The above talk is from the world's leading trauma specialist and author of The Body Keeps The Score.
As I am well aware, there are people here who have suffered trauma in one form or another, directly or indirectly because of their Autism, whether that has been through poor support after diagnoses or the pain and suffering experienced of not having been diagnosed early. It may also be of help to some who have come here still not sure or are awaiting diagnoses.
I have often read here of the many people who have been through the run mill in their lives, seeking one treatment after another or being misdiagnosed or fobbed off because of their complexities. I have also read many stories here where the conventional and standard treatments of CBT or prescribed drugs have minimal or no success in many cases.
My concern here is not to confuse Autism with Trauma but what is striking from the works and studies into Trauma from this guy is, those treatments like CBT or prescribed drugs have also little or no success in the treatment of Trauma. As the slides on the video will show, this is because of what Trauma does to the brain and its development. Basically it makes you stuck where you can't function properly as it seems to shut down or reduce many other areas of an otherwise healthy brain. This includes decision making and the ability of disregarding or temporarily putting aside unnecessary worries or dangers that are no immediate threat and dealing with them later as a healthy brain would. This is because, much like some of us on the spectrum or not, we are constantly living in the Flight or Fight mode or in anxiety or fear. In other words, in our own fearful prisons of stuck-ness.
But the biggest revelation from this guy's lifetime of studies & work, for me, was that, as the title of his book suggests ' The Body Keeps The Score ' is that Trauma is stored in the body.
This is the reason why CBT or drugs will never work. Why am I writing this in an Autism forum ? Because the current, mainstream treatments for either do not work and I hope some of the already proven approaches and treatments done for Trauma, may help or point those of us on the spectrum to a more holistic approach as suggested in this video and the Dr's lifetimes works.
