Janina Fisher – Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity in the Treatment of Trauma

Outline

HOW TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES ARE REMEMBERED

• Results of the brain scan research
• Narrative memory centers are inhibited
• Activated implicit memory: Intense emotions, body sensations, impulses, intrusive images

IMPLICIT AND PROCEDURAL MEMORY SYSTEMS

• How do we know we are remembering without a story?
• State-specific memory and traumatic triggers
• Neuroplasticity and survival under threat

AUTONOMIC NERVOUS SYSTEM AND ADAPTATION TO TRAUMA

• “Neurons that fire together wire together”
• Trauma symptoms: Kindling and sensitization
• “Stuck’ cases
• Treatment-resistant depression
• Shame and self-loathing, numbing and shutdown
• Clients who go from crisis to crisis

MINDFULNESS-BASED TREATMENTS

• The symptoms tell the story better than the story
• Introduction to Sensorimotor
• Psychotherapy
• Video: Working with the body in treatment

MINDFULNESS IN CLINICAL PRACTICE

• Ingredients of mindfulness
• Avoid attachment or aversion
• Implicit and procedural memory

REGULATING TRAUMA-RELATED EMOTIONS, REACTIVITY AND AUTONOMIC AROUSAL

• Cognitive resources
• Somatic resources
• Interpersonal neurobiological resources

PRINCIPLES OF NEUROPLASTIC CHANGE

• Inhibit problematic pattern of response
• Mindfully notice rather than react
• Experiment with new action or reaction
• Practice new pattern until it becomes automatic

NEUROPLASTIC PRINCIPLES TO TALK THERAPY

• Practice, practice, practice!
• Notice, notice, notice the results
• Encode change as it occurs

Faculty

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Janina Fisher, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and former instructor at The Trauma Center, a research and treatment center founded by Bessel van der Kolk. Known as an expert on the treatment of trauma, Dr. Fisher has also been treating individuals, couples and families since 1980.

She is past president of the New England Society for the Treatment of Trauma and Dissociation, an EMDR International Association Credit Provider, Assistant Educational Director of the Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, and a former Instructor, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Fisher lectures and teaches nationally and internationally on topics related to the integration of the neurobiological research and newer trauma treatment paradigms into traditional therapeutic modalities.

She is co-author with Pat Ogden of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Attachment and Trauma (2015) and author of Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors: Overcoming Internal Self-Alienation (2017) and the forthcoming book, Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma (in press).

Speaker Disclosures:

Financial: Janina Fisher is in private practice. She receives a speaking honorarium from PESI, Inc.

Non-financial: Janina Fisher has no relevant non-financial relationship to disclose.