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July 31-August 01, 2019 | Amsterdam, Netherlands
Volume 3
Psychology 2019
July 31-August 01, 2019
Journal of Clinical Psychology and Cognitive Science
PSYCHOLOGY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE
22
nd
World Congress on
Clin Psychol Cog Sci, Volume 3
Infantile post-traumatic stress (Re-set therapy)
I
will be presenting a reflection of my body of clinical trauma work, also represented in my book ‘On the Shoulders of
Giants’ which was published in 2006. This work was first presented at the PSI Conference in 2012 and again in 2013.
My clinical work centres around infantile post-traumatic stress, whereby symptoms of present anxieties are traced back to
birth. This treatment programme is referred to as ‘Re-set therapy’.
Areas being addressed in this presentation centre around the first brain region to be visible in the womb; the reptilian
function of the brain. This is deepest, most ancient part of the human brain, largely unchanged by evolution. The reptilian
brain activates instinctive behaviour related to survival, and controls essential bodily functions required for sustaining life,
including hunger, digestion, breathing, circulation, temperature, movement, and territorial instincts. The reptilian function
is visible twenty-two days after conception. From very early on, this region appears to have a defensive role, which we
now recognise as the ‘fight-or-flight’ response. The fight-or-flight response is a survival response, designed to respond
appropriately to real or perceived threat. When the fight-or-flight response is triggered, cortisol levels are understood
to increase. An increase in cortisol levels correlate with physical and psychological presentations of anxiety and related
behavioural and self-regulatory disorders, such as ADD, ADHD, OCD and others, which clinicians have been seeking to
address for some time, with mixed levels of success.
The individual’s unique DNAis being formed from conception, through in-utero development and into the delivery process.
Recent developments in availability of procedures such as amnio-sentisis have provided unprecedented opportunity to
assess the foetus from early stage development. However, practitioners using such procedures have presented ultrasound
evidence of the foetus seemingly attempting an escape – a defence mechanism against a real or perceived threat, long
before the rational brain has formed. Similarly, the delivery process can be a traumatic event, where tools such as forceps
and suction-cups (venteuse) correlate with the experience of distress, which can have an interfering effect on the regulation
within the child. The use of fMRI scans has demonstrated changes which arise in the brain of a child separated from their
caregiver. Etiological studies of attachment patterns, grounded on theories of Bowlby and others, propose vast evidence
of the effect of maternal anxiety on the affective regulation of the child, in-utero. These brain changes have been indicated
to negatively influence subsequent self-regulation capacity for the child as well as the capacity to effectively trust others.
The design for survival is present, active and well-formed in the brain of the individual. The body’s alarm system is well-
placed, and ‘perfectly’ created. The alarm system was never designed to be triggered constantly. We consider the alarm
system within the brain as we would consider an alarm system of a building. The alarm must always be present but should
only triggered in the event of a ‘break in’. Where the alarm system is triggered, there are demonstrable neurobiological
alterations. We use this information to retrain the brain and the body, and to re-set the alarm. We teach our brains to be in-
charge of the alarm once again; to be able to re-set and to reverse the reptilian override of the rational brain, the so-called
‘brain hijack’. That is the hope which Re-set therapy proposes and succeeds to bring. We are at a cutting-edge crossroads
in that the empirical evidence is catching up with what clinical practice of Re-set therapy has demonstrated for years.
Owen Connolly
Owen Connolly Counselling Therapy & Education Centre, Ireland