The Branches of Healing shows how we can open neuropathways. Doing so helps us work through the emotion overwhelm. This tree also represents the right side (creativity) and left side (logic) of the brain. The more pathways we use, the better we are at managing our flashbacks. Even mastery is possible.
Using the tree analogy, think of trauma as its roots. Then the emotional overwhelm becomes the trunk. When we’re in a flashback, we can’t think straight, and our creativity is blocked. There’s nothing we can do about it until it runs its course. However, once we “branch out” is when we start gaining control.
Clarity and Validation
This is the foundation for healing. Once we distance ourselves from our abusers, we start gaining perspective. We see the traumatic events more clearly than we had while we were enduring them. We can better acknowledge that what happened to us was wrong and that we did not deserve it. However, this only gets us so far. We need to actively experience what we’re learning by opening our brain pathways. AKA: the branches of healing. To further understand how each one helps, let’s start from the top branch and work our way down.
Analysis
This is known as “the lightbulb stage”, when we finally learn there is language for our trauma. There is a name for the type of abuse we endured. Analysis answers questions like: Why did this happen? What caused my abuser/s to treat me this way? I wonder why I do some of the things that I do? And how much of that is due to my trauma?
We get our “lightbulbs” through various sources. One way is through a quality (and I do stress quality) trauma informed therapist. Another is through support groups that are not run by enableists. There are also books that provide clarity on what happened without invalidating the victim in the process. There’s a list of good Resources in Master Toolbox 1. Trauma Glossaries 1, 2, and 3 will also help.
Structure and Somatic in the Branches of Healing
The best example of structure and somatic work in action is to consider what martial arts does for anger. Sure, it gives anger a healthy means of releasing it, but it isn’t mindless melee on the mat. It also incorporates discipline, focus and technique. In other words, martial arts are structured somatic work.
Somatic Work
This is any kind of work with the body that releases the trauma. Trauma is stored in our bodies, which causes an imbalance of cortisol and serotonin. (Trauma Glossary 3: Section 3.) That’s why taking care of our bodies is important. There is a miscellaneous list of somatic work in Master Toolbox 2: Section 2. For flashback management, using our bodies to contradict or master how we felt in our original trauma is key.
Structure
This is the most underrated of pathways. That’s because as a trauma response, we either go for too much structure (like OCD) or not enough (Freeze response). However, structure gives us focus and self-discipline that ensures we meet our goals. It also helps us achieve balance in our lives. When we learn how to maintain our window of tolerance, (Master Toolbox 1) for example, we’re automatically using structure. There are other ways we can use structure with other branches of healing, of course. In fact, structure was used in all five of my articles on flashback management.
Cognitions and Imagination in the Branches of Healing
EMDR is the best example of using these two together. For one thing, the cognition sheet was originally created for EMDR. First we notice what negative beliefs we developed about ourselves. Then, as we process our trauma, we use our imagination to turn those negative cognitions into positive ones.
Cognitions
Have you heard the saying that our thoughts drive our emotions, which influences our action (or inaction)? There’s one more piece to this puzzle. Cognitions are our core beliefs about ourselves and our place in the world. It’s the foundation of what’s influencing our thoughts in the first place. When our minds were forged in trauma, we were programmed to have many negative beliefs about ourselves. So, the more we confront and challenge those core beliefs, the more our actions will achieve better outcomes. Just a side note: the cognition sheet is in Master Toolbox 1 for good reasons.
Imagination
This is key to innovation, the centerpiece of daring for more. It’s where our ideas are born and how we can plan ways of wielding them into reality. It’s also used in each branch of creativity. Imagination helps us think outside the limits of our trauma. Guided imagery, a major tool for building and maintaining our window of tolerance relies on using the imagination. It also goes without saying that creativity relies on working with the imagination.
The Healing Branches of Processing and Creativity
The key to integration is using both sides of the brain. It’s a lot easier than you think. Notice how the four major branches of creativity also happen to be right brained methods for processing. No wonder creativity is the driver for integration. As soon as we get a little creative, it brings us that much closer to wholeness.
Processing: Branches of Healing
Processing is how we understand what we’re learning. It helps us make sense out of the past and the present. The four branches of processing: verbal, written, visual, and auditory are about the sending and receiving of information. Both visual and auditory are how we receive information. Verbal is how we send it. Written can be both, however. When we write, we are sending, but when we are reading, we are receiving.
Most of us have a strength in one of the four and a weakness in another. If there are major ongoing problems with one or more style of processing, see Broca’s Area and Thalamus in Trauma Glossary 3 (Section 1). It could give you insights into what’s going on and what you can do about it.
Creativity: Branches of Healing
Creativity helps us strengthen the way we process information. Not only is this the classic right side working with the left side of the brain, but it does so by using the other branches. More pathways open up, which is how we can easily slip into a flow state while doing something creative.
Art therapy is popular because we are sending visual information. Once the project is complete and we look at our work, we are receiving it.
Music is the sending and receiving of auditory information. Even something as simple as creating a playlist can do for our listening ears what art does for our eyes.
Creative writing can dramatically lower the pain when sharing our story or working through ongoing problems. For example, poetry or writing a script gives us a chance to go outside the traditional “vomiting it out on paper”.
Theater is active verbal expression. It’s the only branch of creativity that helps us practice both being seen and heard.
The purpose of this article was to give you an overview of what each pathway does in the branches of healing. It’s to hopefully give you ideas on how to work with it. My past five articles on flashback management came from my own experiences and what I have learned from them. It started with a couple of overwhelming flashbacks that EMDR couldn’t help. I didn’t want that pain in my life, so I went on a quest.
If you want to see examples of how we can mix it up by using even more of these branches together, click here. I’ve built a series of five visual aids highlighting the branches as they pertain to each article. A link to each article is also provided per visual aid.