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Transcript

Instinctual Trauma Response with Linda Gantt, PhD and Danni Davis, LCSW · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma THEAPIS podcast. My name is go Macpherson.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those who have been impacted by trauma. Here we go
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: five four, three, two and one. Our folks, welcome back
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: to the podcast. Very excited to have my guests today,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Linda Gant and Danny Davis. Linda and Danny, welcome to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: the podcast.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much, guy, Thank you awesome.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: So. Doctor Linda Gant is a co founder of the
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  Speaker 1: ITR Training Institute and helpfotrauma dot com. After closing her
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  Speaker 1: longstanding intensive Trauma Recovery clinics, she now dedicates her efforts
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to expanding the reach of the in Sinctual Trauma Response
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: Protocol to practitioners worldwide. Grounded in the neuroscience, ITR is
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  Speaker 1: a structured, intricative approach that combines part psychology, art, narrative
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  Speaker 1: and somatic therapies. Danny Davis, LSSW brings over thirty years
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: of clinical experience. It's working with children, adolessons and adults,
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  Speaker 1: first responders and couples certified at EMDR and ITR, as
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  Speaker 1: well as a clinically certified sex diventary treatment specialist. She
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  Speaker 1: specializes in trauma treatment disorders. All right, awesome, welcome back
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  Speaker 1: to the podcast.
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  Speaker 3: Linda. That's been a while. Yes, so great to have
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: both of you here.
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  Speaker 1: Before we get going, I want each of you, respectively,
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  Speaker 1: just to share with our audience where you're from originally
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  Speaker 1: and where you are currently.
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  Speaker 3: Danny, why didn't you go first?
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  Speaker 4: Well, I'm originally from the Morgantown area of West Virginia,
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  Speaker 4: a little county right outside of Morgantown called Preston County,
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  Speaker 4: which is going to be interesting because when you hear
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  Speaker 4: where doctor Linda is living now, we have a lot
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  Speaker 4: in common I am, but I in graduate school. I
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  Speaker 4: went to West Virginia University, and in graduate school I
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  Speaker 4: came to Johns Hopkins Hospital to do an internship in
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  Speaker 4: their inpatience psychiatric unit. They're forensic their sexual disorders and
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: they're eating disorders unit. And then I stayed in Baltimore.
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  Speaker 4: So I'm now in Baltimore and have been since nineteen
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  Speaker 4: ninety four.
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  Speaker 3: Wow, awesome, And how about you, Linda.
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  Speaker 2: Well, let's see, I started out in Texas, That's where
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  Speaker 2: I was born, and after I had finished my bachelor's degree,
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  Speaker 2: then I moved to Washington, DC, and I found that
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  Speaker 2: there was a course in art therapy at the Washington
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  Speaker 2: School of Psychiatry, and so I got into that course
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  Speaker 2: and thought, oh, this is where I want to be.
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  Speaker 2: And so fortunately the person who gave me my first
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  Speaker 2: job as an art therapist was none other than lieutenant
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  Speaker 2: whom I'm married. And then we moved to Preston County.
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  Speaker 2: So that's connection that Danny has there. Of Lou was
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  Speaker 2: teaching hypnosis through West Virginia University and Danny took some
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  Speaker 2: courses from him. Is that correct, band.
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: Well, I actually worked with him. I worked at an
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  Speaker 4: outpage or a community mental health center and a mobile
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: crisis center, and so I knew doctor Tennan through that
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: community mental health but I didn't know that he had
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  Speaker 4: this amazing model. I just knew he was a wonderfully
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  Speaker 4: kind man, and everybody thought he was an amazing psychiatrist.
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  Speaker 4: So when I got hooked up with doctor Gant and
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  Speaker 4: I heard that she's living in Preston County and that
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  Speaker 4: she's married to doctor Tennan, I was like, this is crazy,
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  Speaker 4: Like you don't understand. Preston County is a very small,
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  Speaker 4: rural county and so for doctor Gant to be living
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  Speaker 4: there for how many years now? Doctor Gant, and I'm
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: originally from there.
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  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the instinctual trauma response or ITR.
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  Speaker 3: What is it? Linda, why don't you start?
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  Speaker 2: Well, it is a theory that lou and I put
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  Speaker 2: together after many, many years of hard work seeing people
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  Speaker 2: of all different kinds who had different sorts of disorders,
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  Speaker 2: but it actually had a trauma origin to those to
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  Speaker 2: their symptoms and to their complaints, and so piece by
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  Speaker 2: piece we put the thing together. First of all, we
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  Speaker 2: were looking at the fact that you could tell stories
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  Speaker 2: and narrate them and have ale us. In Hollywood, they'd
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  Speaker 2: call it the storyboard. So we have people make their
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  Speaker 2: own storyboards using what we think are the essential universal
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  Speaker 2: components of the instantial response. So we titled it that
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  Speaker 2: for people to understand that this is something that you're
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  Speaker 2: going to see across cultures, across ages, you know, through
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  Speaker 2: year old kids to ninety nine year old people. And
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  Speaker 2: so when we said instinctual, we say that this is
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  Speaker 2: what people need to realize they're not crazy when they're
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  Speaker 2: having these symptoms that they're complaining about, like depression and anxiety,
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  Speaker 2: and panic attects and hearing voices and so forth. When
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  Speaker 2: people are saying these are the things that I experience,
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  Speaker 2: will say yes, because we know that those are symptoms
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  Speaker 2: of trauma. So we put it all together along with
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  Speaker 2: a very interesting part called an externalized dialogue that allows
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  Speaker 2: a person to talk to parts of themselves. So you'll
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  Speaker 2: hear in our work some areas of similarity to other
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  Speaker 2: types of trauma trauma theories, but we think ours comes
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  Speaker 2: together in a kind of unique way. In fact, Danny,
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  Speaker 2: I think you could probably comment on that that this
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  Speaker 2: is something that is we've put together necessary components, but
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  Speaker 2: they don't exactly duplicate what other people are doing.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, But before you respond, Danny, let me just want
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  Speaker 1: to share with our listeners, why are you both here together.
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  Speaker 1: We didn't we didn't solidify that flesh that out.
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  Speaker 4: That's a theme. Okay, yeah, and I'm the i TR
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  Speaker 4: training director.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, yes, okay, So Danny wanted, why don't you respond
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  Speaker 1: to what Linda asked and kind of flesh out give
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  Speaker 1: us an example of what what i TR looks like.
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  Speaker 4: So i TR, which stands for the instinctual Trauma response,
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  Speaker 4: Like doctor Linda said, is the instinctual trauma response is
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  Speaker 4: a biologically hardwired response that all of us humans have,
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  Speaker 4: and we go through this process and the process or
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  Speaker 4: those components are the startle, the thwarted flight, fight, the freeze,
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  Speaker 4: the altered state of consciousness, automatic obedience, and self repair.
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  Speaker 4: And what is really unique about that is because it
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  Speaker 4: is a universal response. When we start, just even the
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  Speaker 4: piece of psycho education in this method, people look at
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  Speaker 4: us and go, how did you know what I experienced?
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  Speaker 4: How did you know what I went through? And what
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  Speaker 4: we talk about and what we tell them is that
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  Speaker 4: this is a universal, biologically hardwired response. We expect this
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  Speaker 4: and this response is a normal response to abnormal situations,
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  Speaker 4: right to things that have not been healthy and for us.
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  Speaker 4: And what we do with those i TR components is
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  Speaker 4: we build what's called there are two unique processes techniques
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  Speaker 4: in the it TR method, and one is what's called
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  Speaker 4: the graphic narrative, and that's where the art therapy informed
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  Speaker 4: piece comes and what doctor Linda said is drawing out
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  Speaker 4: those storyboards. But we use the instinctal trauma response, those
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  Speaker 4: components that startle, that thwarted flight, fight, freeze, altered state
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  Speaker 4: of consciousness, automatic obedience and self repair. We use that
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  Speaker 4: as the structure for the drawings, so somebody will draw
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  Speaker 4: themselves in the startle, in the thwarted flight, fight in
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  Speaker 4: the freeze, and so on. But there's a piece to
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  Speaker 4: that graphic narrative work that's really important, and it's called
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  Speaker 4: the representation. And the representation is what we do as
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  Speaker 4: an ITR therapist. We take all of that information that artwork.
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  Speaker 4: We put the nonverbal aspects of what's happened to somebody,
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  Speaker 4: the body sensations. We put all sorts of robust information
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  Speaker 4: in there. And when we have that all of those
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  Speaker 4: pictures in a linear sequence, and we have all of
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  Speaker 4: that information with all of the body sensations, we then
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  Speaker 4: represent that story with a beginning, a middle, and an end.
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  Speaker 4: And what doctor Linda, you'll hear her say so much
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  Speaker 4: if you visit our website and look at the webinars
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  Speaker 4: and all of our trainings, is that the most important
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  Speaker 4: piece to trauma and resolving trauma symptoms is to be
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  Speaker 4: able to end the store. And then there's another piece,
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  Speaker 4: one other technique that's really unique to the it TR method,
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  Speaker 4: and that's called the externalized dialogue, and that's based on
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  Speaker 4: parts psychology where we really empower the person to talk
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  Speaker 4: from true self to the part of them that got hurt, stuck,
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  Speaker 4: or left behind in the trauma experience. And that is
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  Speaker 4: a really unique process as well, that's unlike any other
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  Speaker 4: trauma methods. Right now, and we invite you, we want
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  Speaker 4: you to come to our website and learn more about this.
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  Speaker 4: But those are the really two big techniques that we
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  Speaker 4: find are so great with resolving trauma symptoms and also
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  Speaker 4: the complications of trauma. What we call victim mythology, the
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  Speaker 4: way that somebody has changed as a result of their
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  Speaker 4: experience in the way they believe what they believe about
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  Speaker 4: themselves in the world around them.
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  Speaker 1: This sounds very interesting to me because it feels to
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  Speaker 1: me like there are a lot of different kind of
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  Speaker 1: modalities coming into play here.
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  Speaker 3: When you talked about the.
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  Speaker 1: Sinctual response or responses, you name several right, fight.
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  Speaker 3: Flight, So.
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  Speaker 1: Are you suggesting or you're not suggesting that someone necessarily
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  Speaker 1: is going to have all of those responses?
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  Speaker 2: Actually, we are yes, you are yes, yes, yes?
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  Speaker 3: Is that so that's so? Whence? Okay, so give us
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  Speaker 3: an example.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, Well, so I don't have pictures in front of
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  Speaker 4: me if I did, I would hold up pictures and
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  Speaker 4: I do a representation for you. But let's just imagine
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  Speaker 4: for a moment that somebody's going about their day and
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  Speaker 4: all is well, but then something in their environment startles
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  Speaker 4: them or causes their body to react, and they go
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  Speaker 4: into the startle, which is a heightened state of alert.
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  Speaker 4: Their muscles tense, their body braces for action, but within
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  Speaker 4: milliseconds their body goes into that flight fight and that's
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  Speaker 4: when adrenaline rushes through their body. Their breathing may change,
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  Speaker 4: become erratic or increase, their heart rate increases because of
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  Speaker 4: that adrenaline, because of that cortisol, but they are not
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  Speaker 4: able to flee or fight, and that's what we call
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  Speaker 4: the thwarted intent. And that's when their body and their
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  Speaker 4: parasympathetic system kicks into action and puts them into the freeze.
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  Speaker 4: And if that is because of a rush of endorphins,
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  Speaker 4: that brings them down into that parasympathetic nervous system, and
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  Speaker 4: that freeze can cause sort of tunnel vision, It can
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  Speaker 4: cause the heart rate to slow, the breathing to slow,
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  Speaker 4: and then the next piece is they go into an
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  Speaker 4: altered state of consciousness. And sometimes you may have heard
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  Speaker 4: people or many times if you've done trauma work, you
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  Speaker 4: may have heard people say I felt like I floated
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  Speaker 4: outside of my body and was watching what happened, or
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  Speaker 4: I went deep inside my body and I went extremely
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  Speaker 4: numb as things happened to my body. I don't even
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  Speaker 4: know what happened. And so then they go through that
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  Speaker 4: altered state of consciousness, but then they go into a
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  Speaker 4: place of automatic obedience, especially if there's a perpetrator or
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  Speaker 4: something happening to them. And automatic obedience is when your
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  Speaker 4: body goes into an unthinking compliance in order to just survive.
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  Speaker 4: But then when that event maybe is over or the
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  Speaker 4: immediate safety concern is no longer there, our bodies all
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  Speaker 4: instinctually go into a place of self repair where we
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  Speaker 4: try to get back to homeostasis, where we try to
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  Speaker 4: get body sensations and the higher executive functioning parts of
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  Speaker 4: our brain to come back online. And self repair can
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  Speaker 4: look a lot of different ways. It can be crying, eating, sleeping, drugs, sex, gambling,
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  Speaker 4: you name it, rocking back and forth, whatever it might
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  Speaker 4: be based on your age or your stage or what's happening.
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  Speaker 4: So we do we theorize, and we find it across
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  Speaker 4: all populations in all ages. That that being able to
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  Speaker 4: explain to somebody what their body experienced through that startle
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  Speaker 4: the worded flight, fight, freeze, altered state of consciousness, automatic obedience,
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  Speaker 4: and self repair. People universally say to us, how did
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  Speaker 4: you know what I experienced?
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  Speaker 1: Are you also suggesting that this holds true for all
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  Speaker 1: types of trauma interpersonal verse shock trauma?
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  Speaker 2: Right, we haven't found any trauma that goes outside this
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  Speaker 2: sort of basic format. Now, sometimes people don't have the words.
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  Speaker 2: Well often, I should say people don't have the words
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  Speaker 2: for what they've experienced. I mean it goes around saying
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  Speaker 2: to people, you know, I had an altered state of
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  Speaker 2: consciousness today? Nobody, So we give them a vocabulary for
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  Speaker 2: what they have experienced, and like Danny says, how did
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  Speaker 2: you know it? Well, we have examples from movies, from novels,
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  Speaker 2: from poetry, from all kinds of places that say, yes,
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  Speaker 2: this is universal.
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  Speaker 1: Now correct me from wrong, But this feels different than
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  Speaker 1: other treatmentalities.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, on being different, but also on being able to
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  Speaker 2: translate our methods into things that other people have talked
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  Speaker 2: about and so that we can say, hey, we're not
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  Speaker 2: so far off of the mainstream that we can't make
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  Speaker 2: a connection that will help other therapists be able to
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  Speaker 2: see what our method does and how easily it can
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  Speaker 2: be applied. Because as Moving is fond of saying, this
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  Speaker 2: is not rocket science.
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  Speaker 3: So if you use example of.
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  Speaker 1: Let's saying someone being mugged, they're attacked there, maybe they're
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  Speaker 1: held down, they're not able.
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  Speaker 5: To flee, But are you saying their body is still
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  Speaker 5: going experiencing that flee in a sense, maybe they can't
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  Speaker 5: even fight.
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  Speaker 4: Well, that's what we call it the thwarted intent, and
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  Speaker 4: that's where the body must freeze. So if you think
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  Speaker 4: about homeostasis, like where we're in that window of tolerance
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  Speaker 4: and our autonomic nervous system is just kind of balancing
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  Speaker 4: back and forth as we need it. But within the
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  Speaker 4: window of tolerance, when we're talking about the instinctual trauma response,
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  Speaker 4: we're talking about startle sins, it's way up in the
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  Speaker 4: sympathetic nervous system, and flight fight is way up in
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  Speaker 4: that sympathetic nervous system. But what doctor Gant and doctor
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  Speaker 4: Tennen have proposed, and it really does hold true, and
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  Speaker 4: we know this from a lot of neuroscience as well,
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  Speaker 4: is that when you can't flee, and you can't fight.
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  Speaker 4: And remember adrenaline and cortisol have raised your heart rate
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  Speaker 4: and you're breathing so high that the endorphins from that
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  Speaker 4: parasympathetic nervous system needs to kick in, and those endorphins
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  Speaker 4: will then bring you down into that freeze so that
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  Speaker 4: you don't have a heart attack or you don't have
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  Speaker 4: a stroke.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 4: But it also does something really amazing from a biological stance,
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  Speaker 4: is that when those endorphins kick in, it prepares the
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  Speaker 4: body for possible injury, right, because this is a primitive response.
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  Speaker 4: So a mugging in today was like the saber tooth
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  Speaker 4: tiger many many thousands of years ago. So when we
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  Speaker 4: go into that freeze, it slows everything down in our
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: body so that if we are injured, we don't bleed
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  Speaker 4: out as fast. So this is a biological response. So
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  Speaker 4: then that freeze then goes into that altered state of consciousness,
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  Speaker 4: then the automatic obedience, and then finally when kind of
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  Speaker 4: you know, things have subsided and there's you know, maybe
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  Speaker 4: the abuse or the situation has ended, then our body
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  Speaker 4: or what we will do instinctally is try to get
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  Speaker 4: back into our window of tolerance and to get back
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  Speaker 4: to homeostasis. So self repair behaviors look like maybe substance use, crying, sleeping, eating,
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  Speaker 4: I mean, we have we see all kinds of different
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  Speaker 4: We see children who bang their head. One of the
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  Speaker 4: big things, and one of the really fascinating things that
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  Speaker 4: we find is that when we're working with people who
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: have self injurious behaviors and cutting. When you've ever worked
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: with anybody who has self injurious behaviors, when you ask them,
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  Speaker 4: were you trying to hurt yourself and they say no,
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  Speaker 4: I was trying to feel something. Again, we'll think about
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  Speaker 4: cutting from a self repair and how that takes a
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: stigma away, how it also maybe keeps people who don't
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  Speaker 4: need to be hospitalized out of the hospital. But one
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  Speaker 4: thing that I hear from parents and children especially who
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: have had cutting or self injurious behaviors is when I
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: explain that the behaviors are from as a self repair behavior,
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  Speaker 4: I literally have parents and children start to cry. It's finally,
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  Speaker 4: after multiple hospitalizations and multiple therapists, you're the first person
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  Speaker 4: who's ever explained it to my parents or to me
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  Speaker 4: in the way that actually makes sense, right.
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  Speaker 3: Right right, Wow, Linda, how.
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  Speaker 1: Would you say, and I realize this is a big question,
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: but give me kind of the thumbnail here, and how
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: would you say that it r differs from other modalities?
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  Speaker 1: And granted, I know there are a lot of other modalities,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: but broad picture, big brushstrokes, how would you say it
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: kind of differentiates itself.
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  Speaker 2: Well, for one thing, it can be applied very quickly. Now,
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  Speaker 2: I know a lot of people will say, listen, Linda,
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  Speaker 2: you just can't rush in there and start doing trauma
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  Speaker 2: therapy without having some preparation for people. We prepare them
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  Speaker 2: and we educate them as to what's going to go on.
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  Speaker 4: Yep.
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  Speaker 2: But one of the big differences, a big brush kind
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: of difference, is that we minimize the talking. It's not
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: that we don't talk, it's that we had the person
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  Speaker 2: making images. And it doesn't matter if you don't have
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  Speaker 2: to be an artist. We may this so that people
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  Speaker 2: who are your average joke can do the method. And
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: so I think those are two of the major things
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  Speaker 2: that make the difference between our work and other people's work. Now,
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: when we hear people when we had at bricks and
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: Mortar set up there in Morgantown, would get calls from
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: people who say, you know, I heard about your program
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: and I wanted to know more about it, and so
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: as we would be doing the interview in order to
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: get enough information to see if the person might be
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: a candidate for our work, then we would say well,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: how long have you been in therapy? Are you in
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: therapy now? And we get stories like yeah, I've been
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: in therapy with this therapist for five years. I said, well, okay,
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  Speaker 2: so what kinds of traumas did you process? Haven't done
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: any too hot to handle? And our response is no,
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: it's not too hot to handle. If you went through it,
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: we can go through it again with you, but not
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: relive it.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: That is a very important aspect of our work. We
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: don't want people to have an ab reaction. We don't
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: want people to leave our office crime. We want them
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: to leave feeling oh we're to relieve.
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, go ahead, Danny, Yeah I've got something to say.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: I love what doctor Linda said. I think one of
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: the things that's really different for us is that we
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: very quickly put trauma stories in a linear sequence. We
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: are able to put the body sensations to it, the
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: words to it, put a beginning, a middle, and then
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: finally and most importantly, an end to their story very quickly,
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: and being able to do that really reprograms that story
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: or reprocesses that story so it finally feels like it's over.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: Because that is what you know, is that's why we
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: have the symptoms. Those are the symptoms of PTSD or
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: complex PTSD, is that it isn't about remembering, it's that
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: they're reliving it. And when you're able to put something
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: in that linear sink cast and we draw those pictures
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: from a hidden observer perspective, and we speak in the
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: past tense, So when we're representing a story to somebody,
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: let's say in their fifties, but it happened when they
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: were eight years old, it happened to eight year old,
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: it happened to eight year old Linda, and we do
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: the story from an eight year old perspective and pictures
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: are drawn from that hidden observer so that they can
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: see eight year old Linda in each of those stages
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: or those components of the instinctual trauma response. And what
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: really differs us and untrained in a lot of different
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: the trauma methods is that this is quick, it's fast,
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: and you see immediate relief after that representation. And what
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: I can say over and over and over again is
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: that when we measure how symptomatic somebody is before we
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: do a graphic narrative work, and they may be at
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: severe and we use certain assessments to do that, and
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: then we do after they're done with their dramas and
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: we do a representation and we reassess them. We see
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: time in and time out, people going from severe clinical
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: symptoms of PTSD to subclinical.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: So let me ask you something.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: We don't hear about the body traumas in the body.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: If we go with that and believe that, how are you, folks,
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: how is ichar working with that? When you talk about
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: creating these linear images and storyboards, as.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: It were, we're putting what's called the non verbal experience
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: in there, and that's the body experience. So in that startle,
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: muscles tense, the breathing becomes erratic, any other body sensations
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: they may have in that thwarted flight fight, adrenaline is
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: rushing through the body causing the heart rate.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: What do you mean you're putting that in there? You're
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: writing that in this picture.
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: What in the story in your station? But they are
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: also they can also put that in their drawings through
• 23:33
  Speaker 4: body sensation pictures labeling the body, and you will see
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: it draw You know what is amazing. And I'm not
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: an art therapist, so doctor Linda can really talk astutely
• 23:42
  Speaker 4: about this, but art is so amazing because the body,
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: the pieces of bodywork come out in the artwork. It's
• 23:51
  Speaker 4: really amazing. But we really get that body, the body
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: sensations in there through the drawings and through what we
• 23:58
  Speaker 4: call the non verbal labeling the non verbal experience, and
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: what we mean by that is that's the body experience
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: because we know that trauma isn't coded through words, right
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: because of the way that the brain functions. It's coded
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: and coded in fragmented memory, through implicit memory, through site, sounds, taste, touch, smells.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: So we're asking them about that implicit memory and we're
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: putting that into that story so that when we represent
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: it it's robust. And the pictures also match that as well.
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: And a wonderful thing about it is you can process
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: preverbal trauma when people didn't have words for their experience,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: but they had those experiences in the body. And so
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: if you look at the symptoms that people talk about,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: you'll see that they match very well with what we
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: say is the instinctual drama response. Yeah.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Well, let me just remind everyone speaking with doctor Lennigant
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and Mary Carlson.
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: Danny, I'm sorry Mary's on there, but Danny Davis.
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, here.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Of the it TR Training Institute. So what are you
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: offering in terms of teachings, help assistance? Are we taught
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: it sounds like you're working with clients. Are you also
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: working with other therapists to teach him about this?
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Oh?
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, we train therapists. We also trained first responders.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: So what we've done is we've taken our clinical model
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: and adapted it to a peer support model as well.
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: Because what we found was that I was treating a
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: lot of police officers and firefighters using this method, with
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: the it TR method, and we decided to start inviting
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: first responders then to our trainings as well. And between
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: treatment and trainings, we found that our first responders were
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: going out and actually using the psycho education piece. So
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: when they were going on you know, calls or after
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: a critical incident, they were explaining to people the ITR
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: and doing the psycho education piece. And it was amazing
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: because it was starting to change the culture in the
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: first responder world, where I was starting to get a
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: lot more referrals for treatment like hey, you helped so
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: and so and he's all better now, like how did
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: you do that? But then what we decided to do
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: was we also decided to make this into to really
• 26:29
  Speaker 4: adapt this into a peer support model. So we're training therapist,
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: we're training paraprofessionals, and we're training first responders because we
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: want to have an exponential impact in the trauma world,
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: not just the one off which is really important work,
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: super important work, but doctor Gant, doctor Tennan Mary who's
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: a co owner, and myself, we want to have an
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: exponential impact on trauma. So training the masses would be
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: where it's really our dream.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: So art, how do people learn more about what you're doing?
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Where can they go?
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: The website is helpful trauma dot com and on that
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: website we have a lot of little short videos that
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: you can prue your way through. We have well Danny
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: tell them about the how the course yeah goes, yeah, yeah.
• 27:25
  Speaker 4: So we have three of our main courses, Accelerated Traumatology
• 27:29
  Speaker 4: Course one oh one, which is an introductory course which
• 27:31
  Speaker 4: is going to give you all the basics the psycho
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: education and all the basics of the ITR and introduction
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: to our techniques and an introduction of way to the
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: way we kind of roll this method out and how
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: flexible it is and it can be used with individuals
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: and with groups. But then we go into the Accelerated
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: Traumatology Course one oh two which is for simple traumas,
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: and Accelerated Traumatology Course one oh three is for complex trauma.
• 27:58
  Speaker 4: But these are our self paced courses. However, there is
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: a huge live component because in addition to the self
• 28:06
  Speaker 4: paced courses, we also offer weekly consultation calls where people
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: show up and they present their work and they get
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: clinical consultation. It's not necessarily supervision because we have to
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: be careful with supervision, but clinical consultation and instruction on
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: how to really become more proficient in this method. So
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: there's a lot of those are the basic courses. We
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: also have other courses as well, and we offer monthly
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: webinars for free, and doctor Linda just started a three
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: part series one on working with DD because she's an
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: expert with did wow.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, we'll have this linked up the show
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: notes page at the Trauma Theapist podcast dot com once again.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: That website is help for Trauma dot Com. Fascinating, really
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: it is, and it's so inspiring. And as I'm listening
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: to talk, I'm feeling that again.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: It feels they're.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Kind of a river of different modalities coming together with
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: the work you're doing. And I love the idea of
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: putting together this linear process for what oftentimes is chaos,
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: sheer chaos. Right, Yes, but look, I love to have
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: you both back. I mean, you're both so friggin inspiring.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: I love it.
• 29:35
  Speaker 4: We'll show you pictures next time, yes, please do, Dan,
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: he was great meeting you, Linda was great seeing you again,
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: and we'll be in touch.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: To meet you.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: Thank you, guys, all right, all right,