Intelle Brain Most people tend toward either rigidity or chaos. It is also common to move between both states-perhaps getting overwhelmed when emotion comes up (chaos) to the point that one shuts down and becomes defended (rigidity). Obviously, the experience of chaos is very unpleasant and inhibits daily functioning. It is difficult to think straight, for instance, when we are very anxious or angry. For people who have trouble with chaos, it is as if the emotions "hijack" them-taking them somewhere unpleasant and where they have little control. These people may get stuck in feelings that they don't know how to process to completion and by which they therefore feel disempowered. Rigidity, on the other hand, means losing track of one's emotions altogether or having little sense of one's true self. While rigidity has the advantage of muting negative feelings, it has the disadvantage of muting positive feelings as well, including the feelings of connection and intimacy. I would describe these two extremes as two sides of the same coin, since people who cut off their feelings usually do so because they fear being overwhelmed by them.
In order for an individual to have more emotional resilience and flexibility, new neuronal connections need to be forged inside the brain such that soothing and organizing functions can come online when things are too chaotic, and enriching functions can come online when things are too rigid. This is integration.
How therapy helps: So how does therapy help with these issues? Therapy works (in part) by providing an individual the experience of first being aware of the emotion (by slowing down and sidestepping defenses) and then moving through the emotion without getting too dysregulated by it. Hopefully the therapists' presence, tracking of the process, and ability to stay regulated themselves in the face of strong feelings can help clients pace, ground, and contain their experience. Think of how much learning can take place in these moments! Firstly, the brain is learning how to "ride the wave" of emotion. To use this metaphor, when someone is learning to surf, the more he or she practices it, the more it becomes engrained in the body-so that the body knows how to stay on top of the wave without thinking. That is because new neuronal connections have been formed in his or her brain. In a similar way, the body/brain needs to learn how to move through emotions in a smooth, manageable way that is not too intense (chaotic), without being too flat (rigid) either. In this metaphor rigidity might look like not getting in the water in the first place, while chaos would be having the waves crash on top of you.
Secondly, the therapeutic process should help the brain learn that it can be safe to share one's self with others and that it can be helpful, even deeply satisfying, to do so. On this more subjective level, many of my clients have described the experience of having their real feelings, even painful ones, as beautiful. They say that it lends a sense of connection with me-another person (which we are predisposed to enjoy), as well as a deep sense of connection with themselves. This experience isn't only on the level of intellectual insight (though often insights come out of this process); it is an experience of finally truly being with one's self. Just this week I had a client tearfully tell me at the end of a session that she felt she had just experienced a "home-coming." She did this by attuning to and listening to what was "inside."
"Inside" might sound like a mysterious place, but there are ways to make it a bit more concrete. One way to do so is to orient one's self toward the sensations in one's body. The body, after all, is where we "feel" our feelings-just like we would a belly-ache or many other biological processes. Slowing down to check in with our physical experience is a concrete way to begin gaining awareness of our emotions. Any way we can tune into ourselves, in fact, can help with this process. We can listen to the nature of our thoughts, take note of our energy level or where we are holding tension, identify impulses, notice our breathing or heart-rate, pay attention to sensations of emotion-there are many ways to tune into one's self. Paying attention to the body is a great place to start because inputs from the body come up first to the right brain and then to the left. This "up and over" motion fosters both vertical and horizontal integration.
Making the Implicit Explicit: The body also provides information that is more difficult to "analyze." I've heard many clients say they've sought counseling because analyzing themselves hasn't been very helpful. On the other hand, simply paying attention to ourselves can be very fruitful and give us a more honest picture. To clarify, the left brain is great at confabulating (coming up with fictitious answers, like "I snapped at you because xyz..."), while the body, on the other hand, doesn't lie. When we listen to the body (or the right brain), we have realizations that feel "true"-like a gut sense or a knowing. These are usually more accurate and helpful. Allan Schore believes the information held in the right hemisphere is comparable to what has traditionally been called the unconscious. As therapists have always believed, making this kind of implicit information more explicit is very important. I like to think of this right brain information as the "raw data" about our experience that the left brain can then take and analyze. Without this raw data, the left brain creates likely, but not necessarily accurate, explanations.
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