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movement for healing & resilience

Resilience

Why some who experience trauma fair better than others

Experiencing trauma always has an effect, but the way it affects someone doesn’t always have a lasting impact. The person recovers relatively quickly and moves on without distorted memories or behaviors. What’s the difference between recovering quickly and suffering prolonged aftershocks and developmental changes?

Among the things we learn from our caregivers is the ability to regulate our bodies: to calm ourselves when distressed (with or without assistance from another person), to seek out nourishment when we feel hungry or thirsty, to act with agency within the context of relationships (and to support others). Self-regulation means the ability to address our needs, which also teaches us to recognize which things help us grow and stay healthy and which things do us harm. One need we all have is regulating our emotions --which really means regulating our bodies (Feldman Barrett, 2018). Regulating our bodies impacts how we feel, what goes on in our minds/brains, and affects how we relate to other people and our surroundings.

If a child’s primary examples of how to interact with the world involve trauma, those are the main ingredients that her brain has to work with. On the other hand, positive, “resilience-building” experiences can help buffer her brain against some of the effects of trauma. For example, if a child experiences neglect from his caretakers at home, and nurturing support from his teachers at school, what he learns through his relationship with his teachers might provide some “protection” against the effects of his home environment, giving him access to resilience and self-regulation skills he might not otherwise develop.

Trauma interrupts the process of building the autonomic circuitry of safe connection and sidetracks the development of regulation and resilience. … Trauma comprises our ability to engage with others by replacing patterns of connection with patterns of protection.
- from The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy, Dana, 2018

What is resilience and how can one build it?

“Resilience is not something you’re born with. It’s something that gets build up over time.”
- from "Resilience" movie

Resilience is one’s ability to recover from negative experiences through one’s access to protective and regulating strategies. You build resilience through positive experiences that fortify your sense of agency, develop self-regulation skills, and teach you that adults/people are caring, trustworthy, and a useful resource when you need to recover.

Researchers examining the impact of resilience-building experiences have introduced the BCEs scale – Benevolent Childhood Experiences. Just like the ACEs scale, the BCEs scale is a method for quantifying the effects of qualitative experiences on our health and well-being.

What are Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs)?

  • At least one caregiver with whom you felt safe
  • At least one good friend
  • Beliefs that gave you comfort
  • Enjoyment of school
  • At least one teacher who cared
  • Good neighbors
  • An adult (other than parent/caregiver) who could provide you with support or advice
  • Opportunities to have a good time
  • Like yourself or feel comfortable with yourself
  • Predictable home routine, like regular meals and a regular bedtime
Read one teacher’s example of how to teach students to self-regulate in school
Watch a video about resilience and the brain
Resilience requires relationships, not rugged individualism. The capacity to adapt and thrive despite adversity develops through the interaction of supportive relationships, biological systems, and gene expression. Despite the widespread yet erroneous belief that people need only draw upon some heroic strength of character, science now tells us that it is the reliable presence of at least one supportive relationship and multiple opportunities for developing effective coping skills that are the essential building blocks for strengthening the capacity to do well in the face of significant adversity.
- from Harvard Center for the Developing Child, 2020

TCTSY and resilience

As a movement practice, TCTSY can help restore some self-regulation capacity by providing the opportunity to practice and develop interoceptive awareness, practice making choices, and, when those two things come together, practice taking effective action.

The ability to regulate one’s body/affect can’t erase trauma and yet it is an essential component of healing -- of being able to do the work of therapy and/or healing, to feel safe in one’s own body, to feel agency, to feel capable of engaging in life with other people.

TCTSY is an example of a resilience-building practice in that it exposes participants to self-regulation and awareness.

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TCTSY participant experiences

I wanna continue because, first off, it’s helped me a lot with anger here. The littlest thing makes you mad here. It’s the littlest thing. You’ll be amazed. Also, it comes with a bunch of health issues, so when I’m sad, I’m just—I go straight to yoga. I go in my room. I meditate.
- Research participant, Owen-Smith 2021
I feel like it help me through the days and stuff. I can be in my room and do it. I be relaxed. They be like, “What wrong with you?” I’m like, “I’m good. I’m relaxed. I’ve been doin’ yoga.” “With who?” “Myself.”
- Research participant, Owen-Smith 2021
Beforehand I'd be more focused on everyone else's needs, like my work, my family, what not, and I kind of forgot about taking care of myself. So I think with the yoga it kind of forced me to spend that hour or so, you know with myself, centering myself, and then even afterwards since I'd be more calm, I'd be more outgoing, and doing other things, and just generally trying to treat myself better.
- Research participants, Rhodes 2015

What builds resilience...

Facts from the NCTSN white paper on complex trauma

Several factors have been found to be the most critical for promoting resilience, including: (a) positive attachment and connections to emotionally supportive and competent adults within a child’s family or community, (b) development of cognitive and self-regulation abilities, (c) positive beliefs about oneself, and (d) motivation to act effectively in one’s environment (Luthar, et al., 2000; Masten, 2001; Werner & Smith, 1992; Wyman, Sandler, Wolchik, & Nelson, 2000). Additional individual factors associated with resilience include an easygoing disposition, positive temperament, and sociable demeanor; internal locus of control and external attributions for blame; effective coping strategies; degree of mastery and autonomy; special talents; creativity; and spirituality (Werner & Smith, 1992). Additional familial and environmental factors that have been found to foster resilience include parenting with warmth, structure, and high expectations of the child; socioeconomic resources; ties to extended family; involvement with prosocial community organizations; and effective schools (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998).

Biology of Resilience

Many studies show that stressors early or later in life that are predictable, escapable or controllable, or in which responsive caregiver contact is available, and safe opportunities for exploration are reinstated, tend to enhance biological integrity. In biological terms, these experiences increase hippocampal and prefrontal cortex neuronal functioning; behaviorally, they enhance curiosity, social status, working memory, anxiety management, and the ability to nurture (Champagne & Meaney, 2001; Gunnar & Donzella, 2002; Schore, 2001). Moreover, the restoration of secure caregiving after early life stressors has a protective effect, reducing long-term biological and behavioral impairment, even if: (a) only visual, not tactile, or symbolic contact with the caregiver is possible, (b) the sociophysical environment is severely impoverished, or (c) the caregiver is not the biological parent (Gunnar & Donzella, 2002).  

Affect Regulation

Previous sections have described the deleterious impact that early childhood trauma may have on core regulatory systems. Impairment of neurobiological systems involved in emotion regulation leaves many traumatized children at risk for multiple manifestations of dysregulated affect. Deficits in the capacity to regulate emotional experience may be broadly classified in three categories, including (a) deficits in the capacity to identify internal emotional experience, (b) difficulties with the safe expression of emotions, and (c) impaired capacity to modulate emotional experience. … Over time, traumatized children are vulnerable to the development and maintenance of disorders associated with chronic dysregulation of affective experience, including disorders of mood. The prevalence of Major Depression among individuals who have experienced early childhood trauma is an example of the lifelong impact complex trauma may exert over regulatory capacities. 

Going into the Community 

Enhancement of self-regulatory capacities and increases in competency across domains are common goals among trauma-specific school-based approaches (DeRosa et al., 2003; Cook et al., 2003). The goal is to increase cognitive, emotional, physical, and spiritual mastery (James, 1989). Examples of techniques used to promote cognitive mastery include direct teaching, story telling, and bibliotherapy. Emotional mastery is achieved through art, play, and body-oriented strategies. Children who are traumatized or neglected often exhibit inhibited play or the inability to play while others may reenact their experiences. Thus, play is essential to facilitate healing and to learn skills that are later necessary in different developmental phases (James, 1994).

Physical mastery comes through involvement in physical activities. Activities such as yoga, music, movement, sports (in school/program settings, and drama can be modified to be included in individual and group work. In addition, such activities can and should be included in treatment planning as adjunctive auxiliary treatment methods. These activities support children in a number of ways including: (1) Finding a new vehicle of expression that decreases arousal and increases soothing; (2) Gaining trust in their environment; (3) Decreasing isolation; and, (4) Developing accessible tools (visual, tactile, auditory, kinesthetic) for dealing with distress (Macy, R., Macy, D., Gross, S., Brighton, P., & Rozelle, D., 1999-2003). Body oriented treatments and activities can teach children to change their physiological response to threatening stimuli, which will ultimately lead to improvement in their functioning. These techniques provide effective therapy for children who experience extreme physical vulnerability and who have distorted body concepts (James, 1989). Finally, adjunctive therapies provide a natural forum for mentoring, affiliation, integration, and socialization all of which are essential to enhancing resiliency.

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