Trauma and trauma

When I was a new practitioner in the 1980's and 1990's, a mere child, things from my end were very different than they are now. In those days I was mostly practicing with CBT; I'm still practicing with CBT, actually. But, hopefully, better. But some amazing new approaches to treatment are on the table for younger clinicians. I often find myself wondering what graduate school is like for these new practitioners...and I wonder if I'd like to take some of those classes now...

I find myself, now a new clinician again, running to catch up with the younger, more brilliant therapists that I know or read about on social media. Catching up on the new approaches, the new acronyms, the new knowledge, and the new treatment focus areas. These newer clinicians truly amaze me! I'm incredibly impressed with them.

You'd think I'd be exhausted and frustrated; but I'm enthusiastic. Because I'm seeing the tremendous growth in our understanding of human behavior and in our understanding of the workings of the human brain.

Specifically, we've learned that trauma, both big "T" Trauma and small "T" trauma, as we say, actually causes physical changes in the brain which results in problems for us. We've also learned about how the chemicals and hormones in our brain work, even how we can make them work better...

In my limited knowledge at this time, as a clinician working with human beings, I'm thrilled that we have a better understanding, now, of how trauma actually changes the human brain. The actual physical nature of the brain, as well as the chemistry. I'm taking a course right now... I'm hoping that my older brain allows me to absorb it all!


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