In this weeks Therapist Hot Tips, we cover 6 Phases of Trauma Therapy, 5 Fixes for Weird Thought and Mood, and 4 Brain Fog Inefficiencies.
6 Phases of Trauma Therapy
In this Therapist Hot Take, we take a super fast look at the important first 5 phases of Trauma Therapy before we get on to phase 6, the actual Trauma.
[Trauma Therapy, more detail LINK]
1) Understanding Trauma:
- Trauma is hurt, physical of psychic, and mostly we heal from it without issue.
- Everything changes us forever. We can guide the next change, even changing prior changes.
2) Balance Neurotransmitters:
- Our brain uses thought and memories to rebalance brain chemistry
- Often recycling mistakes, fear, sadness and or flashbacks
3) Stabilise Environment:
- You can’t live in trauma (danger) and then try to heal the past trauma
4) Stabilise Self:
- Learn independent ways to determine good, acceptable and bad
- When we rely on other people telling us what is right or wrong, we are not stable, we rely on them for our sense of self.
5) Mood management:
- Learn your moods purposes, what they are for and what they are trying to tell you
- Learn how to stabilise your mood. Your mood is there to inform you, not decide for you. You are not your mood.
- Recognise when you are in a spiral mood and how to break it
- Learn when to take medication because deliberate thoughts and behaviours isn’t working
6) Trauma Therapy
- It is now safe to look at the past so that you can understand it
- Separate out the assumptions that you used to explain what you experienced
- We create narratives to understand facts. There are several narratives that can fit the facts. Did you pick one that is helpful for you?
- Learn from the past. If it should repeat, what would you do differently now? What is a better management plan? What was outside of your control, and how would you recover from that now?
- To move on, you need to let go. You couldn’t let go before, because you didn’t have the safe space, wisdom to understand, ability to complete the memories. Now you can.
5 Fixes for Weird Mood / Thoughts
In this Therapist Hot Take, we take a super fast look at the important Top 5 Fixes for Weird Mood / Thoughts. These are in order of preference – before you panic, go through these and see which is out, fix that first. Often you’ll find that your problems ease up.
1) Meds
Did you take your medication? If you didn’t, go and take them now.
2) Food
Do you need to eat or did you eat the wrong thing? Low blood sugar and food intolerances can cause weird thinking and moods.
3) Fatigue
Do you need to sleep or take a break? Poor sleep can leave us running on adrenaline, which can decrease our ability to think clearly and our reactivity to situations. This can increase anxiety and panic attacks.
4) Sensory
Is the environment too hectic of still? We sometimes need more stimulus to help us feel comfortable, or less if we are overwhelmed. If you can, adjust the sensory inputs down first, then up if the environment is odd.
5) Threat
Is there a clear and present danger you need to address? If so, that is likely why you are feeling odd. While this is the least likely reason, it is a viable possibility that should be checked before you enact your Safety Plan.
Brain Fog Inefficiencies
In this Therapist Hot Take, we take a super fast look at Brain Fog Inefficiencies.
We can get Brain Fog because our blood sugar is low, or we are out of Dopamine [ADHD LINK], or we have eaten a food that we are intolerant to [Nutrition LINK], or due to a side effect of medication. Brain Fog feels like it is harder to think that you normally can, or that you keep making needless mistakes.
Brain Fog is very inefficient, causing errors of understanding, judgement, action, mood and belief in your self.
1) Cognitive Glitches
Poor Understanding, poor solutions, inefficient methods, fixing mistakes
2) Clumsiness
Dropping things, hurting self, walking into doors, falling over
3) Emotional Dysregulation
Fear and Anger miss-responses, overreacting, stress, anxiety/panic attacks
4) Self Doubt
Checking for mistakes that sometimes exist, but still get missed