Rebecca Foxx, LCSW-R
Mindfulness-Based Psychotherapy & Counseling
Glens Falls, NY
Trauma, Stress, and Anxiety
About Trauma and Stress
Trauma can be defined as any event that is “too much, too fast, or too soon” (Dr. Peter Levine) for a particular human nervous system to process.
A human nervous system is designed to shift into survival responses ("fight/flight/freeze") whenever it detects a potential threat. Our survival reactions happen automatically and through a process called, "Neuroception", in which our bodies take in sensory information, and code it as "safe, dangerous or life threatening". Deb Dana, LCSW, author, and clinician specializing in Polyvagal Theory, explains that this information "then determines our autonomic state...Our neuroception assesses the information inside our body, outside in the environment and between us, in our relationships."
If our neuroception detects a threat, our bodies automatically initiate a survival response. This happens before the rational mind gets a chance to weigh in. We sense danger (or safety) in our bodies first. Our nervous system responds automatically, activating associated impulses, sensations, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. We then store embodied "muscle memory", particularly around emotionally salient events or events that are regularly repeated.
When trauma or chronic stress occurs, our embodied memories related to those experiences are organized and categorized in a particular way. They then inform how we respond to incoming information from our world in the present day.
Trauma and chronic stress can result in dysregulation in the nervous system, where we are frequently activated into states of fight, flight and freeze when there is no current danger or where we get stuck in those states, long after a threat has passed. A regulated nervous system is one that reads cues of danger, moves into a survival response, and then is able to re-orient to safety once the threat has passed. When we sense safety, we feel free to explore our world, seek out resources, and form secure attachments or bonds with others. Our bodies also return to functions that are involved in long-term health, such as resting and digesting.
Dysregulation in the nervous system often leads to symptoms associated with PTSD and other stress or anxiety disorders. These include symptoms of anxiety, hypervigilance, restlessness, agitation, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, flashbacks, chronic physical pain and tension, upset stomach or digestive problems, headaches, intrusive thoughts, difficulty focusing, panic, chronic worry, feeling numb, cut off, distant or dissociated, exhausted, depressed, or hopeless.
Commonly, people suffering in this way will attempt to regulate this energy or cope with it, by engaging in behaviors such as excessive alcohol or substance use, eating disorder behavior (such as binging and restricting), isolating, risk taking, overdoing/working/caretaking, and by using avoidant or anxious relationship styles.
Trauma can be defined as any event that is “too much, too fast, or too soon” (Dr. Peter Levine) for a particular human nervous system to process.
A human nervous system is designed to shift into survival responses ("fight/flight/freeze") whenever it detects a potential threat. Our survival reactions happen automatically and through a process called, "Neuroception", in which our bodies take in sensory information, and code it as "safe, dangerous or life threatening". Deb Dana, LCSW, author, and clinician specializing in Polyvagal Theory, explains that this information "then determines our autonomic state...Our neuroception assesses the information inside our body, outside in the environment and between us, in our relationships."
If our neuroception detects a threat, our bodies automatically initiate a survival response. This happens before the rational mind gets a chance to weigh in. We sense danger (or safety) in our bodies first. Our nervous system responds automatically, activating associated impulses, sensations, emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. We then store embodied "muscle memory", particularly around emotionally salient events or events that are regularly repeated.
When trauma or chronic stress occurs, our embodied memories related to those experiences are organized and categorized in a particular way. They then inform how we respond to incoming information from our world in the present day.
Trauma and chronic stress can result in dysregulation in the nervous system, where we are frequently activated into states of fight, flight and freeze when there is no current danger or where we get stuck in those states, long after a threat has passed. A regulated nervous system is one that reads cues of danger, moves into a survival response, and then is able to re-orient to safety once the threat has passed. When we sense safety, we feel free to explore our world, seek out resources, and form secure attachments or bonds with others. Our bodies also return to functions that are involved in long-term health, such as resting and digesting.
Dysregulation in the nervous system often leads to symptoms associated with PTSD and other stress or anxiety disorders. These include symptoms of anxiety, hypervigilance, restlessness, agitation, difficulty sleeping, nightmares, flashbacks, chronic physical pain and tension, upset stomach or digestive problems, headaches, intrusive thoughts, difficulty focusing, panic, chronic worry, feeling numb, cut off, distant or dissociated, exhausted, depressed, or hopeless.
Commonly, people suffering in this way will attempt to regulate this energy or cope with it, by engaging in behaviors such as excessive alcohol or substance use, eating disorder behavior (such as binging and restricting), isolating, risk taking, overdoing/working/caretaking, and by using avoidant or anxious relationship styles.
In order to heal these symptoms, we need a safe space and a safe amount of time (time that was often not available when trauma occurred) to re-establish a relationship with the body - one in which we can listen to the information and guidance it has to offer, rather than be driven by it into overwhelm. This allows the opportunity to process felt experiences, make mind/body connections, release survival energies, and learn how to find our way back to a felt sense of safety.
How Mindfulness and Self-Compassion supports
Trauma Recovery, Stress Reduction and Anxiety Relief
Practicing mindfulness involves paying purposeful attention to our present-moment experience without judgment. When we notice our thoughts and feelings without judging them, without trying to avoid them or push them away, and without being caught up in them or overwhelmed by them, we have an opportunity to see what is happening clearly. With mindfulness, we can interrupt our habitual or "auto-pilot" reactions, access our own personal wisdom, identify what we truly need and choose actions that support well-being.
As we turn toward difficult internal experience, com passion helps us to hold what we meet there without being overwhelmed by or re-traumatized by what we are working through. Compassion is a quality that acknowledges and cares deeply about suffering, and that holds a heartfelt wish and committed intention to move things in the direction of less suffering. As we practice self-compassion, we acknowledge our own internal suffering, bring great care and consideration to the pace and tone with which we work through it, and clarify what intentions, changes, or strategies will help us to move in the direction of suffering less.
As a Mindfulness-based and Compassion-oriented psychotherapist, I help my clients to cultivate skills in mindfulness and self-compassion and apply these skills to the difficulties they are facing in their lives.