What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. and Oprah Winfrey
Rather than asking, “Why are you behaving that way?” or thinking, “What’s wrong with you?” the authors suggest that present behaviors that seem inappropriate or unhealthy are usually learned responses connected to earlier trauma, behavior that was helpful when we were young and vulnerable, or when we were facing extreme circumstances, but becomes unhelpful as adults navigating through normal everyday stressors.
I read this book as an assignment for a class on taking for transitional ministry. Skeptical, at first, about a book co-authored by Oprah Winfrey, I actually found the book to be extremely helpful. The neurologist, Bruce D. Perry, is the real deal and is also able to communicate his knowledge of brain science in a way I could understand. I learned for instance, that the response we often call, “Flight or fight” should actually be cast as “flock, flight, or fight.” That is, as social creatures, our first response in a dangerous situation is to look around and see how other people are responding. We confirm, or correct, or response, by seeing what others in the flock are doing. Maybe it isn’t a danger at all.
Another example from the book I’ve already had opportunity to use is his phrase, “Regulate, Relate, Reason.” This means that when people are under stress they are thinking out of the lowest portion of their brain, the brain stem, or “lizard brain” where the fight or flight response comes from. When a person is in that situation reasonable talk is ineffective because the reasoning and verbal parts of the brain are shut down. Once regulated, a person is still not ready for reasonable talk until they have formed a trusted relationship with the helper. Only once regulated and in a relationship does it help to start talking logically.
How do we regulate ourselves? Through pleasurable rewards such as a comforting belief system, tasty foods, sex, relationships, and most surprising to me, rhythm. Rewards can be either healthy or unhealthy. If we don’t get enough healthy rewards to get us to a regulated state we will substitute unhealthy rewards to get us there such as drugs and alcohol.
Rhythm was interesting to me, but I have experienced exactly what the doctor is talking about. Rhythmic activity such as dancing, walking, bicycle riding, or conscious breathing all have the salutary effect he’s talking about. The doctor relates the calming effect of rhythm to our pre-natal experience of living inside our mother’s womb feeling our mother’s heartbeat. He points out that native cultures use four methods to bring anxious, disturbed, confused people into health: “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 to facilitate healing with the guidance of a healer or elder.” (p. 200). I like to think that a church community deliberately offers the first three, with a psychiatrist, if necessary, offering the modern medicine equivalent of the last.
The book is structured as a series of interviews between Oprah and the doctor, with each chapter preceded by an introductory first-person story from Oprah’s life.