EMDR Therapy- healing the brain

What exactly is trauma?

The American Psychological Association defines trauma as "an emotional response to a terrible event like an accident, rape, or natural disaster." While this is certainly true, The Center for Mind-Body Medicine founder, psychiatrist, and Transforming Trauma: The Path To Hope and Healing author James S. Gordon, MD, says trauma can also be inherited. "The [medical] field of epigenetics has shown that if someone's parents or grandparents suffered significant trauma, it can cause chromosomal changes that can affect the way our genes are expressed," he explains. "These changes can be inherited and what it means is that someone's response to stress isn't as prompt; they aren't as resilient.

"Trauma can affect your entire system, and that of course includes the brain. whenever we're confronted with something that's either physically or mentally distressing, it jump-starts the fight, flight, or freeze response. "In this state, heart rate goes up, stress hormones go up, and our digestive system doesn't work as well,". "The amygdala, the emotional center of our brain and the center of fear and anger, is firing off madly and the frontal part of the cerebral cortex [which plays vital roles in memory, attention, motivation, and numerous other daily tasks] is suppressed."

But this doesn't just happen during the traumatic event itself. Whenever there's a situation or image that resembles the trauma, it can re-activate that fight, flight, or freeze response. This is exactly why someone who h