A Breakdown in Dialectics (Part 3 of 10)
This driving metaphor describes what happens to people who have experienced chronic trauma: too much accelerating, too much braking, and loss of social engagement to boot. This leads to a vast variety of responses that are either “too much” or “too little,” resulting in a host of life complications. This tendency toward too much or too little especially affects the following domains:
- Awareness
- Thoughts
- Emotions
- Reactions
- Relationships
For each of these domains, it is possible to have either too much (overuse of the accelerator, or sympathetic nervous system) or too little (overuse of the brake, or parasympathetic nervous system). Too much awareness leads to hypervigilance, whereas too little leads to dissociation. Too much thinking leads to obsessive rumination, whereas too little leads to impulsive decision-making. Too much emotional stimulation leads to overwhelm, whereas too little leads to numbness. Too much reactivity leads to even more crises, whereas too little leads to paralysis. Even relationships can be either too much or too little, resulting in either overdependence or under-dependence on others.
In short, trauma results in all of the following possibilities: over-awareness versus under-awareness; overthinking versus under-thinking; overemoting versus under-emoting; overreacting versus underreacting; and over-relating versus under-relating. Because both the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems have been hijacked, the driver is constantly over-accelerating and over-braking in each of these domains — and often doing both at the same time.
This blog post is an excerpt from Trauma stabilization through polyvagal theory and DBT, an article published by the American Counseling Association on September 14, 2021 by Kirby Reutter.
If you would like to learn more about how to use trauma-focused DBT with a variety of trauma-based disorders, I recommend the following resources to get started:
- The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook for PTSD: Practical Exercises for Overcoming Trauma and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by Kirby Reutter, 2019
- “DBT for Trauma and PTSD” (DBT Expert Interview series at psychotherapyacademy.org/dbt-interviews)
- Survival Packet: Treatment Guide for Individual, Group, and Family Counseling by Kirby Reutter, 2019
- “The Journey From Mars: Brain Development and Trauma” webinar (youtube.com/watch?v=WSFqHS_axOc)
