TRAUMA, ATTACHMENT AND THE BRAIN; WHY SOME CRIMINALS CAN

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TRAUMA, ATTACHMENT AND THE BRAINWHY SOME
CRIMINALS CANT HELP IT

• Joanna Beazley Richards

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THE IDEA

• THAT IN THE ABSENCE OF SECURE ATTACHMENT, OR
  FOLLOWING SEVERE TRAUMA, THE ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS
  OF NEO CORTICAL FUNCTIONING NEEDED FOR
  WITHHOLDING FROM CRIMINAL ACTIVITY MAY BE ABSENT,
  RENDERING IT ALMOST IMPOSSIBLE FOR SOME PEOPLE TO
  WITHHOLD FROM CRIME

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Attachment

• The attachment system motivates an infant to seek
  proximity to parents (and other primary
  caregivers) and to establish communication with
  them.
• (Siegal 1999)

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Attachment is

• An enduring emotional tie
• between an infant
• and a caregiver
• (Alan Sroufe Child
  Development, its Nature and Course)

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Attachment is critical

• Infant attachment is critical both because of its
  place in initiating pathways of development, and
  because of its connection with so many critical
  developmental functions such as
• Social relatedness
• Arousal modulation
• Emotional regulation
• Curiosity
• Competence and confidence

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Secure Base Effect ..

• The environment created by the attachment
  figure for the child.
• It provides a springboard for curiosity and
  exploration.
• When danger threatens the child clings to the
  attachment figure for safety.
• Adults continue to demonstrate this essential
  need.

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Internal Working Model ..

• Within close relationships infants acquire mental
  representations or internal working models of
  their worthiness based on the carers
  availability and response to us.
• Mental representations of the self, others and
  relationships are stored.

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The Attachment relationship

• The attachment relationship is the launch pad for
  childs development and personality.
• Developmentin childhood and adolescence,
  consists of change that is orderly, cumulative
  and directional context plays a critical role.
• Development is characterised by both change and
  continuity. (Sroufe 2005)

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Sensitive Care

• A caregivers style in which the caregiver
  attends to the infants needs, and responds to
  them promptly and effectively. Non parental care
  givers can achieve attachment security through
  sensitivity (Goosens and Van Ijzendoorn 1990)

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Development

• Non parental caregivers are likely to become
  securely attached if they show sensitivity in
  relation to the child
• (
  Goosens van Ijzendoorn 1990 )
• However Arietta Slade refers to securely attached
  mothers who represent their relationship to their
  children in a more coherent way conveying more
  joy and pleasure in their relationship - see
  Parent Attachment Interview
• Positive parents adopt an intentional stance in
  relation to their mental state, and this
  intentional stance mediates transmission.
  (Fonagy)
  10

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Theory of Mind

• The child gradually builds what is known as the
  Theory of Mind i.e. concepts such as knowing,
  wanting, thinking, remembering and intending.
  Young children grasp the idea that the mind goes
  beyond empirical knowledge.
• ( Flavell et all 2002 )

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Minnesota longitudinal study

• Alan Sroufe studied 200 infants over thirty years
  in his Minnesota longitudinal study. The urban
  sample were viewed to be at moderate risk for
  parenting difficulties, due to the challenges
  associated with poverty. Within this grouping
• there were more than double the frequency of
  anxious attachments.
• Primary focus of study was assessment of early
  caregiver relationship and the antecedents of
  attachment.
• The Development of the PersonThe Minnesota
  study of risk and adaptation from birth to
  adulthood.
• New York Guilford Press
  (2005).

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Emotional problems are developmental outcomes.

• Nothing comes from nothing
• Disturbance interaction of challenging
  circumstances in the absence of adequate support
• Children who recover from a period of adversity
  or maladaption have either a solid foundation on
  which they can rely, increased supports and
  decreased changes, or more often both
• From Attachment and Human Development
• Routledge Volume 7 No 4 December 2005

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Reflective Functioning

• Mothers in a high stress, deprived group of
  single parent families, parental criminality,
  unemployment, overcrowding and psychiatric
  illness would be more likely to have securely
  attached infants if their Reflective Functioning
  is high
  ( Fonagy 1994 )

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The mind

• 1)The human mind emerges from patterns in the
  flow of energy and information within the brain
  and between brains.
• 2) The mind is created within the interaction of
  internal neuro-physiological processes and
  interpersonal experiences.
• 3) The structure and function of the developing
  brain are determined by how experiences,
  especially within interpersonal relationships,
  shape the genetically programmed maturation of
  the nervous system. (Siegal, 1999)

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Interpersonal experience and the brain

• Interpersonal experience plays a special
  organizing role in determining the development of
  brain structure early in life and the ongoing
  emergence of brain function throughout the
  lifespan.
• (Siegal, 1999)

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We tend to repeat negative experiences

• Those who do not remember and come to terms with
  the past are more likely to repeat it. (Freud
  1920)
• This idea was further developed by Eric Berne in
  TA

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Effects of trauma in the parent

• If the mind of a carer is dominated by unresolved
  trauma or loss, is their availability to engage,
  especially with a child with challenging and
  negatively tinged behaviour, able to cope? Might
  they leave too many ruptures unattended ?
• The affective state most likely to disorganise
  disorganised children is fear

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THE EFFECTS OF TRAUMA

• THE BRAIN NEEDS ATTACHMENT TO DEVELOP NORMALLY,
  BUT EVEN IN WELL DEVELOPED BRAINS, TRAUMA CAN
  CREATE CONDITIONS IN WHICH WE CANNOT THINK

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Trauma

• In response to threat, people, like all animals,
  mobilise for automatic physical action.

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Outcomes

• Successful motor response (flight/fight/freeze)
  returns the organism to homeostasis.
• Failed response (immobilization), results in
  conditioned hormonal response, dissociated from
  effective physical action.

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Self-regulation is the critical issue

• Decreased frontal lobe functioning under threat.
• Inability to think, anticipate, empathise.
• Results in automated programmed (conditioned)
  behaviour when threatened.

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Social support

• When our own resources fail, social support can
  restore homeostasis.

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When trauma gets reactivated

• The physiology breaks down,
• The emotional brain runs the show, life may feel
  chaotic and disorganised
• The person may act out, take drugs, use violence,
  grab other peoples possessions, or whatever they
  associate with reducing their physiological
  turmoil

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High arousal impairs functioning in the
prefrontal cortex.

• Neuromodulator catecholamines are released in the
  peripheral and central nervous systems.
• In the brain they turn off the prefrontal
  cortex consequently we cant deliberately
  direct our attention, hold values or goals in
  mind, think logically, or imagine alternatives.
• The evolutionary origins are stop and think and
  youre lunch.

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Charles Darwin 1809 - 1882

• The goal of emotion.. is to effect physical
  movement and regain a state of equilibrium.
• (1872)
• He proved the existence of the pneumogastric
  nerve, which we now call the vagus nerve, or
  cranial nerve X, which is involved in the
  expression and management of emotions.
• When the mind is strongly excited, it instantly
  affects the state of the viscera.

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Traumatised people.

• Have a need to have physical and sensory
  experiences to
• Unlock their bodies
• Activate effective fight/flight
• Tolerate their sensations
• Befriend their inner experiences
• Cultivate new action patterns

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The neocortex

• The higher structures, such as the neocortex at
  the top of the brain, mediate more complex
  information-processing functions such as
  perception, thinking, and reasoning.
• (Siegal, 1999)
• TRAUMATISED PEOPLE CANNOT USE THIS PART OF THE
  BRAIN

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Correlates of Disturbed attachment and unresolved
trauma

• Affect dysregulation
• Inappropriate anger expression
• Self injury and suicidality
• Disturbance in relationships with others
• Disturbance in perception of belonging/support
• Revictimisation
• Somatisization

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Other people

• There can be no relationship with others, or
  empathy with their state, without a brain that
  can relate
• It is impossible to relate to anyone or anything
  when reexperiencing traumatic events

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Emotional pain

• There is always shame in trauma
• Traumatised people, and those with disturbed or
  absent attachments, may hurt others because they
  project out that part of themselves that they
  cant stand.

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Attachment/Trauma treatment

• Safety
• Clear rules, privacy, confidentiality. Tolerance,
  attunement respect, and acceptance
• Self regulation (body, emotion, behaviour)
• Breathing,
• Movement and action
• Attention
• Mindfulness, tapping, yoga, meditation, EMDR,
  etc.

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Self-work

• Telling the story to others, or writing it down,
  is very powerful with this group, because it
  tells the story to themselves,
• e.g. Bessel Van der Kolks theatre group in Boston

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Mirroring work

• Traumatised people dont attune to each other,
  and this is helped by mirroring work, especially
  rhythmical attuned activities, which activates
  the neocortex
• e.g Desmond Tutu

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Mindfulness and insight practice

• Mindfulness is maintaining attention
• Mindfulness of breathing, then expanded to all
  bodily sensations, bodily aspects of emotions,
  and thoughts.
• Attending without curiosity, without judgement or
  reactivity, to whatever arises and passes away

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Jon Kabat-Zinn

• Professor of Medicine Emeritus and founding
  director of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the
  Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care,
  and Society at the University of Massachusetts
  Medical School. YouTube