Transcript The Warrior`s Journey - Veteran`s Heart Georgia

The Warrior’s Journey
The Ordeal
War involves a wide range of
violent and traumatic experiences
Immediate threat of death, physical injury or
disfigurement,
Witnessing injury and severe pain and distress
and/or death of others (including significant
others: buddies)
Involvement in injuring or killing others (both
combatants
and civilians)
It may also involve

witnessing or participating in atrocities

undergoing rape

capture or confinement, torture

extreme physical deprivation.
And support as well as combat personnel are affected
Modern Warfare
 High-tech weaponry; diminished
personal dimension of individual combat
between warriors
 Taught to kill, not just overcome (warrior
standards: touch the enemy; take his
weapon; take his horse; bring everyone
back safely)
 Not a rite of passage, nor attainment of
the social definition of a role as those
who protect and guard the community
(incursion into hunting and camping
grounds)
• Guerilla war; insurgency--no uniforms
• the in-war community is involved and
also directly in harm’s way
• Surprise: things are not as prior
experience indicates—unable to
trust one’s own senses
• Commanders are distant rather than in
the battles--high-tech communications
• Multiple deployments
• Ability to communicate with home
Complex Trauma
• serial exposure to a wide variety of
traumatic events
• trauma memory encoded,
facts/details taken in, and at the
same time the feelings and physical
sensations are encoded
• the tiniest event can be so charged
with intensity so overwhelming that
it literally reprograms the central
nervous system.
What happens in the
mind/brain/body?
• Flight, Fight, Freeze body-based
• HPA Axis: Brakes and accelerator functions
are coordinated and balanced
• neural integration: the linkage of anatomically
or functionally differentiated neural regions in
the brain into interconnections with body and
brain
• Neural systems are changed by experience,
repetition (plasticity)
The brain is plastic and self-renewing,
capable of rewiring itself
in response to changing circumstances
• The cerebral cortex is the outer covering of the
brain, where neurons are located.
• The hippocampus is the long, sausage-shaped organ
present on both the left and right sides of the brain.
• At the head of the hippocampus sits the amyglala.
• The thalamus acts as a gateway from the outside
world into the brain, and the hypothalamus regulates
bodily changes like heart rate and temperature.
• The cingulate gyrus sits just over the corpus
callosum, which connects the left and right sides of
the brain.
• The frontal cortex, especially the medial prefrontal
and orbitofrontal cortex, plays a critical role in
the regulation of emotion
Functional areas of the brain are
connected by neural pathways
– areas deep in the brain, such as the
amydgala, are responsible for appraisal of
sensory information alert us to danger
based on instinct, learning history
(training), and emotional memory.
– Rapid survival decisions are made here in
miliseconds with a minimum of
information.
– Appraisals can be applied inappropriately
without being based on external realities
The more highly evolved cortex is responsible
for reasoning, planning
and self-conscious awareness
• Processes information from the lower parts
of the brain
• context is added
• inhibition of the amygdala
• self-soothing and self-regulation: the
balanced and integrated flow of energy and
information through the brain originates
here
Daniel Siegel, The Mindful Brain
Middle Prefrontal Functions
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Bodily Regulation
Attuned Communication
Emotional Balance
Response Flexibility
Empathy
Insight (Self-knowing Awareness)
Fear Modulation
Intuition
Morality
Daniel Siegel, The Mindful Brain
Disconnect from Inner
experience
–
Inexpressible
overwhelming
uncontrollable
crazy
shameful (weak)
terrifying
painful
Alien
Incomprehensible
Kathy Steele, MS
OVERWHELMED
with inner experience
• Shut Down of emotion, disconnect
from sensations, thoughts
• numbing
• dysregulation
• drugs/alcohol
• disconnect from the rest of the body
• isolation
Relieved of Duty
REFERENCES
•
•
•
•
War and The Soul, Edward Tick
Achilles in Vietnam, Jonathan Shay
On Killing, Dave Grossman
Principles of Trauma Therapy,
John Briere and Catherine Scott
• www.johnbriere.com
• Traumatic Stress, van der Kolk, McFarlane, and
Weisaeth
• The Mindful Brain, Daniel Siegel
• One Veteran Speaks, Robert A. Cagle (special order)