FREE TO JOIN: ‘Addiction Treatment Update Requirements in 2024 and Beyond!’
with Lou Lebentz... Embodied Dialogue Series
‘The Restoration of the Hijacked Self’
with Ruth Lanius
Thursday 2pm-3pm ET on February 8, 2024
Free to join, all welcome.
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“The compulsion to repeat the past through traumatic re-enactments or engaging in reckless behaviours is frequently one of the few ways that allows traumatized individuals to ‘feel alive’. It is well known that individuals with PTSD – particularly when associated with developmental trauma – often report a sense of self that does not exist entirely, illustrated eloquently through statements, such as, “I do not know who I am,” or, “I feel like I have stopped existing.”
Research suggests that these experiences may relate, in part, to the reduced functional connectivity of the default mode network, a brain network critical to the experience of a sense of self, observed during rest among individuals with PTSD. Critically, however, enhanced default mode network connectivity has recently been observed when individuals with PTSD are triggered by reminders of their trauma, suggesting that the sense of self may ‘come alive’ under conditions of threat and terror. It is therefore possible that some individuals with PTSD may seek situations involving threat or terror in order to experience of a semblance of a sense of self and a related sense of agency, which may be lacking in the absence of extreme hyperarousal states. Ruth will focus on how we can work clinically to help traumatized individuals ‘feel alive’ and safe without engaging in traumatic re-enactments and/or reckless behaviour.”
About Ruth
Ruth A. Lanius, M.D., Ph.D. is a Psychiatry Professor and Harris-Woodman Chair at Western University of Canada, where she is the director of the Clinical Research Program for PTSD. Ruth has over 25 years of clinical and research experience with trauma-related disorders. She established the Traumatic Stress Service at London Health Sciences Centre, a program that specializes in the treatment of psychological trauma.
Ruth has received numerous research and teaching awards, including the Banting Award for Military Health Research. She has published over 150 research articles and book chapters focusing on brain adaptations to psychological trauma and novel adjunct treatments for PTSD.
Ruth regularly lectures on the topic of psychological trauma both nationally and internationally. Ruth has co-authored two books: The Effects of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The Hidden Epidemic and Healing the Traumatized Self: Consciousness, Neuroscience, Treatment. Ruth is a passionate clinician scientist who endeavours to understand the first-person experience of traumatized individuals throughout treatment and how it relates to brain functioning.
Visit
https://www.facebook.com/ruthlanius/
https://twitter.com/laniusRuth
https://www.youtube.com/@ruthlanius6678
Join Jan Winhall's group on the PVI (Polyvagal Institute) Community App for updates and discussion.
The Felt Sense Polyvagal Approach to Trauma & Addiction Group is a place for you to explore with others, through a polyvagal lens, the experiences of trauma and addiction. We are focusing on understanding addiction through the lens of the nervous system, as an adaptive response to maladaptive environments. Our group is growing in leaps and bounds indicating a hunger for change, for the kind of transformative change that polyvagal theory brings us. The group interacts online as part of the PVI (Polyvagal Institute) Community App. Once a month the group meets live on Zoom for an hour of exploration and discussion with a guest presenter, in what we now call the Embodied Dialogue Series.
Free to join the group, all welcome!
PVI Community Member Guidelines
- We are cultivating cues of safety, so please be supportive.
- Encourage and support your colleagues – Remember criticism, cynicism, advice, or judgment may be signs of threat.
- Be courteous and assume the best intentions – respect all opinions, no hate speech.
- Share generously – Your stories and experiences may be what another person needs to hear today to solve a problem or seize an opportunity.
- Be constructive – We’re here to push each other forward and lift each other.
- Find ways to help each other find and create cues of safety and co-regulation, reframe challenges, and stay curious.
- Advertising, solicitation, personal or company promotion is not permitted. Those who don’t comply with the guidelines will be requested to leave the app.
Jan Winhall, M.S.W. P.I.F.O.T. is an author, teacher and seasoned trauma and addiction psychotherapist. She is an Educational Partner and Course Developer with the Polyvagal Institute where she offers a training program based on her book Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, Routledge 2021. Completion of four levels leads students to become Felt Sense Polyvagal Model Facilitators. Her new book, 20 Embodied Practices for Healing Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model, will be published by Norton to be available in March 2025. She is an Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Toronto and a Certifying Co-Ordinator with the International Focusing Institute. Jan is Co-Director of the Borden Street Clinic where she supervises graduate students. She enjoys teaching all over the world.
3 Replies to “‘The Restoration of the Hijacked Self’ with Ruth Lanius”
John ONeal
Very excited about being part of this learning community
Rachan
Hi John! We look forward to seeing you there!
katarina halm
Sending much appreciation for this dialogue which begins:
☆ Ruth Lanius emphasizes that her work is as a ‘clinician scientist’ caring for the ‘part of the brain’ that ‘generates raw emotions’ … ‘pain’ … ‘terror’ … that can dysregulate us.
☆ Jan Winhall notes the importance of understanding as a bridge between process and action.