Mind-Body Skills
Breathing technique that focuses on breathing into the belly, not into the chest.
What is abdominal breathing?
True or False: Our brains are aware of how traumatic a given situation is and respond accordingly, with bigger traumas require more resources and mental energy to process.
What is FALSE? Trauma is trauma. There is no scale - "small" traumas impact our brains the same way as "big" traumas.
What does the hand model of the brain represent?
What is an example of a dialectic?
Perfectly imperfect, beautiful disaster, love-hate relationship. Dialectics are two seemingly contradictory statements or concepts that are both true.
The Model of the Mind identifies three states of awareness. What are they?
Conscious, preconscious, and unconscious.
We can use our breathing to signal to our brains to turn of the fight/flight response by making our exhale (shorter than/longer than) our inhale.
What is longer than our inhale?
Name 5 examples of experiences or situations that may be traumatic.
Any of the following: childhood abuse, neglect, rape, trafficking, experiencing/witnessing violent crime, domestic violence, serious injury, death/loss/grief, institutional abuse/neglect, war, community violence, bullying, racism, poverty, natural disasters, drug/alcohol abuse, loss of stability, misuse of power
Using the hand model of the brain, what part of the brain does the thumb represent? What happens in this part of the brain?
The thumb represents the limbic system, where the fight-flight-freeze response is activated and where old memories are stored.
List the three primary states of mind referenced in dialectical behavior therapy.
What is an example of information that may be stored in the pre-conscious?
Anything that can be remembered at will (addresses, phone numbers, pleasant memories).
This mind-body skill encourages mindfulness by noticing every part of the body and the sensations experienced in each part of the body.
What is body scan?
When our brain perceives danger, our stress response is activated. What are the three stress responses we might experience?
Fight, flight, freeze
Using the hand model of the brain, what part of the brain do the fingers represent? What happens in this part of the brain?
The fingers represent the prefrontal cortex. This is where thinking, problem-solving, and self-control happens.
Wise Mind is the coming together and overlap of Reasonable Mind and Emotional Mind. When they come together, we gain a feeling of "knowing" what's right, a felt sense that some people feel in their body. What do we call this feeling of knowing?
Use the states of mind (conscious/preconscious/unconscious) to explain what happens when we encounter a trauma trigger.
A traumatic memory from our unconscious mind is brought to our conscious awareness, whether we want it to or not. If we avoid or dissociate, the memory is pushed back to the unconscious mind where it is stored until we are triggered again.
By tensing and relaxing the muscles in our body, we can become more aware of when we are experiencing tension and have the skills needed to relax. This mind-body skill encourages us to pay attention to each muscle in turn and the feeling of releasing tension.
What is progressive muscle relaxation?
Stress and trauma are not one in the same. What differentiates a stressful experience from a traumatic one?
Stress is uncomfortable, but not life threatening. Trauma makes you feel like your life is in danger or you are not safe.
What happens in the brain when we "flip our lids"?
The fight-flight-freeze response is activated and the prefrontal cortex goes offline.
One DBT skill we reviewed is "The Wise Mind APPROVES." When is it helpful to use this skill? List what skill one of the letters in APPROVES represents.
Why might it be helpful to contain a traumatic memory (using imagery and containment techniques) rather than avoiding or dissociating to cope with it?
Using containment allows us to keep traumatic memories in the preconscious, where we can actively work on addressing and processing them. If we avoid or dissociate, the traumatic memory is being pushed back into the unconscious where we can not work on it and risk being triggered again in the future.
Mindfulness can be practiced anywhere at anytime. This mind-body skill may be useful for practicing mindfulness in all settings, especially those that may require you to stand in place for a period of time such as waiting in line at the grocery store.
What is mindful standing?
Provide a definition of trauma using the following words: event, experience, effect.
Trauma results from an event,, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or life threatening and has lasting negative effects on the person's functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.
This is something that reminds you of a past trauma, on a conscious or unconscious level, that activates your fight-flight-freeze response.
What is a trigger?
We also learned the DBT skill "IMPROVE the moment." When is this skill useful? What do skills do the letters in IMPROVE stand for (please list one).
Improve the moment is a tool to use when distraction is not accessible. Improving the moment focuses on changing the way we perceive the moment and how we feel in the moment in order to get through overwhelming emotions and situations. IMPROVE stands for imagery, meaning, prayer, relaxing, one thing in the moment, vacation, and encouragement.
Bonus: List one grounding technique and how to use it.