[libribook.com] Traumatic Scar Tissue Management 1st Edition

not only does the brain carry memories but that cells and neuropeptides hold and
transport memories throughout the entire body. According to Levine (1997),
memories are not literal recordings of events but rather a complex of images that
are influenced by arousal, emotional context, and prior experience. Levine
asserts that psychological wounds are reversible and that healing comes when
physical and mental release occurs.
Intense emotions at the time of trauma initiate the long-term conditional
response to reminders (triggers) of the event, which are associated with both
chronic alterations in physiological stress response and dissociative disturbances.
Animal research suggests that intense emotional memories are processed outside
of the hippocampus mediated memory system and are difficult to extinguish (van
der Kolk et al. 1997, van der Kolk 2014).
The individual’s perception of the danger, the force of collision, reactive lesions,
pain and other alarm sensations, all combine to create the preserved, intense,
information. The stored information may get triggered, resulting in reactions
such as fear, panic, syncope (partial or complete loss of consciousness), and
somatization – a tendency to experience and communicate psychological distress
in the form of physical symptoms.
MT may spark a somatic response or implicit tissue memory. Unexplained or
atypical responses relate to the client’s trauma history memories (e.g. recall of
the traumatic event, the moment of injury, consequent surgeries or other
lifesaving interventions) rather than to the MT intervention or technique
(Andrade 2013, Fitch 2014).
For example: during a session with a burn survivor who had traumatic scarring
decades old, upon a release of a thick scar band, the patient experienced a
memory of being 7 years old in the Huber Tank at the burn unit, some 40 years
in the past. The sights, smells and feelings of that experience were replicated, as
if she were in the tank in the present day.
Autonomic discharge may also occur in tandem with somatic memory, and be
expressed in the form of autonomic phenomena, such as fasciculation, tremor,
shaking, nystagmus, tears, skin color changes, sweating, clamminess, laughing,
crying and emotions like anger, aggression or irritation.
Such responses may cause a client to feel surprised, vulnerable and confused.
The conversation we have with the client during such an experience can be of
value to their therapeutic process. Conversely, if not well navigated the client