How does trauma effect the brain – When we have an experience our brain receives messages about that experience through our 5 senses. When we have a good experience, the brain understands the messages and creates a story with a beginning a middle and an end. Once it makes sense of the experience, it can code and organize the information for long-term storage (Hippocampus). When you have a traumatic experience, your brain receives messages the same way (through your senses) but the messages are not cohesive and the brain cannot create a story with a beginning, middle, and end. The language part (frontal cortex) shuts down and the emotional part (amygdala) hijacks the brain. The messages coming in are fragmented. There are snippets of images, smells, touches, and sounds. If the brain can not make sense of the messages, it cannot code and organize the information to store it. As a result, the information sits in the front of the brain ready to go off at any time creating the symptoms that disrupt daily life and relationships. EMDR treatment can help the brain to make sense of the traumatic experience so it can be coded, organized, and stored so the experience is no longer distressing.
