Part III: The Minds of Children
Required Reading:
Chapter 7 - Getting on the same wavelength: Attachment and attunement
Chapter 8 - Trapped in relationships: The cost of abuse and neglect
Chapter 9 - What's love got to do with it?
Chapter 10 - Developmental trauma: The hidden epidemic
Discussion Prompts:
Were you aware that it is through the experience of being cared for by their parent/s or guardian/s that children learn to take care of themselves as they grow up?
Keywords: self-regulation, secure attachment, emotional attunement
Re: Chapter 7, page 112
“Children’s disturbed behavior was a response to actual life experiences — to neglect, brutality, and separation.”
“Mastering the skill of self-regulation depends to a large degree on how harmonious our early interactions with our caregivers are.”
“Children are programmed to choose one particular adult (or at most a few) with whom their natural communication system develops. This creates a primary attachment bond. The more responsive the adult is to the child, the deeper the attachment and the more likely the child will develop healthy ways of responding to the people around him.” Him/her/them***
2. Though we have yet to read the part of the book where the author goes over solutions to adequately addressing trauma, what are some ways you feel safe in your body?
Re: In Chapter 8, Marilyn’s story once again brings us to the mind-body connection, and trauma manifesting itself in physical ways. After seeing Dr. Van der Kolk, Marilyn faced the sexual-abuse trauma she’d experienced as a child. Soon after, her eyesight started to fail: an autoimmune disease was eroding her retina. In a study, his team found that incest survivors had abnormalities in the ratios of immune cells, compared with un-traumatized women, exposing them to autoimmune diseases.The past is impressed not only on their minds, and in misinterpretations of innocuous events (as when Marilyn attacked Michael because he accidentally touched her in her sleep), but also on the very core of their beings: in the safety of their bodies.
3. The author begins Chapter 9 “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” by saying that trauma patients will often receive five or six unrelated diagnoses and prescriptions during the course of their treatment and that these will depend on which aspect of their case the doctor in question regards as most significant. None of these diagnoses will be wrong, but neither will they address the root of the issue — trauma. What are you thoughts on this? Do you have any personal opinions or stories on how folx affected by trauma are treated by the medical profession/system?
4. Can you point to a specific passage that struck you personally - as interesting, profound, incomprehensible, or illuminating?
