Strategies to Treat Patients Trapped in the Freeze Response
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD;
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with Bessel van der Kolk, MD; Stephen Porges, PhD; Ruth Lanius, MD, PhD; Pat Ogden, PhD; Thema Bryant-Davis, PhD; Bethany Brand, PhD; Deb Dana, LCSW; Janina Fisher, PhD; Kathy Steele, MN, CS; Ruth Buczynski, PhD
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I wonder… what if the trauma is in the brain? For example Primary Progressive MS— chronic, incurable, untreatable, degenerative. (You can Google it.) The cognitive/brain impact is very similar to trauma. Now what? Is what we know about treating trauma going to help “treat” a degenerative brain disease>
Your program in excellently structured and immediately useful for me clinical work as a Mental Health OT.
I have been practicing and focusing on Trauma work for 15 years; I have bought so many books from the presenters and it is so nice to hear from them what research and practice is showing as most effectives strategies.
I really appreciate the way the sessions are structured. The experts comments go straight to the point and illustrate very well the interventions. I also appreciate the comments about this knowledge and strategies being not only for clinicians but for anyone who works with people, particularly people in stress.
I REALLY appreciate the transcripts. I like to to take notes and that requires for me to have to listen to the video more than twice. With the transcript I just have to highlight and it is easier to go back to the most significant points. My money has been well spent! 🙂
Session I was a struggle for me because I am so steeped in psychodynamic therapies. I finally recognized the disconnect in my thinking.. and voilà, I came to appreciate the paradigmatic shift involved in a sensory / somatic approach. Wow, reaching a patient in a freeze response involves a focus on the physiological body responses of the nervous system rather than trying to access verbal-cognitive channels that are non-functioning.
Although I am not a psychotherapist, I thank you for enlightening me as an educator, now retired.
Barbara Dautrich, Ed.D.
I don’t have any clients yet, because I am not a licensed mental health professional. I am in the process of applying for a Master of Marriage and Family Therapy program. My husband and I have been married for 33 years, but we have struggled mightily with many unhelpful behaviors that he started to exhibit early in our marriage.
Within the last few months, we finally discovered that he has Borderline Personality Disorder, exhibiting 8 of the 9 symptoms and maybe even a bit of the 9th. To say the least, it has been very hard. He was originally diagnosed with Cyclothymia and ADD, mostly I believe, because his father has Bipolar and Schizophrenia. He was abusive in more than one way. My husband is dealing with complex trauma with amnesia.
I greatly appreciate my own therapist who has used ART very effectively with me and my husband’s therapist who has used EMDR and IFS. I know there is a huge demand for mental health therapists that won’t be lessening any time soon. I have the desire to give back, to help, and to make a difference. Thank you for this great information.
In my search to discover what was at the root of my husband’s difficulties I read “Why Does He Do That” by Lundy Bancroft, then “The Body Keeps the Score”, then “Waking the Tiger”, which all resonated very strongly with both my husband and me. I am lucky, in that my husband eventually recognized he was being abusive and has being willing to actively pursue therapy and change. We have been separated for 18 months and nearly divorced, but I think we will both be able to heal to the point that we can be “fully married” once more.
Thanks again for all the information here and in books. It has been a lifeline for me and us.
It can be crazy-making as a bodyworker to see freeze so quickly and know that
the holding in the body is NOT going to respond with touch in the traditional sense.
And know too, that bodywork is what they are REQUESTING by showing up.
I benefitted today by hearing DO NOT TOUCH when you see chronic immobility.
This is why Liquid Cranial Sacral and right brain to right brain communication
is *touching, but not touching*. Breathing can be done together. Asking for
permission, a must.
Thank you.
I do not feel so helpless now with clients who have had freeze responses. I can check my response and focus on them as a resourceful human being.
I tried to follow the link to watch the video broadcast but all o got was a commercial advertising an upgrade option to gold package, no webinar/presentation. Hmmm, I’m disappointed to miss this first module video, hopefully next module the access will be worked out for me.
Hi Jane,
We just sent you an email with the broadcast links! I am sorry to hear that you missed the broadcasts, and we hope that you will be able to join us for future broadcasts.
Best,
Shealyn
NICABM Staff
Please can you post the time for this free first session again as I only saw the final minutes. I am in New Zealand. Thank you.
Hi Sandy,
The free broadcasts will air on Wednesdays at 11am, 2pm, 5pm, 8pm, and 11pm Eastern Time, as well as Thursdays at 11am, 2pm, and 5pm Eastern Time. (If you need a time zone converter to see what time that will be in your neck of the woods, I recommend this one).
Please let us know if you have any further questions!
Best,
Shealyn
NICABM Staff
I hope to use my recognition of freeze and sensorimotor skills to help my clients get out of freeze. Thank you!
Excellent course! I truly took away so much from this to integrate into my sessions. The parts about how to safely navigate getting your clients out of a freeze response was so valuable. Thank you so much for putting this broadcast series together!!!
I posted yesterday, but I am back again to add a request. I was talking with a friend of mine who has a master in counseling, but has not yet been able to earn enough hours to be certified. We were discussing the freeze response and the strategies and “warnings’ that were presented in session 1. I was reminded of a thought that I had while listening yesterday.
For many reasons, people are unable to bring themselves to getting help. Or their life circumstances hinder access – poverty, lack of resources in their community, ignorance of what to do or how to reach out safely, and more.
Is there any way NICABM members could put together a “first aid” online manual that would appeal to individuals and/or to caring people who see an issue but don’t know what to do?
Just as an example: the “freeze” reaction. The person who freezes may know that they freeze. People who care about that person can see the freezing, but they may make the mistakes mentioned in the session and would welcome knowing something more successful. And the people themselves may recognize that they freeze and learn to help themselves or to tell someone what WILL help.
I am privileged to live in a city providing attention to behavioral health issues as a service to all, but my state has many, many small towns and villages that do not have that luxury.
Dearest NICABM team. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I write from Queretaro, Mexico. As I accompany my sister, a certified therapyst and former missionary in Mother Teresa´s order, consolidate her Institute of Forgiveness proyect, an almost probono labor, in a most poverty and violence-struck part of the world, I can only feel too fortunate to have access to the free broadcasting of this master class. As we see patients traumatized by so many forms of aggression, these tools and knowledge will enable us help them more effectively. I’m taking as many notes as I can and, eventhough I’m unfortunatelly missing a lot, these are pearls I’ll share with my sister. Healing our world takes a lot of heart. Thank you for sharing your heart with all of us.
Elisa
I really took the affirmation of how the body is key to our healing and the straightforward creative strategies shown to find ways in.
thank you
Thank you so much for this programme. I am just overwhelmed with the content, how much is packaged in an hour. It’s incredible. I will have to hear this again for information to sink in. It was very helpful for your prompts on reflecting on clinical work with patients. Their are so many strategies I need to inculcate into my clinical practice.
Excellent. I am looking forward to the next sessions. Thank you. So many useful ideas and interventions. I worked with my little dogs – Westies – with one client who dissociated regularly. They were able to communicate and connect where I could not. They were also able to anchor her back in the present.
Thank you.
i plan to use what I learn from this broadcast to help me understand and overcome trauma and so that I have a better understanding and more knowledge in this to be able to help anyone I become close to who have also experienced trauma.
I will apply it to my work.
Thank you for providing this online course. It was awesome!
I worked as a psychiatric nurse and Therapist,
In tandem with the police, going out to crisis intervention encounters in the home, often to put some individual on a 72 hour hold and take them to the hospital for “ treatment”. I use that term loosely.
These techniques and insights and information
Needs to be taught to all workers, who interface with disturbing behaviors and traumatized
Individuals along with the law enforcement
Personnel who are suffering from a severe deficit
In relationship skills with people in crisis.
It’s heartbreaking to see such information
Provided behind the unapproachable barrier of
expense for far to many.
It should be spread far and wide freely to liberate those who suffer the consequences of
Trauma through no fault of their own……
Let’s hope those of us can share freely this gift
We are given today from this program offered freely .with much gratitude and humility, I thank each presenter of release from the bonds
Of trauma.
I’ve done several NICABM training courses which have been excellent. This Advance Masters Trauma program is next level. Congratulations on delivering such a useful and practical training. I had many ‘wow’ moments and can’t wait to use these strategies in my work and to continue to absorb the information in the future sessions. I particularly loved the description and demonstration of so many somatic, breath and sensorimotor methodologies, and that they can be used to create such a rounded, strength-based and safe way of working with trauma. The focus on the role of body in freeze, and the need to take it so gently and at times minimally when working with the nervous system, were a reminder that success for clients comes with subtlety and client permission. I will definitely be remembering that with clients.
Thank you so much for this! I work as a clinical chaplain in a large metropolitan hospital. I can recall many patients and even families this approach would have helped!!! I recalled a person I worked with when I worked for home health who had an extensive trauma history. The fear in the room was palpable. I would consciously make myself smaller and sit lower, and talk softly. Every meeting would take about 5-10 minutes before she could engage. I wonder if this was freeze; it certainly had some aspects of it.
These are also strategies for mutual aid and community care. I understand that in these sessions are geared toward a clinical setting but it is heartening to hear you suggest this approach be employed in all public and service settings, and also in our interpersonal relationships.
Thank you for this. I cried through most of it. I’m trying to figure out why. I’m a grief counselor and trying to figure out how my own stuff impacts me and also those I work with. I’m thinking that weighted blankets might be really helpful to many of the bereaved I work with. Again, thank you!
Sometimes we can overdo our empathy and try to do too much. The importance of what not to do was very helpful for me.
I picked up a couple new techniques, and wish I had all of this information so neatly organized 10 years ago. Thank you for this opportunity. Well done.
Wonderful! Thank you! Bonnie mcLean
I’m a trauma informed somatic sexuality coach and I will use the concrete examples of how to help clients move out from freeze response. The lecture was very useful for me in my work and I especially liked the concrete examples of how to support a client back to regulation through eye movement, slow movement and breathing. Thank you so much. I’m looking forward to the coming webinars.
I’m a 73 y/o survivor of chronic childhood trauma, been in and out of therapy but no one knew how to help so I gave up on that. My life is very restricted, often in depression, unable to connect with other people or have a relationship; I’m a perfectionist and beat myself up, I can’t receive love and feel worthless. I watch every program on trauma and know you, Ruth, and Pat, Deb, Bessel, Gabor, Steven, Janina, etc, as my friends, and I am learning. After watching today I thought, omg, if I had had a therapist who knew these techniques, who knew how to help me way back when I first saw someone, I could have been helped and my life would have been so different! I could have had a partner, felt secure in a circle of friends, spent my life in service of others and created what my soul brought me here to do instead of living a self-involved life of misery. I was overwhelmed, grieving the life I could have had. I am writing this to say to all of you therapists who work with trauma survivors, you are giving your clients their life back! It is the most precious thing any of us have – the emotional freedom to become the person we were Divinely meant to be. Your good work is changing the course of humanity, one human at a time, which in turn changes everyone they touch in a positive way too, and so on and so on. I appreciate and celebrate each and every one of you!
I am sure that by sharing this message, you have helped so many people. Bless you!
How loving you are to share your story, Vicki. Knowing what is going on is part of the battle against depression, and so on. As I get older, I can see that I need to take charge of my wishes and dreams and choose some I can make come true. My grandmother used to say “where there’s life there’s hope.’ I wish you hope. Your state and I share a birthday, but I am older! I visited for the birthday celebration and was honored by someone in a panel discussion who declared that I was “ohana.” Thinking of you.
I have really loved this first session. I have been able to take lots of notes and I am very grateful for the opportunity you are providing to attend this event for free. I cannot buy the Gold Package at this time but I am finding incredible value by attending the session as it is broadcasted. I am a mom and a college professor, and I plan on using this information with my daughter and with my students because I recognize situations when someone has exhibited a freeze response and I feel the strategies presented are equipping me to be better prepared to respond in more helpful and informed ways, and to be careful about respecting people when they may not be able to communicate consent, etc.
I am looking forward to these 5 weeks as I will try to attend all sessions.
Thank you very much.
Thank-you so much for these free sessions. I have a client who will benefit very much from the idea to use the pulseoximeter and/or the weighted vest/blanket. I really appreciated these experts role modelling how they are with clients whilst in clients’ very triggered, extreme states, where the therapist stays so calm and right with the client where they’re at, reframing positively, using our own nervous system to co-regulate… THANK-YOU! 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing this, I found the information incredibly useful and look forward to the remaining sessions. Such a wealth of information from pros in their respective fields. This has inspired me to move in a different direction
Thanks alot for this program. So helpful and knowLedgeable. I am a certified coach and this session was amazing
this was a real treasure, thank you all.
Thank you all!!I thoroughly enjoyed and learned much from this session!
audio & video out of sync
Hi Joel,
I am sorry to hear you experienced technical difficulties with our broadcast. We have just sent you an email and look forward to helping you with this!
Best,
Shealyn
NICABM Staff