. I think the way the interviewer video came in from the side on the last one gave the perception of interrupting/pushing the speaker aside, which stoked some interesting comments. Love these little bite size teachings/reminders, your service to the clinical community is greatly appreciated.
Thank- You for this great explanation.
Thank you Tara & NICABM once again for the helpful and practical application of scientific principals into my therapy practice. I think the visual aide of using the arm, hand and thumb will help my clients to remember to use their mindfulness skills to stay grounded and reduce ruminating fears.
Thank you! I always enjoy the great line up of teachers that you bring to us. I have spent time with and have studied with Tara Brach and love what she brings to the table. I would love to see Suzanne Jones integrated into the NIcabm team. She is the founder of TIMBo, and she has a book out called “There is Nothing to Fix”. She would fit right in with your format. The TIMBo organization is helping women with trauma around the world. I love your programs. I just purchased your most recent program on Shame. It is truly a fantastic program.
Absolutely fantastic .
Thank you!!!
I have Been using the fist to visually demonstrate the amygdala and the brain going “off-line“ during perceived or real danger. It’s been very helpful to my clients of all ages. I love this added piece of recognizing the ability to re-integrate the whole.
Lovely video – thank you so much for sharing
I have been using the clenched fist as a metaphor for the brain and arm for the brain stem for some time, but without the thumb as the amygdala. Thank you I will definitely use your explanation in future. Thank you.
Having a physical gesture to embody this idea of brain integration, along with a great explanation was incredibly helpful.
Thank you once again Tara.