Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

What is small t trauma? Does it exist at all? Matt and Jerry have different opinions on the topic, and we spend this episode trying to figure out our differences and come to some sort of consensus. Not quite a battle royal but join us for a fascinating conversation on an important topic.

Discussion questions:

1. What are your thoughts on small t trauma?
2. How do you see long-term stress impacting those you serve?
3. Do you see a distinction between the impacts of big T and small t traumas?

Podcasters: Dr. Robert T. Muller, Matt Bennett, & Curt Mower

Dr. Robert T. Muller joins Matt and Curt to discuss his new book Trauma & The Struggle to Open Up: From Avoidance to Recovery & Growth. Dr. Muller’s book beautifully frames how the guilt and shame of trauma affects peoples’ ability to discuss and overcome their traumatic pasts. We explore his insights and how they help inform our approaches to helping others heal from trauma.

Discussion questions:

1. How do you those you serve trying to avoid dealing with trauma, painful feeling, and their pasts?
2. Can you identify times that you felt unprepared to handle a powerful disclosure of trauma?
3. What are ways you could integrate Dr. Muller’s insight into your work?

Click the book cover for more information on Dr. Muller’s book and here for his Psychology Today Blog

In our final episode in our heart rate variability (HRV) series, Matt, Curt, and Jerry examine the connecting between HRV, self-regulation, and psychosocial well-being. We also reflect on the entire series and crucial lessons learned about trauma’s impact on critical biomarkers. Is HRV the next major step forward in education, psychology, and medicine?

Discussion questions:

1. What are the key points you’ve learned in our examination on HRV?
2. Have our discussions convinced you to track your own HRV?
3. How do you see HRV impacting the future of education, psychology, and medicine?

This week’s article: Cardiac Coherence, self regulation, autonomic stability

 

Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

Trauma-related symptoms have been demonstrated to impede the establishment of effective working alliance between therapist and client.  In the article we discuss today, researchers provide some conceptual framework and empirical data that suggest a strong relationship between autonomic regulation and working alliance between therapists and clients seeking trauma-focused treatment.  This also leads to a discussion of the impact autonomic regulation on the formation of effective interpersonal communication, connection, trust, and shared goals that are required for cooperative interactions in other contexts.

Discussion Questions:

• If you were to guess, how many of those you work with would measure in a way that shows they are going to struggle to create a healthy working relationship with you?
• What are some things you could do for those who are not ready to help them to succeed and limit retraumatization?
• If this technology was given to you for free today, how or would you use it?

This week’s article: Physiological predictors of Working Alliance

Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, & Dr. Jerry Yager

We are taking an opportunity to hit the pause button and dig deeper into what we’ve covered so far in our heart rate variability series. What does this all mean for our own health, our programming, and how we view trauma. We explore what it all means in this episode.

Discussion Questions:

• What practical aspects can you pull out of our discussion for your own self-care and the health of those you serve?
• What are a couple of key takeaways you’ve gotten from our discussion?
• What questions remain unanswered for you about HRV?

The Window of Tolerance Episode

The Epigenetics Episode

In this episode, we continue our exploration of trauma and heart rate variability. This week we explore the relationship between stressful life events, heart rate variability, and social engagement. Our conversation explores how this research applies to programming and treatment to help people recover and heal from trauma.

Article for this week: High cardiac control protects against future depressive symptoms under conditions of high social support

Discussion questions:

1. How does the understanding that some folks benefit greatly and others might be triggered by social connections affect how we structure your programming?
2. Can you identify ways you can more effectively work with those that need extra time to establish trust and feel safe with staff and others in the program?
3. Do you have any thoughts on how you might integrate non-social interventions to supplement your program?

Conditioned fear responses and learning safety cues are critical components of both the etiology of trauma-related dysfunction and recovery from traumatic experiences.  Can inter-individual differences in physiological measures predict our ability to extinguish conditioned fear responses and to learn new safety cues?   In this episode, Matt, Jerry & Curt discuss an article describing a study that asked these very questions.

Discussion questions:

1. Can you identify the way the fear response manifests in those you work with?
2. Does our discussion about HRV provide you any insight into possible strategies to help clients manage stress and fear?

Article for this week: Resting HRV Predicts Safety Learning Fear Extinction

Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, Dr. Jerry Yager

Welcome to our second annual New Year’s Special. In this episode, Matt, Curt, and Jerry reflect on 2018 and look ahead to 2019. In a year that saw Oprah focus on trauma and more people exposed to the science the ever before, 2018 was an important year. What lies ahead and where should we focus to ensure the paradigm continues to change lives and make a positive impact on our communities.

Discussion questions:

1. What are two new things you learned this year that changed how you do or look at your work?
2. Where do you think your organization and community need to focus to further the implementation of the trauma paradigm?
3. What are you looking forward to in 2019?

Over the past decade or so, research within the field of behavioral health has given rise to a wide variety of evidence-based practices. Characterizing and legitimately testing the effects of treatments has been a significant positive direction for behavioral health.  However, notably missing from this literature are investigations of factors related to individuals who did not appear to benefit from the interventions.  Understanding individual differences may contribute valuable information about how and when interventions are most likely to be effective.

Questions/Organizing Items:

1. Description/Overview of the two studies
2. What is Vagal Tone and how might vagal tone contribute to our ability to regulate emotions?
3. How might an understanding of vagal influence enhance our understanding of the use of cognitive interventions?

The article for this week’s podcast: Affective Instability Predicted by Resting HRV

Your Podcasters: Matt Bennett, Curt Mower, and Dr. Jerry Yager

Building on the discussion from last week related to research demonstrating the impact of chronic pain (stress) on heartbeat dynamics, in this week’s episode we discuss the physiology of the anxiety response from a research project investigating differences in HPA Axis and Heart Rate responsiveness among neurotypical children and children with autism with  and without co-occurring anxiety.

Discussion Questions:

1. How might the information discussed in the article relate to relate to those you serve?
2. Does the information help you see behavior in a different light?

Article for this Podcast: Differences in HPA-axis and heart rate 2014

Article for next week: Affective Instability Predicted by Resting HRV