What Happened to You

interpersonal rupture and repair is good for building resilience.

The irony is that all human communication is characterized by moments of miscommunication and getting out of sync, but then repairing things. As my good friend Ed Tronick, a pioneer in developmental psychology, teaches us, interpersonal rupture and repair is good for building resilience. These ruptures are perfect doses of moderate, controllable stress.

Conversation, for example, promotes resilience; discussions and arguments over family dinners and mildly heated conversations with friends are—as long as there is repair—resilience-building and
empathy-growing experiences. We shouldn’t be walking away from a conversation in a rage; we should regulate ourselves. Repair the ruptures. Reconnect and grow. When you walk away, everybody loses. We all need to get better at listening, regulating, reflecting. This requires the capacity to forgive, to be patient. Mature human interactions involve efforts to understand people who are different from you. But if we don’t have family meals, don’t go out with friends for long, in-person conversations, and communicate only via text or Twitter, then we can’t create that positive, healthy back-and-forth pattern of human connection.

Implicit bias is much more difficult. You may truly believe that racism is bad, that all people are equal. But those beliefs are in the intellectual part of your brain, and your implicit biases, which are in the lower part of your brain, will still play out every day—in the way you interact with others, the jokes you laugh at, the things you say.

Our first experiences create the filters through which all new experiences must pass.

Patterned, repetitive, rhythmic activity makes the overactive and overly reactive core regulatory networks (see ) get back “in balance.” Music falls into this category—both playing and listening. All sports involve doses of it. Dance, too. And, of course, each of these activities also has very important relational elements. You learn when to pass the ball to your teammate; you learn how to move with your dance partner; you synchronize playing your violin with other members of the orchestra. Finally, there are cognitive elements to sports, music, and other arts; they engage, activate, and synchronize activity throughout the brain, from the bottom up and from the top down. These are whole-brain healthy activities.

Marginalized peoples—excluded, minimized, shamed—are traumatized peoples, because as we’ve discussed, humans are fundamentally relational creatures. To be excluded or dehumanized in an organization, community, or society you are part of results in prolonged, uncontrollable stress that is sensitizing (see ). Marginalization is a fundamental trauma.

It is not surprising that today’s best practices in trauma treatment are basically versions of these four things. Unfortunately, few modern approaches use all four of the options well. The medical model overfocuses on psychopharmacology (4) and cognitive behavioral approaches (3). It greatly undervalues the power of connectedness (1) and rhythm (2).

For thousands and thousands of years, humans lived in small intergenerational groups. There were no mental health clinics—but there was plenty of trauma. I assume that many of our ancestors experienced post-traumatic problems: anxiety, depression, sleep disruptions. But I also assume that they experienced healing. Our species could not have survived if a majority of our traumatized ancestors lost their capacity to function well. The pillars of traditional healing were 1) connection to clan and the natural world; 2) regulating rhythm through dance, drumming, and song; 3) a set of beliefs, values, and stories that brought meaning to even senseless, random trauma; and 4) on occasion, natural hallucinogens or other plant-derived substances used to facilitate healing with the guidance of a healer or elder.

Healing takes place when there are dozens of therapeutic moments available each day for the person to control, revisiting and reworking their traumatic experience.

When you have friends, family, and other healthy people in your life, you have a natural healing environment. We heal best in
community.

When someone is very upset, words themselves are not very effective. The tone and rhythm of the voice probably has more impact than the actual words.

Oprah: So you want to be present with them?

Dr. Perry: Yes, it’s best if you can simply be present. If you do use words, it’s best to restate what they’re saying; this is called reflective listening. You can’t talk someone out of feeling angry, sad, or frustrated, but you can be a sponge and absorb their emotional intensity. If you stay regulated, ultimately they will “catch” your calm. It also helps to use some form of rhythmic regulating activity to keep yourself regulated while you’re doing this—like taking a walk, kicking a ball back and forth, shooting some baskets, coloring side-by-side; there are dozens of rhythmic ways to help us regulate.