BATTLE BRAIN

(Debilitates War Zone Vets and Contaminates Their Families)

* Traumatic experiences cause an activation of survival mechanisms in all organisms. In the wild, many animals are constantly threatened by multiple predators, and even after an attack many can be found routinely grazing and socializing. Do they get PTSD? Why don't they? How do animals and humans differ?

* Humans are able to look backwards and forward; we create virtual realities. When virtual reality "locks on" or we attempt to avoid it, the result is Battle Brain. The re-firing of virtual reality neurons causes neuroplasticity (change in neuron connections, shape or distribution) and brain form/function is altered. Battle Brain can result from a single experience or from a series of sub-threshold traumatic events, and change one's everyday perceptions. .

• Battle Brain is a contagious condition and mirror neurons are the medium of transmission. Marital partners and family members do become contaminated!

• Interventions must slow up or shut off the re-firing and/or establish competing neural pathways (rewiring).

• Constraint induced interventions, regulated by one's self and/or others, establishes conditions for the rewiring of multiple regions of the brain.

RE-FIRE vs. REWIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lilac Springs has the capacity to offer 3-day retreats to address problems related to "re-firing and rewiring."

Massage                                               Psychoeducational

Hypnotherapy                                     Relaxation

Biofeedback                                         Affect Modulation

Equine Therapy                                  Cognitive Restructuring

Group Therapy                                   Trauma Narrative

Family Therapy                                   In life Sensitization

Yoga                                                      Conjoint Therapy

Enhance Feelings of Trust and Safety 

TRAUMA FORMULATION and INTERVENTION

Trauma – a disordered psychological or behavioral state resulting from
mental stress, emotional stress or physical injury.

 We hold that:

·         Individuals emerge from trauma are not to be judged on their methods of survival.

·         One does not decide to use survival skills, rather, survival skills, particularly those related to fear/dread/, primarily operate at the pre-conscious and subconscious.

·         Survival skills are best represented by a double edged sword; after a traumatic event some individuals are able to return the sword to its scabbard, while other unknowingly carry the sword around and wound themselves and others.

·         Unscabbard survival skills always interfere with thriving skills.

·         Conscious awareness of preconscious and subconscious brain functions is necessary for the management and control of survival mechanisms.

·         As the mental functioning can affect the body, so too can the body affect the mental functioning.

·         As perception can influence our experiencing of the world, so to can our world experiences influence out perceptions. 

·         Reliving, discussing and journaling traumatic events can activate the same brain circuits as actual events, and can inadvertently strengthen neural pathways, and extreme caution should be exercised if these techniques are used.

·         Warriors differ from non-warriors, but reconnection with others and to themselves is of vital importance.

·         The warrior edge/skills are not be diminished through self care.

·         A three – five day program can be the first steps for an individual to learn to “…take their time.”

Trauma can occur:

·         directly to an individual as a consequence of threatened or real physical/emotional assault;

·         through witnessing upsetting events;

·         through responding to or caring for victims of violent events;

·         through vicariously identifying with a loved one who is in a life struggle;

·         through “virtually” imagining what you, and/or loved one is going through presently or might have to go through at some point in the future.

War, tornadoes, assault, abuse, disease, illness, line of duty death, line of duty injury etc. represent limited examples; like a pebble thrown into a pond, traumatic events can:

·         directly hit individual   

·         engulf individuals in the splash and backwash

·         create waves/ripples that effect individuals away from the impact, but in the water

·         effect individuals arriving in rescue crafts

·         upset individual standing on shore

·         cause extreme upset to individuals who are only receiving second hand communications about the event. 

When a traumatic event occurs certain individuals develop what might be described as a mental shadow.  For some the shadow:

·         is hardly noticed;

·         becomes a vivid and foreboding presence that stretches out before them constantly;

·         appears intermittently, and only under certain conditions; its sudden/dramatic appearance is often surprising, upsetting and confusing. 

Living well, and to our fullest, in the presence of trauma related shadow(s) is a possible and need not be a hugely complex task.  When an individual’s innate capacity to deal with trauma fails, it is sometimes necessary to utilize professionally sound and scientifically based interventions. 

It is imperative to understand that traumatic events, and memories
related them need not be stored in our brain traumatically.

To prevent the traumatic storage of memories it is necessary to:

·         resolve issues related to the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis that sometimes causes a destructive pattern of neural/hormonal activity;

·         to intervene into the “worry circuit” i.e. the orbital frontal cortex > anterior cingulate gyrus > caudate nucleus > thalamus pathway;

·         assist in the development of self-directed and therapist/other facilitated neural restructuring that “creates” and strengthens adaptive new pathways i.e. dorsal prefrontal cortex > basal ganglia (medial globus pallidus, lateral global pallidus, subthalamic nucleus).