Neuroscience research has established why it is that trauma results in a fragmented narrative along with a ‘living legacy’ of enduring effects. The survival responses that preserve life and integrity under threat do not diminish once safety is obtained. Meant to warn us of impending danger, these easily re-activated survival responses continue to re-evoke the events of long ago decades after they are over. Once baffling and frustrating to treat, the evolution of new neurobiologically-informed treatments offers new, hopeful answers to the aftermath of trauma: the chronic fear of danger, dread of impending doom, loss of hope or energy, the longing for human connection, and self-destructive and addictive behavior.
Traditional models of trauma treatment emphasize a narrative approach centered on the overwhelming events, a very long, slow, painful approach in which clients get worse before they get better. But rather than ‘treat’ the events, neuroscience teaches us how to treat their effects. When trauma symptoms are “decoded” as evidence of how individuals survived, they become comprehensible and treatable. Clients are recruited as active participants in the treatment, are educated to understand trauma-related responses, reassuring them that they are not inadequate or crazy. Best of all, a brief therapy model can be inherently relational while avoiding the 'side effects' of long-term therapeutic relationships.