Important Topics

Neurological Approaches with Abuse and Trauma Victims

Emily was a very intelligent young lady with a great sense of humor who had become depressed as a result of past abuse. By the time Emily arrived at New Haven she had also begun cutting herself and had developed an eating disorder—all reactions to the trauma of her past abuse.

In treating trauma and abuse victimes, the therapist’s first job is to develop a relationship where there is love, safety and trust. Without that foundation, not much can happen. So the first step in therapy is to provide a milieu in which the patient feels safe enough to disclose. Telling one’s story of abuse activates the negative emotions and beliefs that are encoded in the associated memories. But these scary, painful emotions and beliefs are now being felt in an environment of safety, support and love. The pain of the past is incongruent with the safety of the present, creating disparity.

Theorist Joe Dispenza explains that this disparity causes new emotions to be encoded with the old memories to, in a sense, neurologically reset emotions associated with past abuse. This process is repeated until the new emotions render the memory of that abuse no longer threatening. Treatment innovator John Briere talks about the related concept of counter conditioning wherein emotional responses to abuse fade when those responses are repeatedly not reinforced. Engaging memories of abuse in these new ways creates new neurological connections to past events. As patients learn and do more positive things for themselves and others in a safe interpersonal and milieu-based context, they create new neurological connections, feelings, attitudes and ways of being

It was a while before Emily felt safe enough to tell me about all three traumatic abuse situations she had experienced. On by one, we worked through her memories of abuse using the techniques described above. After we had processed and re-conditioned these memories in the safe context we’d created, Emily and I decided it was time to put closure on the process.

Emily made a symbolic three-headed “monster” out of clothes and things around the house and wrote a letter to the three men who had hurt her. We took her “monster” out to the wilderness and she read her letter and put it in the monster’s hand. Emily then destroyed the monster and left it in the woods to establish that the monster was in the past and she was done carrying it with her in the present. Emily credits this event for putting lasting closure on her post-traumatic distress.

Emily is one of many young women I’ve worked with who have been liberated from disabling post-traumatic symptoms of abuse using these approaches. Neurologically re-conditioning memories can be a powerful therapy when administered in a safe and loving therapeutic milieu.

Brad Rentfro, LPC, is a therapist at New Haven RTC, a member of the InnerChange family of treatment programs for adolescent girls and young women. Brad may be reached at BradR@NewHavenRtc.com.