A NeuroDevelopmental Approach: Right Intervention, Right Time {EP 47}

Robyn: You are definitely going to want to head over to my website and get their free ebook I wrote all about the brilliance of attachment. I took everything from my recent six part series on attachment and had it professionally laid out into a beautiful, free eBook. Watching this series go from words into what feels honestly like a work of art was surprisingly lovel- lovely. I hope you'll love it. RobynGobbel.com/ebook While you're on my website, you're gonna want to check out my calendar of upcoming trainings for both parents and professionals at RobynGobbel.com/trainings. 

Robyn: Today's episode is sponsored by The Club, a virtual community of connection, co-regulation, and of course, a little education for parents of kids impacted by trauma and the professionals who support them. Right now in The Club, we are in the middle of a deep dive and body of exploration into attachment. So that finally everything you've learned and know about attachment becomes actually useful in your real life. Club members are telling me they've never explored attachment quite like this. The Club is full of the most a-mazing parents and professionals honestly I've like I've really truly never seen anything like this. The way they bravely show up for one another and themselves has exceeded what even I thought was going to be possible, especially in a virtual community. If you need to feel seen and to be gotten and understood, we would love to have you. And The Club opens for new members approximately every three months. And we'll be opening our doors again in the fall of 2021. If you head over to RobbynGobbel.com/TheClub, you'll be able to add yourself to the waiting list. 

Robyn: So here we are, I'm recording podcasts, you're listening. You're hoping this podcast is different than others, which is why you keep finding podcasts to listen to. That you'll finally get the support and answers that actually make sense and make a difference. Like many of you, I've been searching, and I was searching for something that made more sense and that honestly just worked better. I've really always had to drive to look for relational approaches to truly understand what's going on underneath behavior. I've been studying attachment since high school. But I also had plenty of experiences of being trained in more traditional behavioral or just more mainstream approaches to kids and behaviors. And having a very clear experience, that it simply just wasn't working. My therapy room was literally destroyed. I was hurt several times, and not because these kids were bad, but because something I was doing wasn't right. I knew something wasn't right and I knew it right away. I suppose, it’s definitely possible that I just wasn't a very good therapist. And truly, I guess I probably wasn't right. Like back in those very, very early days, I had a lot to learn. But still, even beyond that, something just wasn't right. What I was equipped with cognitive approaches, child centered play therapy, behavioral interventions and consequences, clearly just was not working for the kid I was working with, or their parents. And they were parents, like you good parents, who tried like, really, really tried hard, right? If those approaches were going to work, those families wouldn't have even landed in my office. 

Robyn: So I did what I do, which is that I got a little bit obsessive about trying to figure this all out. I got pretty lucky and I had an officemate and first mentor who kept a trampoline in his office. And he didn't have time, honestly, to coddle my ego. And just straight up, let me know where I was doing it wrong. I didn't know what to do different. But jumping on a trampoline certainly seemed a lot more fun than getting like bit and hit. So I was intrigued. This led me to Dr. Bruce Perry, who you may be familiar with, especially if you've been around the podcast for a little bit because I talked about Dr. Perry and the neurosequential model therapeutics a lot. Right? So Dr. Perry is the author of the book Who Was Raised as a Dog which came out, I'm just gonna say a long time ago. And then the most recent What Happened to You book, the book is called, quote unquote, What Happened to You and co-authored with, with Oprah Winfrey. So Dr. Perry, is where I learned the science to justify having a trampoline in my office. And then that led me to explore and discover the greater field of the relational neurosciences, which includes interpersonal neurobiology, and then theories of polyvagal theory, affect regulation theory, attachment theory, memory science theory and more. And, y’all, this literally changed everything for me. Interpersonal neurobiology is sort of my first discovery after Dr. Perry, and interpersonal neurobiology isn't techniques or tools, it's not even a clinical theory. It's a theory of being human. And it changed my core fundamental understanding of what it means to be human. And therefore, it's given me like a map that I can bring into the office and apply to treatment planning. But also it's given me a map that I can bring into every aspect of my relational life. 

Robyn: Behavior is simply a clue about a person's autonomic state, their felt safety, their regulation, and their openness or seeking of connection. The tools, and techniques, and clinical theory that I was equipped that was making assumptions about my client's state of regulation, and their brain development based really almost solely on chronologic- chronological age. What I had validated for me, as I really dove into interpersonal neurobiology, of polyvagal theory, the neurosequential model therapeutics and more, was that chronological age was largely irrelevant in the therapy room, and that I needed to meet my clients, the kids and the adults in the correct neurode- neurodevelopmental space. So for kids and adults, too, with histories of complex and relational trauma, and for many kids with really dysregulated behaviors, kind of regardless of why they were really dysregulated I simply just wasn't me. Seeing them where they were, which is why I was getting hit, and bit, and things were being thrown at me, and my room was destroyed and the same for their parents, right? The parents didn't know any better or different, and neither did I. And so I had to figure it out. 

Robyn: I wanted these kids to have like symbolic and metaphor play skills that they simply just didn't have. Yet. I wanted them to have cognitive processing skills and be able to utilize coping skills in a manner that they simply just weren't capable of. Yet. You may have heard Dr. Perry's catchy phrase that the order of operations is always regulate, relate, reason. Regulate first. Honestly, y’all, when I was a new therapist, I didn't even know what regulate meant. I had no idea how the autonomic nervous system was related to therapy and hadn't thought about it since like 11th grade AP bio. But it turns out, the autonomic nervous system relates to therapy a lot. Turns out the autonomic nervous system relates to everything a lot. The autonomic nervous system is like underneath everything, it's way more than just our heart rate and respiration, although that's really important too. Our autonomic nervous system is about the energy and arousal that's fueling us, including I mean, kind of, especially behavior. 

Robyn: We want to believe we have a lot of cognitive control over our behavior. But honestly, all we really don't. Like me, you/ Like behavior is largely implicit, meaning behavioral impulses happen way outside cognitive awareness, behavioral impulses are happening much faster than we can pause to think about them. Now we can learn to think about behavior, we can learn to slow behavior down enough that we can make changes. Certainly, we can do that once the foundation of our brain is strengthened to the point that we need it to be strengthened so that we can pull on- pull out those cognitive skills. But for all of us, not even just unique to kids with really dysregulated behaviors or kids with complex trauma histories, for all of us behavior is largely implicit. People who have experienced trauma, loss, toxic stress, while their autonomic nervous system was busy developing have had the regulation of their autonomic nervous system impacted. So ultimately, this means their behavior is pretty baffling, confusing, and overwhelming. And the autonomic nervous system is really busy developing, mostly in utero, and in those first months and earliest years of life. 

Robyn: So complex trauma has always been my area of expertise, but study- the study in the relational neurosciences has shifted my understanding of all humans, regardless of their history/ Regulation, felt safety, and connection. Our autonomic state is underneath all our behaviors, and we have to start with regulate. If we have kids or clients who have autonomic nervous system vulnerabilities due to trauma or toxic stress, we may have to stay with regulate longer. This neurodevelopmental lens helps us make sense of behaviors as a completely appropriate response, given the vulnerabilities in their nervous system, as opposed to a behavior problem that needs to be punished or even a characterological problem. The problem isn't the child's behavior. The problem is the disruption of the energy and arousal that's fueling the behavior. If I don't want to get hurt in a therapy session, helping the child develop coping skills to calm down before they start hitting and throwing things at me, will only be helpful if the problem is that they don't have those coping skills. But, y'all, that's almost never the case. The problem is that they aren't regulated. Coping skills are absolutely important. But if a child's energy and arousal is dysregulated to the point that they're rapidly escalating, continually making mountains out of molehills, or behaving in head scratching ways that leave the adults feeling baffled and overwhelmed. Uh huh. Were baffled and overwhelmed y'all. Me and you baffled, overwhelmed. You know what that child needs isn't coping skills. They need increased regulation and their autonomic nervous system, which is the bottom most and inside most part of their brain. It's the first part of the brain to develop. It's the foundation for everything. Teaching coping skills to a dysregulated child is a lot like focusing on the decorations when you're earthquake proofing your house. It's way more important to strengthen the foundation, which is the brainstem, autonomic nervous system. Not nail picture frames to the wall. I mean, if the house collapses, it doesn't really matter if the picture frames don't fall off, right? 

Robyn: Okay, so how do we do this? Well, I am, of course, I'm very glad that you asked, right? This is what we're going to be focusing on in the next six-ish weeks or so of this podcast: strengthening the foundation of the brain. And I have some really great guests lined up. At the end of the series, you'll then have the opportunity to go deeper and get more practical, more hands on with the material, and of course, way more support by joining us over in The Club, which is going to be opening up just as we wrap up this podcast series on strengthening the foundation of the brain. Now, this is because strengthening the foundation of the brain is going to be our focus in The Club throughout the end of the year. So beginning in October- so that means that the, you know, kind of broad overview, you'll be able to get here on this podcast, we will be going like feet first, diving in. Is feet first and diving deep the same thing? I mean, when you dive you go headfirst. Anyway! We're going to immerse ourselves in strengthening the foundation of the brain in The Club in October, November, December in a way that I can't really do with y'all on a podcast. So in The Club, we'll be getting super practical, we'll be looking at tools, and we’ll- and then we'll be doing the most important part, which is co-regulating one another. So that we're all regulated enough to be with our kids, whether that's our kids in the office, or our kids in our home that we're parenting in a way that we can actually use these tools and techniques.

Robyn: I've come to be a huge believer in therapeutic moments. So much healing and changing can happen. So much healing and changing must happen outside the therapeutic hour. I want to empower parents to become their child's expert. I want to empower you to become your child's expert. And I want to support therapists so that they can support you in becoming their child's expert, so that you can see behavior for what it truly is: simply a reflection of their autonomic state. And then give you the tools that will help you regulate and organize your child's nervous system. Because that's when the behavior you are really looking for will begin to emerge. 

Robyn: So today, we are kicking this off. We are kicking off this- I don't know yet, I haven't counted it out, it's going to be a six or seven episode series on strengthening the foundation of the brain. I've got great guests lined up, you aren't gonna want to miss this. So if you haven't already, hit subscribe to the Parenting After Trauma podcast on whatever podcast player you're listening to this podcast on, you're gonna want to go ahead and do that so that you see when new episodes are released. Which by the way, if you haven't noticed, always happen on Tuesday mornings. So yep, go back, go to your podcast player, open it up, hit subscribe. 

Robyn: Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being here, for taking the time to listen to this podcast, for being part of a movement that is not only changing the world for our kids, and specifically our kids with big, baffling, dysregulated behaviors. But honestly, y'all, we are changing the world for everyone. We are at the forefront of making an enormous paradigm shift globally. And we're at the forefront of it because we have to be at the forefront of it. Because what's currently available in the mainstream isn't working or helping our kids. So we're at the forefront. We're changing the world not only for our kids, but for all kids. And I tell you what is super exciting to be a part of that movement and to have you on that movement with me. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast, for tuning in, for sharing it with your friends, and your colleagues, with the grandparents, with the next door neighbors, with whoever needs to hear this podcast. I will see you next week.