The Complicit Therapist

This chapter explores therapeutic modalities that fit with a complicit theory of human being: feminist therapy, Interpersonal Neurobiology, Polyvagal Theory, Internal Family Systems and intersubjectivity. It examines how to be both systems-oriented and work from a depth approach which is an element of complicit thinking. In exploring how to work therapeutically within this frame, the chapter reiterates the importance of a nonbinary understanding of human being, which has been one of the main points argued throughout the book. This, ultimately, is why the psychological humanities is important: It allows for both the art and the science of psychotherapy to co-exist in a nonbinary way. The chapter also addresses another of the ongoing themes of the book, a complicit approach to identity politics, which is connected to a social-justice-oriented psychotherapy practice.

Child Traumatic Stress and the Sacred: Neurobiologically Informed Interventions for Therapists and Parents

Children experience trauma and adverse experiences at an alarming rate. The negative impact of traumatic experiences on a child’s developing brain is pervasive, adversely affecting one’s thoughts, feelings, behaviors, physiological reactions, and social relationships. Conversely, the nature, pattern, timing and duration of therapeutic experiences can change the brain in ways that support and cultivate therapeutic growth and healing. The purpose of this paper will be to review and expand on two prominent neurobiological therapeutic frameworks within the field of child trauma therapy: the Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics and Interpersonal Neurobiology. We will discuss the ways in which trauma experiences are organized in the brain and how therapeutic and parenting interventions can address the key areas of the brain that are impacted. Further, this paper will expand on these frameworks to explore how the sacred (within primarily a Judeo-Christian monotheistic religious tradition) can be integrated within the therapeutic process—specifically through the themes of safety, relational connection, and meaning-making.

Interpersonal Neurobiology, Social Work, Sociometry, and Psychodrama

The rapidly emerging neuroscience research continues to validate the practice of social work, group therapy, and psychodrama. The centrality of human relationships is being supported by the field of interpersonal neurobiology. New technologies allow us to learn more about the brain and the ways it is impacted by adversity, healing, and action. The importance of safety, connection, integration, and a strength-s-based approach is supported in the neuroscience literature. The neurobiological mechanisms which promote change in psychodrama are becoming clearer. Furthermore, the words of contemporary neuroscientists appear to echo Moreno’s writings of sociometry and psychodrama nearly a decade earlier.

Bridging the Gap Between Solution-Focused Brief Therapy and Interpersonal Neurobiology: A Combined Approach for Counseling Families

This article proposes a comprehensive counseling approach by integrating techniques from solution-focused brief therapy and interpersonal neurobiology. This approach allows counselors to intentionally utilize both hemispheres of the brain during the therapeutic process—anchoring the techniques of solution-focused brief therapy in the left-brain hemisphere while connecting to the client through the right-brain hemisphere. This combined method incorporates five key principles: the therapeutic relationship, co-construction of reality, use of questions, a focus on solutions, and emphasis on positive emotions.

Just imagine! The transformative potential of the imagination and its place in psychotherapy

In this article the author explores the use of imagination and clinical intuition in psychotherapy. She discusses the functions of imagination and how the capacity to be creative and for flexible imagining emerges within a secure attachment relationship in early childhood. Winnicott's ideas are important here. She also discusses what happens when trauma or relationship failings compromise the transitional space and uses case examples to illustrate some responses to this breakdown. To set the scene the author discusses changing views on illusion and imagination from Freud onwards to the present day when we are informed by recent findings in neuroscience and interpersonal neurobiology. It is richly illustrated with theory and case material.

Interpersonal Neurobiology and Attachment

The attachment phenomenon is increasingly the focus of many social work interventions. Biologically described, differentiated types of attachment relationships result from qualities of repetitive interpersonal brain-to-brain encounters with caregivers that affect variations in emotional/affective arousal regulation; this research takes place within the field of interpersonal neurobiology. The particular focus of this entry is implicit and explicit manifestations of certain structures and functions of the brain and nervous system critical to the bio-regulation of emotions. In-born emotional circuitry is sculpted by postnatal caregiving, resulting in a pattern of emotion regulation that leads to certain attachment types. Although there is no attachment circuit per se, emotional circuits in the low brain can work together with other parts of the brain to create various types of attachment. Neurobiological influences act on the development of attachment styles during childhood that may persist into adulthood are briefly reviewed. Attachment research and often subtle biological arousal considerations are also mentioned. Over the years since John Bowlby first began to contribute his work on attachment, research has highlighted, more and more, the various biological aspects. These include the profound biological significance of the circular relationship between separation, responses to separation, and resulting attachment templates. The roles in the attaching process of neuroception, mirror neurons, transfer of affect, and long-term potentiation are described. Selected treatment theories, primarily from the social work literature, are examined for their implicit focus on aspects of the neurobiology of attachment relationships.