The Childhood Trauma/CPTSD/ACEs Group

Community and Side Projects
#105

I agree! It disappoints me something so sacred by Sapien is being used for easy revenue

I messaged earlier why I crave for this - my account actually was made because I couldn’t resist joining this group - but I will say I don’t know what life really is because my entire life has been a dominion of complex ptsd. And then other separated ptsds and then more and more - it’s relentless and it will continue to be so even though I am aware it’s a cycle

When people ask me what do I hope for after trauma work is “ over “ I always say I don’t know- it would be an actual rebirth for my brain and body. I would be very different. Which is exciting and the only flicker I use to keep on going and not pull the plug

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#106

For those of you who have submitted PMs to me give me a day or two to read through them. I have a lot going on right now and want to have the space to genuinely give each and every one my full attention

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#107

I spent some time away from this thread and concept because it was the main topic in my life for a long time – I needed a break.

I did come away with many new ideas, found many new resources for the field, and came up with some ideas on how to better separate the NFT and public field.

The NFT would simply be based on the public field – which will be receiving all my attention – but have fantastical elements that are unnecessary to the full elimination of CPTSD.

A user mentioned something like being able to invite certain concepts like Fae, Dragons, Angels and other beings into their lives to form their own spiritual family. That is definitely not scientific, or necessary, but it is a fantastical idea. I believe that is what NFTs are for – they’re not necessary, but they’re definitely fun to work with. I believe this would be the main dividing factor between the two.

I am working now on the document with a fresh perspective and will post it when its ready.

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#108

I believe the posting of many studies and scientific data will help in highlighting the importance of certain subjects and in the creation of the field. So you will be seeing as much of that as we can create.

I am pulling much from the work of Teppo Holmvqist, a brilliant therapist I had the opportunity to work with. His written material contains many studies and a great bibliography.

I have to do a deep dive on Sapien’s older brain videos to see just how exact he can be in targeting different areas of the brain because there are a lot of interesting things we can do with that subject.

Deconstruction of Eternity Thinking:

One of the most consistent symptoms of CPTSD are emotional flashbacks.

One of the most consistent qualities of an emotional flashback is eternity thinking.

An excerpt from Pete Walker’s Site on Managing Flashbacks:

Deconstruct eternity thinking: in childhood, fear and abandonment felt endless - a safer future was unimaginable. Remember the flashback will pass as it has many times before.

Eternity thinking and other expectations dictate a lot of our behaviors. When caught in an emotional flashback, its difficult to believe it will end.

Even when we’re in a more normal state of consciousness, we often find ourselves expecting bad things to happen.

Social psychology has long ago proven that expectations influence our perception and if you manage successfully to create expectation for something to happen, it becomes real. Expectations created by perception, on the other hand, create sensations. As an example, physical pain is one of the rare emotions that is not created exclusively by your brain. However, it is still influenced by your expectations. Mere expectation of pain has been proven to activate both pain-related regions and expectation-related brain circuits. When expected pain is then manipulated, expectations of decreased pain significantly decrease the intensity of both the subjective experience of the pain and activity in pain-related brain regions (Koyama, et al., 2005).”

I believe a concept dealing directly with expectations would be invaluable. It would help in stopping emotional flashbacks and also lead the user to a greater quality of life. It is a core part of CPTSD, so I believe it deserves special consideration.

Neuroscience has discovered that both perception and imagination share the same neural circuits for delivering information further into the brain. Furthermore, both perception and imagination also excite neurons for learning in exactly the same way. This means we don’t experience our thoughts only in our mind, but also in our body too. When you imagined that person rejecting you, your mind and body treated the experience as if it was actually happening.
(Berns, 2010; Jabbi, Bastiaansen & Keysers, 2008; Oosterhof, Tipper & Downing, 2012).”

I know for myself and many others with harsh inner critics, I am always expecting bad things to happen and coupling that with a very active imagination, I oftentimes don’t even try. The emotional effect of even thinking about doing something creates so much terror I just opt out.

I believe an aspect of positive imagining of oneself and their abilities to cope in situations would be very effective.

I know there are fields that eliminate fear, but with CPTSD fear and trauma can become so entrenched that I can still rationalize not doing something even if I have the emotional resources to do it. I’ve been hardwired and trained to expect negative things to happen. It takes a long time to unlearn this via indirect routes, so I would like a direct approach to this.

Any time the person obeys the emotional response that is perceived to protect them or give them satisfaction, the brain will release chemicals that strengthen the emotional association of the filter. This way the brain rewards the person for having predictable patterns of behavior, regardless of how “good” those patterns are. For instance, while from a purely intellectual standpoint smoking may kill you, the fact that you continue doing it allows your brain to get more effective at what it does. This is also why it is so much harder to convince someone who has been upholding a specific opinion for a long time. Every time the person defends his position, the emotional connection just becomes stronger! For instance, it has been found that just presenting evidence against anti-vaccination to people just made them more entrenched in their position. (Cooper, Heron & Heward, 2007; Miltenberger, 2008; Nyhan, et al., 2014).”

The brain loves to default to habitual behaviors and maintain homeostasis. This is dangerous if you have trauma behaviors. I believe a strong component of rewarding new behaviors by providing pleasurable emotions/chemicals is a great way to accelerate the rewiring of the brain.

Decoupling Trauma From Self:

I touched on this briefly with resilience: how it is not just an innate quality, but a skill.

Jeffrey Schwartz, a famous psychiatrist, works primarily with OCD patients and the first thing he does in his work is show them pictures of their brain.

He identifies brain circuits that are overactive and tells them “It’s not you, it’s your brain!” He instructed them that whenever they felt that compulsion to act out their OCD, that they go and do a pleasurable task. In the course of 6 weeks they discovered that they had rewired their brain.

Before, when the brain felt that compulsion to act out OCD, only a small part of the brain would light up. After associating it with several pleasurable activities they discovered that compulsion now lit up several different areas of the brain. Those with OCD now had more choice on how to behave. Rather than behaving from compulsion, they could choose to do something else.

It has been especially helpful to see my trauma based behaviors not as coming from me, but just being functions of habit and brain chemistry. The real, authentic self wouldn’t behave this way.

This is also critical in disabling toxic shame. You have the option to not fault yourself, but to fault your brain.

Truly, it is your brain and patterns of behavior you’ve learned to survive. Its as much about changing the emotions (which we have several fields for) as it is about unlearning and relearning better skills. Nothing teaches that as of yet. Certainly, if you’re more positive its a great place to begin learning new skills. Some survival based skills can be so deeply embedded and underlie everything you do that they are not simply treated by more positivity.

Where this will be relevant in the field is giving the user an awareness of when they begin to slip into deep, compulsive behavior. At the moment this happens, a blast of emotion or action potential, or brain refreshing or something novel should become available. From here the user can better choose their next actions.

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#109

yes. This is what Daniel Goleman referred to in his book. He says :" …even thoughts that had seemingly neutral content were shaded with a negative emotional tone".

I know for myself and many others with harsh inner critics, I am always expecting bad things to happen and coupling that with a very active imagination, I oftentimes don’t even try. The emotional effect of even thinking about doing something creates so much terror I just opt out. I believe an aspect of positive imagining of oneself and their abilities to cope in situations would be very effective.

Sapien has different fields such as Brain refresher and positive power waves, etc. These two fields that I mentioned above are his recent work on Patreon. But still I can’t say they make us able to experience positive imagining of ourselves. Goleman says : There are two major streams of self-awareness: “me,” which builds narratives about our past and future; and “I,” which brings us into the immediate present. The “me,” as we’ve seen, links together what we experience across time. The “I,” in stark contrast, exists only in the raw experience of our immediate moment. The “I,” our most intimate sense of our self, reflects the piecemeal sum of our sensory impressions—particularly our body states. “I” builds from our brain’s system for mapping the body via the insula.
What I experienced from those two fields was related to present moment. And they didn’t help with having a positive imagining of myself. Those fields just helped me to have a positive state of mind for a short time. Maybe if I listen to those fields for a longer time, I see their whole positive benefits. However I think when “I” is bonded to “me” so tightly and the number of flashbacks to bad events of life is high for those who have experienced CPTSD, these fields and the other fields such as “repel negativity”, “emotional release”, PTSD, happiness, forgiveness, self esteem, self love, self respect, archetype of parental love, etc. don’t have the exact effect that we’re looking for. Because those fields are like pieces of a puzzle or let me say pieces of multiple puzzles. So we need something that on one hand integrates the effects of those fields in order to make them work synergistically, on the other hand we need some new fields that cover the lack, based on the new studies that you’ve mentioned in multiple posts.

And for those who need to be convinced that CPTSD differ from PTSD :slightly_smiling_face:
First they should be open to new ideas, second they should pay attention to the scientific documents. As I said before these fields are not the same. Let me give you an instance. Captain has produced different fields for hair. Are all of them the same? You can accept easily that they are not the same, just because you’re more familiar with those fields. :heart:

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#111

We just spent an entire thread explaining how this condition is different and requires a whole different set of fields.

Your comments are already reflected above with others believing the same.

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#113

Hi everyone,

This topic resonates with me and my experience. Just wondering if there is still a spot for me to join? Thank you :)

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#114

Yes there is, I will invite you soon.

#115

I spent most of the day yesterday researching Sebern Fisher’s book: Neurofeedback in the Treatment of Developmental Trauma - Calming the Fear-Driven Brain.

I want to go ahead with the proposal of the Neurofeedback idea and see if Captain is able to engineer the field in a way that it can progressively bring the frequencies of the brain to a normal level.

There are definitely good guidelines for calming the brain, but there are always outliers. For example, most people will respond quite well to a certain range of frequencies, but some will not and this can create scenarios such as re-experience of trauma, extreme anger, etc. There is always the possibility that given the right set of information, the ability to deal with outliers, and various case studies, we can make a field thats better than most human neurofeedback practitioners.

It is something I want to try at least because there is a wonderful range of benefits to it, if we can get it right. There are numerous case studies for the application of Neurofeedback, and various journals detailing working with patients from beginning to end of their treatments with the exact frequencies that are rewarded and inhibited.

I reread the book and I particularly identified with many of the descriptions found within. Like this:

My emphasis here is on the child’s experience or perception of having no mother,
of being motherless. Clearly babies can be successfully nurtured by their fathers, grandparents, adoptive parents, and other caregivers—which is why we don’t often see these children or adults in our offices. More often we see the after-affects of the felt rupture between baby and mother, and, as proposed, it is this disorganizing attachment disruption that is the core of developmental trauma. The experience of motherlessness, of profound helplessness, leaves the completely vulnerable child in the throes of daily, unrelenting fear for his survival. All too often motherlessness allows, even invites, assaults on the child. The core trauma may not be the assault(s) itself, however terrible, but the absence of the mother, physically or emotionally, to prevent, address, or repair it. A significant subset of these patients, particularly those with mothers who suffered from mental or physical illness, learn to blame themselves for their mother’s condition or death. This patient organizes her sense of self and other around this belief, which is, as we will see, deeply etched in patterns in her brain. When it is the mother herself who attacks her child, the child has no body to turn in to, no way to escape. The whole of the universe has turned against this child. When she manages to survive physically, she must still fight for emotional and psychological survival, and, in all too many instances, for the rest of her life.
Children not held in the minds of their mothers are lost, forgotten. Being held in
the mind of the mother is the original holding environment, an experience that most of my patients have never had. Several adults with whom I have worked have described being in constant state of free fall, backwards through a black hole. They are themselves black holes and so, often, are their mothers. It is less a metaphor than a transcription of state. One patient had a revealing dream early in her neurofeedback training. She dreamt that she was approaching her mother eagerly, but when she got to her, she saw that her mother was only a cardboard cutout. She walked by the cutout into empty, dark space. These are, I think, images of the energetic field of motherlessness, which leaves patients not just with the sense that they are alone, but that they don’t exist. A patient said recently, “Before I came here, I didn’t have a body.” In Chapter 2 we explore the focal structures in the brain that underwrite the embodied sense of self. This patient did not experience herself in her mind or in her body. She had yet to discover that the hand she held up before her face belonged to her

At various points in my life I literally had no sense of self. After some 60 sessions of Neurofeedback I am still a fairly dysfunctional adult, but so much better than what I was. I believe we can work with the brain and use its responses to figure out the best range of frequencies for it. This can be done progressively, very slowly for us to measure the positive and negative effects. It would be cheaper than sitting in a Neurofeedback therapist’s chair, and by collectively gaining knowledge from all of us, could be much faster and more effective.

There are descriptions of exactly which points on the head to target, much like The Outlook Retrainer, which is based on the God Helmet.

index

There are protocols that target all sorts of things, and a general guideline for measuring and then raising and lowering specific frequencies. This could be guided by higher intelligences as well. Captain seems to be able to target very specific aspects of the brain as well, so we will see.

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#116

I have tried neuroptimal neurofeedback before https://neuroptimal.com/
Have you tried that one?

#117

I haven’t tried it yet, but I was looking at the at home headsets for inspiration. They may not be the most in-depth, but they’re definitely the easiest to implement.

I’ve only recently decided to reinstate Neurofeedback into this field so I’ll be doing further research with exact frequencies for proposal.

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#118

Perhaps combined with biofeedback from heartmath https://www.heartmath.com/ if possible :slight_smile:

#119

If it is as a smart audio/mandala it could probably have most frequencies and even learn to kind of tune in its own frequencies that it find most useful over time or something simmilar :thinking:

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#120

Yes! With direct feedback from the unconscious/higher self and a very slow pace since it can be played anytime rather than setting an appointment. Maybe going up or down just 0.1hz in either direction each play, then evaluating how the user feels and continuing to trend up or down as necessary.

With enough people the field would be able to handle all sorts of various brain types and ailments.

Neurofeedback is useful for far more than PTSD, it can help with ADHD, pain management, eating disorders and all sorts of things. The benefits of having such a field would be tremendous.

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#122

Not certain if I’m allowed to share anything, or what can be shared, but I’ve got a good feeling that this will be created :slight_smile: .

The details will be worked on later.

What recovery looks like, our goals from Pete Walker’s CPTSD book:

you progress in recovering from the multidimensional wounding of Cptsd:
[1] as increasing mindfulness decreases your unconscious 4F acting out,
[2] as your critic shrinks,
[3] as your brain becomes more user-friendly,
[4] as grieving your childhood losses builds your emotional intelligence,
[5] as your body relaxes and your mind becomes more peaceful,
[5] as your healthy ego matures into a healthy sense of self,
[6] as your life narrative becomes self-compassionate and self-affirming,
[7] as your emotional vulnerability creates authentic experiences of intimacy and
[8] as a you attain “good enough” safe relationship.

Negentropy:

I believe the concept of going from surviving to thriving holds within it the seed of negentropy.

Negentropy can be defined as the degree of order, organization, and adaptiveness in a family (Beavers and Hampson 2000). On the other hand, entropy can be defined as the degree of chaos, randomness, disorganization, and disorder in a family (Beavers and Hampson 2000). Negentropy exists opposite from entropy on an infinite continuum. In general, a distressed family may come to therapy in a state of entropy while the therapist works with the family in making changes that allow movement towards negentropy (Hecker et al. 2003). Negentropy describes family functioning as working towards optimal organization (Beavers and Voeller 1983). Families are theorized to be drifting towards entropy unless effort is made to maintain the structure, boundaries, and order of a more negentropic family system.

I believe the proper handling of internal and external boundaries, emotions, values, and all the other things lacking in CPTSD would naturally lead to a state of negentropy. The more positivity we can create in our internal and external environment, the better our life gets. Negentropy is one of my favorite words and an amazing discovery, so I’m seeing here that it can be easily defined and added to our idea here.

I’ve noticed that myself and many others who suffer from CPTSD do not have routines in place. Likely due to neglect and bad family systems, we either have very strict routines we follow in an almost OCD-like manner, or none at all.

Creating healthy routines and consistent habits seems to be a powerful way of continuing healing. It also allows us to consciously select how we want to be throughout the day, what identities we will take on that day (loser? winner?), and what we want to feel. I believe a healthy childhood has boundaries in place that cover excess and lack that we must also develop ourselves.

Integration of the human bill of rights:

If not this specific Bill of Rights developed by Pete Walker, I believe the field should include something similar, or guide the user to find their own values they can live by.

Pete Walker’s looks something like this:

I have the right to be treated with respect.
I have the right to say no.
I have the right to make mistakes.
I have the right to reject unsolicited advice or feedback.
I have the right to negotiate for change.
I have the right to change my mind or my plans.
I have a right to change my circumstances or course of action.
I have the right to have my own feelings, beliefs, opinions, preferences, etc.
I have the right to protest sarcasm, destructive criticism, or unfair treatment.
I have a right to feel angry and to express it non-abusively.
I have a right to refuse to take responsibility for anyone else’s problems.
I have a right to refuse to take responsibility for anyone’s bad behavior.
I have a right to feel ambivalent and to occasionally be inconsistent.
I have a right to play, waste time and not always be productive.
I have a right to occasionally be childlike and immature.
I have a right to complain about life’s unfairness and injustices.
I have a right to occasionally be irrational in safe ways.
I have a right to seek healthy and mutually supportive relationships.
I have a right to ask friends for a modicum of help and emotional support.
I have a right to complain and verbally ventilate in moderation.
I have a right to grow, evolve and prosper.

Right now this is growing as a collection of ideas as we can not be certain what will be used and what will not. As we get closer to time to create this field our ideas can be narrowed down.

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#123

Very good initiative, little surprised that Dr. Gabor Maté was not mentioned anywhere. I came to know that trauma is responsible for addiction for the first time in my life only from his videos.

http://healyourinnerchild.com is another great resource.

Everyone gave valuable inputs but some are more effective than others. From my personal experience psychiatry and work of a therapist though may help some, they largely leave quite a number of people unchanged and disappointed despite doing the work for years.

I have seen a psychiatrist, took meds for months but was not getting any improvement (was getting expensive), the meds essentially changed the brain chemistry gave me good feelings but once I stopped them I was back to my old normal self.

You need fields that will do shamanic work like participating in an Ayahuasca ceremony or taking psilocybin mushrooms. Let’s get realistic here, participating in one Ayahuasca ceremony does not guarantee healing your complete childhood trauma, and taking psilocybin mushrooms once may make you feel all nice about life, being kind to others and yourself but once the brain chemistry goes back to normal after few days you are back to your old self.

The most powerful therapists are psychedelics and one needs to work with them repeatedly under a trained shaman to complete heal the childhood wounds.

Dr. Gabor Maté also recommends Ayahuasca to his patients and I think he even administers the psychedelic.

And above all we have contracts with the people in our lives, we end up with a particular person or were born to an abusive father or mother to fulfil our soul contracts. I don’t know if we can break those contracts. This is the genetic trauma from the ancestors.

Story telling is a really great tool whether through oral story telling or writing your story down. In the book Courageous Dreaming, Dr. Villoldo talks about this process in the simplest way.

Lastly trauma is an inherent design of existence, if you take out relationships, job, kids, sex, drugs etc. you will feel deep trauma and emptiness in everyone’s life. People fill their lives with things just to cover their trauma. But I do appreciate your objective with this work, I’m of the fighting type, always angry, furious filled with rage fighting against life.

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#124

Dream released an audio on gumroad
“Visual Introspection” The Microdose

I bought it a few days ago and have been listening to it daily.
It brightens my mood (and also relaxes me a bit.)

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#125

I also want to give a shout out to

Crucible of the Past

Excellent field Ive been listening to daily.

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#126

Same here, I’m excited to see what Sapien can create next.

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#127

I’ve seen this in another creator’s videos, and have previously had a need for this:

A field that gives you a hug.

A nice, gentle/strong (your preference), warm hug, with a shot of oxytocin/dopamine. That lets you feel entirely loved and cared for.

My experiences with the personal/emotional supporter often felt like I was with another person who truly understood me. So to have the physical aspect of the hug, or just the feeling of it would be perfect.

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