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Trauma has a way of ‘marking’ the body, other than the mind.⁣M. Guidotti talks about the differences between humans and animals and their respective reactions to trauma.⁣⁣When experiencing trauma, animals often go through a limited freezing. After some time, they burst into an aggression (fight) or they run away (flight), manifesting an actual reaction toContinue reading “Trauma & body”

Today we talk about somatisation. Polyvagal theory is useful once again to see more in depth what are some connections between body and mind. This theory tells us how, based on an internal or external stimulus that we perceive as dangerous or even life-threatening (so, something we elaborate with our brain), our internal system triggersContinue reading “Somatisation”

Cartesian dualism stated that body and mind are fundamentally different, as the former is made of physical matter and the latter isn’t. This created a division that is still, to some extent, sustained by some today. In more psychological – and recent – terms: the mind cannot be reduced to neurobiology and physics.⁣These theories allContinue reading “March theme: BODY”

We have reached the end of our ‘Torches’ month, dedicated to coping.⁣⁣The metaphor with torches is a fitting one because it explains the dual nature of coping: torches help us see in the dark but also help us avoid it.⁣⁣In the first part of the month we highlighted the main forms of coping and whatContinue reading “Coping recap”

Our psyche does that: it protects us from (real or possible) traumas, and as a consequence of this suppression, it ‘copes’ by creating secondary issues. Let’s clear this with some examples. ▪️ You might have suffered from anxieties that despite interfering with your wellbeing, have remained relatively uncovered. They might be too much to handle,Continue reading “What happens when coping is unconscious?”

Multiple shades of coping It’s not only a matter of style. Within those styles, there are different ways we can cope, more or less effectively. We can adapt, changing something in ourselves or our behaviours to better suit the environment we inhabit. We can attack, displacing our discomfort on someone or something else, often inContinue reading “Coping and defense”

“Do I need to change my situation or do I need to find a way to better cope with the situation?” While in the long run it pays to dig deeper and search for meaning, in the short run, emotion-focused and problem-focused coping might have their advantages, and their effectiveness depends on whether we canContinue reading “Emotion-focused vs. Problem-focused”

Polyvagal theory states that we have three ways of functioning, linked to our autonomic nervous system. The first and ‘least elaborate’ one is the dorsal vagal (freeze), then comes the sympathetic (fight or flight) and finally the ventral vagal (social engagement).  This is an interesting theory, that we will come back to in the future,Continue reading “Polyvagal theory and coping”

Welcome to ‘Torches‘, a month dedicated to undestand coping in its many forms. Let’s start with definitions. To cope is to deal effectively with something difficult. Sounds a lot like resilience, but while resilience is the ability to “recover quickly”, to “bounce back”, almost being untouched by the circumstances, coping implies a process of managingContinue reading “Coping”