Trauma and the Brain

Four weeks ago right about now, I was ready to dig into a burrito bowl at the Chipotle in Arvada in the warm Colorado sunshine. With journal at hand, I was processing what I had learned that morning at the NARTH Conference.

I'm still processing.

The presenter that morning was Dr. Norman Goldwassar, a psychologist whose main focus was trauma, including a technique of processing it called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). The talk was fascinating. EMDR has been remarkably effective for things like PTSD. The Psychologist has had some very good outcomes in treating people with unwanted same-sex attraction (USSA).

What really hit home was his definition of a trauma: an event that is shocking, unexpected, rocks your world, and is destabilizing. One event can be a trauma to one person but not to another. If something still bothers you and if you still remember the details of the event, then it is likely a trauma.

Traumas get stuck, according to Dr. Goldwasser, in the right side of your brain. The left brain -- the analytical and processing half -- does not get involved. He said that the trauma can get stuck in your neurological system and can result in physiological symptoms.

I could relate to this -- sweaty palms and tightness in the chest in situations which, my brain tells me are safe, but my body is reacting as if it is not.

The goal of EMDR is to engage the left brain into the trauma where it can be processed.

Dr. Goldwassar's talk brought home to me the role of trauma in the development of SSA and the benefit of processing it. Many with SSA have experienced trauma at an age when they were unable to deal with it. Returning to the trauma -- thinking through it, talking through it, and praying through it -- can remove the effects of the trauma, including the physiological reactions that are subconsciously triggered.

I'll be writing more about brain trauma in the weeks to come. It seems like a very important consideration in addressing USSA.

O LORD, you have searched me and known me! . . . You discern my thoughts from afar. Psalm 139:1-2