Working with the Neurobiological Legacy of Trauma Across the Lifespan with Janina Fisher, PhD

How could a profound understanding of the neurobiological logic behind trauma responses further enrich your therapeutic methods? Join us, with Dr. Janina Fisher to find out!

Neuroscience research has established that traumatic experiences leave a ‘living legacy’ of enduring effects at whatever age we are traumatized. Ironically, the survival responses that preserve sanity and integrity under threat do not diminish once safety is obtained. Meant to warn us of impending danger, these survival responses continue to be re-evoked by everyday stimuli related directly or indirectly to the events of long ago. It is not the events themselves that cause individuals to suffer but rather the somatic, emotional, and cognitive effects that may have no obvious connection to the traumatic

The evolution of new neurobiologically-informed treatments offers new, hopeful answers to the neurobiological aftermath of trauma and neglect. We can address the chronic dread and fear of danger, the loss of hope or energy, the fear of and longing for human connection, and self-destructive and addictive behavior. Rather than ‘treating’ the events that resulted in this legacy, neuroscience teaches us how to treat their effects. When trauma symptoms are “decoded” and validated, they become comprehensible and treatable.