How trauma impacts our lives, with therapist Britt Frank

Britt Frank notes "the definition of trauma that I use comes from Dr Peter Levine, who founded Somatic Experiencing, that trauma is anything that's too much, too fast, too soon.

"And my little addition to that is: or not enough. Trauma is anything you got that you didn't need or anything that you didn't get that you did need.”

She adds that "trauma is an internal process. It's a brain indigestion process.

“A trauma response is when our brain either throws up or goes into freeze. So you can eat bad food and not necessarily get sick.

"Same thing with trauma. You can experience a traumatic event and not necessarily have a trauma response.

“But the things that we call panic, anxiety, things like that, are often trauma responses, which is the symptom or the behavior or the manifestation of the trauma that we experienced or witnessed."

Britt Frank, LSCSW, SEP is a licensed neuropsychotherapist and author of book The Science of Stuck.

(This audio is from her video interview from a past edition of the Trauma Super Conference.)

» Register free to hear her presentation at the Attachment, Trauma & Toxic Relationships Super Conference, April 28 - May 4, 2025:

Self Parenting Beyond Narcissism and Codependency

*What emotionally unskilled behaviors feel like in relationships

*How to identify your boundaries and rules of engagement

*What to understand about estrangement

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» Reset Super Conference - ongoing free Conference includes "60+ health and wellness experts" - including:

How to Get Unstuck - Britt Frank

*Why anxiety is not an emotion but a physical signal

*Why coping skills won't work with a dysregulated nervous system

*What grief has to do with becoming an emotional adult

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Related:

Dr Peter Levine is also a presenter at the ongoing Reset Conference, on "Self-regulating for trauma healing."

Peter A. Levine Collection of programs from Sounds True (includes 11 titles).

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