Why You Can’t Remember Traumatic Events

Let me get the scientific part out of the way first. To understand the rest of this article, I need to define three things:

1. Traumatic Event: Any happening which effects major change in our emotional, physical and memory functions
2. Glucocorticoids: Substances produced during trauma that help our brain cope with the overwhelming nature of the event
3. Hippocampus: The central core of our memory system that allows us to take events and store them in long-term memory.

Armed with those definitions, let me walk you through recent discoveries with memory research. In about a dozen studies (but most recently in this one by Benno Roozendaal et al), it has been shown that when we have a traumatic event in our lives, the body produces major amounts of glucocorticoids. This helps to calm us down so we can cope. It also gives us that “numb” feeling that many people describe during stress. But glucocorticoids have a transverse effect. They destroy neurons in the Hippocampus. This means that the more stress we are under, the less we will be able to store the traumatic event it in long-term memory. This partially explains how some people who endured years of trauma through abuse have very little memory of the entire season of events.

However, there is one other effect of Glucocorticoids. They enhance the limbic system in the brain. The limbic system helps us store our emotional reactions in events. Our brains can actually store our emotional output during a traumatic even much more completely than we can store the facts of the event.

The implication of these two findings is huge for TPM (Theophostic Management) counseling. TPM counseling accesses emotional reactions in the present time and follows them back to their original memory. Since emotions are actually heightened during trauma, they are a more accurate way to access traumatic memories than any other method.

I consider this a true endorsement for TPM and EMDR approaches to emotional and spiritual well-being. Each of these counseling methods relies on triggered emotions to go back to false beliefs and decisions that are still affecting our lives from those trauma.

Protecting Kids from Lies – Part 3

My father struggled all his life to believe he could finish anything. As a boy, he took on the idea that he was destined to be a great starter and a lousy finisher. My grandmother saw this and determined she would do a better job the next time.

Next time? She had already raised four kids, so when was this “next time” going to happen? When my Mom and Dad moved my brother and I with them into our grandparents’ basement, Grandma saw her opportunity. She was going to do it right with us.

Dave and I heard two constant themes from Grandma. She always told us we could do anything we put our minds to. Not only did we hear it like a daily mantra, she would celebrate everything we did accomplish as if it deserved a major award. If I was drying the dishes,

Protecting Children From Lies – Part 2

Emotions often hold power over our beliefs; especially pain, anger and grief. This explains why children don’t voice their most deeply held lies – they do not want to reveal what they’re feeling.

Let me give an example. Margaret was eight years old when she experienced something a child should never go through. I won’t reveal the details of the molestation, but it was heinous and involved a man known to the family. He was a good friend of her father’s. She felt unclean, unloved and abandoned throughout the period of that ordeal. Her mother was not stupid;

Protecting a Child From Lies – Part 1

Jen began training with us with the goal of being a people-helper. During the training, she confronted a half dozen beliefs that were hurting and defeating her life. As she let go of each belief, she felt more freedom to live as an adult. I use the words ‘live as an adult’ because these beliefs were all childish. One belief in particular had affected almost every relationship in her life. It all started so simply. When Jen was three and a half, her mother made her a beautiful white Easter dress with a large pink bow around the waist. She had never worn anything so lovely or expensive (her family was dirt-poor, and this was a major step up in clothing value). At that time, she was the only child in her family, so she had no one to show her pretty dress to. She went outside that Sunday morning looking to display her finery. The only thing walking around was the neighbor’s dog. She followed him into his yard, all the while telling the dog how much she loved her new dress.

The dog was unimpressed, as Jen remembers. He kept walking away from her and went into the next neighbor’s yard. Jen quickly climbed the small picket fence so she could follow the dog. When she got on top of the fence-line