Trauma As A Disruption Of Connection

“Trauma is a chronic disruption of connection” – Stephen Porges

 

“We matter deeply to one another for our very well being…our social interactions play an important role in the everyday regulation of our internal biological systems throughout our lives…we cannot do without significant ‘others’ and remain in health.” (De Zulueta, p.44)

 

All children require warm, consistent, and reliable caregiving for optimal development. In contrast, childhood experiences of loss, neglect and maltreatment can have a profound effect upon young children’s development (including their relational, emotional, behavioural, and cognitive functioning. For example:

·       Relational – Trauma shapes how a child gets their needs met.

What does their proximity-seeking look like, or their avoidance?

 

·       Emotional – when a child has experienced trauma their nervous system is activated in the context of threat.

Reactivity is key to survival and happens at a subconscious level.

Fight/Flight, Dissociate, Internalising and/or externalising behaviours?

 

·       Cognitive – The impact of trauma on a child’s functioning can be deemed acquired neurodivergence.

 

 

“recovery can take place only within the context of relationships: it cannot occur in isolation” – Judith Herman

 

When a child has been consistently in receipt of an attuned and reparative relationship, they are more able to change their previous expectations of relationships. (University of East Anglia, Secure Base; Howe 1996, Wilson et al 2003, Cairns 2003, Beek and Schofield 2004).

Via this connection and a new sense of safety within relationship, a child can re-pattern their nervous system, amplify healthy neural connections, create a new story/ sense of self.

When a child is freed up from survival mode they can move into thrive – including reflective responses, resilience, creativity and the capacity to maximise their potential.

 

WIN

Attachment has historically been seen as infant behaviour directed towards the caregiver. However, we now recognise it as a form of connection that arises out of the caregiver’s responses to a child’s needs:

·       Every child needs experiences of attunement to their physical, psychological and emotional needs. A lack of attuned caregiving leaves a child to manage their own survival needs, this reduces their energy for cognitive and social-emotional development.

·       Attunement is a timely and empathic response to a child’s needs even when expressed through dysregulated behaviours. It involves a reflective relational right brain to right brain response to a child’s needs and experiences.

·       “Children need attunement to feel secure and to develop well, and throughout our lives we need attunement to feel close and connected.” Dan Siegel.

·       Attachment is a type of psychobiological attunement that is required throughout life. (De Zulueta).

·       Attuned parenting is built upon the capacity to reflect upon the child’s underlying needs rather than react to their behaviour.

 

 

A healthy attachment figure needs to be a consistent, co-regulating caregiver, with the capacity to attune to the child’s needs:

• Available – physically and emotionally
• Consistent, reliable, trustworthy
• Empathic understanding – sensitive to the child’s perspective

The caregiver needs to provide responses that are Timely, Practical/Physical, Empathic/Emotional

Children who have experienced trauma require a higher level of co-regulation to soothe their nervous system – oxytocin has been described as “a physiological metaphor for safety.” Co-regulation conveys a sense of “All is well.”

 

What Gets in The Way?

·       Child – narratives and strategies that the child has learnt to feel safe in the past.

·       Parent – assumptions, judgements, anxieties/stress, own childhood history, rescuing behaviour.

 

WIGO – What Is Going On ?

WIN – What Is Needed ?

Noticing, reflecting on and decoding the child’s/own narratives and strategies

Ruptures and dysregulation provide opportunities for repair –reparative experiences, reparative narratives.

Self-care, self-awareness, reflective process

The majority of our Processing happens swiftly and unconsciously -a reaction “reactivity.” Honed and strengthened. Self-awareness helps us to understand our distorted patterns and facilitates choice and change.