Where Psychoanalysis and Somatic Experiencing Meet: The Brain's Threat Predictions
How psychoanalysis and Somatic Experiencing approach the same nervous system threat response through different doors, one relational, one somatic.
Understanding the Unconscious Mind: What Lies Beneath Our Awareness
We all have parts of ourselves that remain hidden from our everyday awareness – thoughts, feelings, and memories that shape our behavior without us even knowing it. This is what psychologists call the unconscious mind, and understanding it can be key to personal growth and healing.
How the brain and therapy work together
Our brains are essentially prediction machines with one primary job: keeping us alive. To do this, they rely on past experiences to predict future events. This is all based on what we've encoded in our memory… It's like if you taste a delicious cake and later encounter ingredients like eggs, flour, and butter. Your brain might label the new dish as cake, even if it isn’t.
The basic problem that brings people to therapy: Part One
I would wager that most of what brings people to therapy are emotional conflicts. Emotional conflicts are the results of some kind of trauma experience. When emotional conflicts come from growing up they are considered symbols of what’s called, developmental trauma (sometimes called “small ’t’ trauma”). When they are in connection to a shocking or harrowing moment or event they are considered symbols of what’s called, shock trauma (sometimes called “large ’T’ trauma”).