What Happened to You? A Guide on Trauma, Trauma-Informed Therapy, and Oprah

Our June Calm Collective Book Club pick was ‘What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing’ by Dr Bruce Perry (psychiatrist) and Oprah (I bet you know who she is already). What an amazing guide to both the human side and the neuroscience side of trauma.

We should have more conversations around trauma to better understand ourselves and the world around us. The modern world is overwhelming and we know so many of us experience trauma at one time or another. As a trauma-informed Psychologist, I thought I’d start the discussion here.

What is trauma? Simply put ‘that which overwhelms our ability to cope’.

When we are younger, this may be developmental trauma in the form of adverse childhood experiences. If we are in a serious car accident, this is single-incident capital ‘T’ trauma. Complex trauma may be ongoing workplace bullying, coercive control by a family member, or community violence. Vicarious trauma may occur for first responders repeatedly witnessing overwhelming events.

What determines if it is trauma for you in that moment is whether you have capacity to cope or not. A good example is if you are under attack by a wild animal and you are able to fight back and flee without major injury – your brain is likely to determine that you have coped well. It relies on the dubious logic of our human mind.

What we know about trauma is incredible and can be life-changing for those who have experienced trauma. We now see how our brain changes, how this affects our baseline of stress, and how we can create resilience. Asking the question with non-judgemental curiosity ‘what happened to you?’ allows us to draw on our humanness to understand what our brain has learnt about the world and what it needs.

It draws on the brilliant neuroscience of neuroplasticity – how amazingly reactive and changeable our brain is. A traumatic experience changes our brain structure. Neuroplasticity shows that we have the power to change this. We can do this by strengthening neural pathways – like bushwalking, where the path most trodden is easy, smooth and flat, whereas the path least taken is challenging, requires concentration, and is more effortful.

Dr Bruce Perry and Oprah’s book would be a great therapy companion for those who are trying to figure out their brain and trauma. For example, state dependent functioning is a theory around how our brain operates differently based on our nervous system function at that time – ‘a calm body allows for a calm mind, a calm mind thinks differently’. Likewise, when our brain decides we are not safe, our nervous system is dysregulated and we end up thinking differently. Dr Bruce Perry explains this more thoroughly (and more eloquently!) in the book.

Trauma-informed therapy ties together our understanding of this neuroscience and our knowledge of how we can create a sense of safety and security through interpersonal relationships. In the modern world where we know experiences of trauma are the norm and not the exception, it is important to look for trauma-informed practitioners across all aspects of medical care.

What do you want to know more about? Let’s discuss on Instagram @calmcollectivepsychology.

Warm wishes,

Grace