Okay today was like drinking from a fire hydrant – but completely refreshing and so worth it. I attended three sessions today and have a lot to share. Before I get in to it here are the topics I will be writing on:
1. Conversations about SMART Implementation Across Cultures.
Featuring Elizabeth Warner, Alexandra Cook, Anne Westcott, Heather Finn, Alicia Hu, Mei Ling Hu, Kasey Pendexter, and Mari Kjølseth Braein. (https://smartmovespartners.com)
SMART is a form of body focused therapy currently focused on children and teens however there are current projects exploring what this could look like for adults. SMART stands for Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Therapy.
2. IFS and Addictions.
Looking into a different way to treat, talk about, and thinking about addictions.
3. Keynote Talk: Psychological Trauma Underlying Mental Processes.
These two men have created a different way to consider trauma, healing, and the human experience. For me personally they have changed the way I am a therapist and the way that I relate to myself and others.
Okay – now that was a lot. It’s just getting good though so feel free to skip ahead or read through each description!
1. Conversations about SMART Implementation Across Cultures.
Featuring Elizabeth Warner, Alexandra Cook, Anne Westcott, Heather Finn, Alicia Hu, Mei Ling Hu, Kasey Pendexter, and Mari Kjølseth Braein. (https://smartmovespartners.com)
This conversation started off with different members of the group sharing some basics about SMART method for therapy. SMART stands for Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Therapy. This therapy takes three threads of treatment: somatic regulation, trauma processing, and attachment building; works on them in the therapeutic relationship and hopes to build the individual kid’s window of tolerance. There is a hierarchy of development that SMART uses to inform priorities and treatment options. This hierarchy looks at a child’s development from sensory processing foundations up through 6 levels to integrated engagement with the whole self in the emotional, motor, cognitive, and social areas.
Though this conference session was aimed at helping therapists see how this could be used across a multitude of cultures – the highlights I want to share can be seen as benefits to finding a therapist for yourself, your child, or teen that includes SMART methods.
There are 7 tools they draw from: tactile, vestibular, proprioceptive, sensation satiation, combining inputs, rhythmicity, and safe space. These tools are sensory systems; can be seen in occupational therapy, play therapy, and somatic experiencing type therapies. Also though with a little google search you can access ideas to help while you find therapy to help bring everything together in a coherent way.
More important things:
1. All children and teens need to move to find that “just right” space; their safe space.
2. Tending to safety is a priority in the process which models what most children and teens miss in the home environment in different ways.
3. This model can allow for attachment security and create attachment bonds so the child and teen can experience examples in vivo of regulation and repair.
4. When trying to adapt SMART for different cultures and communities there needs to be participation of members of that community in learning and teaching to provide the best understanding. one example here was that SMART has been adapted for the deaf and hard of hearing community and seen tremendous success in finding regulation for kids and teens.
5. Both therapists, teachers, parents all need to understand that children know what they need; they need us as the adults to slow down and listen.
Again – amazing work, amazing therapy offering. This blurb does not do it justice. It is worth learning more.
2. IFS and Addictions.
Looking into a different way to treat, talk about, and thinking about addictions.
I have a love love relationship with IFS (Internal Family Systems). A very, very brief overview of this therapy is that all of us have a core “Self” that is considered: compassionate, curious, creative, confident, calm, clear, courageous, and connected. This “Self” is who we really are underneath different “parts” that developed in almost extreme ways to help us or the “Self” cope with something traumatic or dysfunctional. “Parts” come in three categories and those categories can have multiple different behaviors, attitudes, thoughts that come with them.
There are “exile parts” that are parts of us that have been hurt, traumatized, sad; they are exiled because our system wants to protect us from danger, discomfort, and to keep us safe. There are “manager parts” that rush in the extreme to make sure the exiles never get triggered. An example of a “manager” would be an internal critic – the critic’s job is to make sure we don’t do things that trigger the exile and that voice comes with a lot of shame typically. Then there are “firefighter parts”; these are parts that rush in when an “exile” breaks through a “manager”‘s efforts and will do anything to decrease the emotion, thought, hurt by any means. These means can be addiction, daily behaviors (shopping, distracting, avoiding), self-harm, and suicide. These “firefighters” do anything to keep us safe and safety comes to mean that our exiles don’t feel hurt anymore.
I admit that at times this can sound really suspect. There are parts of me that want me to be safe and happy but do it by keeping the hard stuff locked away? Well – it’s real. I’ve experienced it as I have worked with Clients helping them discover, learn and care for their parts as well as doing my own work.
How this relates to addiction – in most areas, America especially – addiction is seen as a moral failing. However, when you talk to anyone who uses or has addictions, behaviors they use to escape – the things people are escaping return to the “exile parts”; shame, trauma, bullying, fighting with parents and so much more.
When we choose to see addictions as parts that are trying to protect us from emotional and mental harm; there is a tremendous increase in compassion to ourselves and the efforts we make. If we adopted this mentality locally, nationally – there would be more healthy people in recovery. We would see people seeming rested, kind.
There is *so* much more here. I’ll leave this session with the title of Dick Schwartz’s last book, there are “No Bad Parts.”
3. Keynote Talk: Psychological Trauma Underlying Mental Processes.
I have almost too much good I can say about Gabor Mate and his work. He has a tremendous amount of research, work, and experience he brings into the trauma field. Today’s talk was about the impact of stress, trauma, and emotional turmoil on the physical body.
He shared about how his years as a family doctor showed him that the questions doctors don’t ask are truly the real reason why we are all sick. Some of the questions he mentioned are about our childhood trauma; experiences of loss; how daily family life is; environmental concerns. He shared significant clinical experiences showing the correlation of increased stress with increased inflammation in the body and when we dismiss or shove our emotions down then our own immune system will become depressed. When the immune system becomes depressed we are more likely to become ill. One metaphorical example he shared was that emotions, especially healthy anger are a boundary marker for us of what is okay and not okay. However he compared the literal purpose of our immune system to that it is a boundary of what gets to come in and stays out of our body.
He draws together impressive evidence of a literal mind/body connection that is at play within us daily. To learn more check out his website listed above, podcast interviews he has done, as well as any of his books (The Myth of Normal is the most current one).
Now, it was great to hear from Dick Schwartz again. In this talk what he shared was very similar to the session earlier in the day. He added on the implications of IFS being used at a systemic level to facilitate large scale healing and resolution. Some of these large scale examples he gave were: group therapies, conflict resolution, mediation, legacy burdens, activism, companies, group therapies. He shared that there is more than enough evidence that groups, people, cultures, employees just want to be witnessed. This idea of IFS being used in systems could bring us miraculous outcomes.
Phew – that’s today! Check back tomorrow for more information about conference sessions and then a bonus workshop just for understanding traumatized kids.
Written by Katie Walter
