The Physiology of Trauma: The Case for Building Trauma-Informed Knowledge
The brain is a complex computer system. We are wired for certain tasks, like speaking and communicating, while we require study, explicit instruction, and practice for other tasks. For our brain to perform the academic and employment tasks required in life, we must have an efficient system of executive functions: the host of mental skills that allow us to get things done. Our executive functions cover attention, organization, planning, and moving from one task to another. When a person experiences trauma or deep anxiety, their executive function system is hijacked, disallowing the brain to function as it needs to. This trauma and underlying anxiety trigger a mental health state that is sub-optimal for learning and daily functioning. Emotions are critical in our decision-making, learning, and remembering.
I had an enlightening conversation with Professor Mays Imad, Assistant Professor of Biology and Equity Pedagogy at Connecticut College, whose work focuses in part on how emotions and trauma affect our learning and show up in our educational system.
There’s a lack of transparency and understanding about the role of trauma in learning and what we can do to ensure sound practices. My discussion with Professor Mays Imad touched on how to further the underappreciated aspect of how trauma shows up in our educational system.
Can you share how you got into this work?
I survived multiple wars and became a refugee when I was 14. When you are displaced and trying to start your life, you do not have the luxury to stop and process the trauma of losing your home, surviving war, and the guilt of surviving. However, the trauma stays in your body and mind. As I got older and studied neuroscience, I was increasingly aware that I was not alright. There were traumas, wounds, and grief that I did not process. I worked with students who were first-generation immigrants, working multiple jobs, and had experienced the trauma of being immigrants, the trauma of racism, the trauma of poverty, and the trauma of, you name it! I started to see myself in those students. I also began to see opportunities for healing, joy, and reconnection, and that was the impetus to go deeper and study trauma in the context of education.
Trauma & Mental Health Unpacked
Can you define trauma?
“Trauma is not so much what I do or what I did but what the body does in reaction to something that happens outside the body.”
The body and the brain are constantly processing sensory information. Information comes at us through our senses, and sometimes, that information can be overwhelming and shocking. When we experience an event, the body and brain can process it in a way that feels overwhelming to the point where we can’t act. It shocks. It arrests us. This is what we mean by “feels traumatic. “The brain triggers a series of physiological reactions, and then the body’s psychological reactions help us deal with that shocking, overwhelming event that makes us feel helpless.
Mental health is about our emotional, social, and psychological well-being, which then affects our physical health. It is the state of how the emotional is integrated with the physical.
Can you define mental health and how trauma is related to mental health?
The World Health Organization says health is the absence of illness or infirmity. It does not only talk about the physical but also the mental and emotional, and that’s part of our evolving understanding. Health has a physical, psychological, and emotional aspect.
If I watch something on TV that feels traumatic, the whole body starts having a series of physiological and psychological reactions. If we don’t process it and talk about it, then that trauma stays in the body. It may affect our immune system, digestive, cardiovascular, and emotional systems. If we don’t work with trauma, it could lead to mental and physical illness.
When Behavior Stems from Trauma in Schools
I am not sure that we have data or research to show that restraint and seclusion or “refocus rooms” are effective at helping to de-escalate or change behavior. I think there is evidence showing these things can harm. We’re wired to be social and to connect, and this ability develops over time.
The brain seeks attachment, connections, and security, so putting children and adolescents on “time out” will likely trigger their fear response. “Nobody loves me.” And it will likely, if anything, make things worse.
It’s important to reexamine discipline. It can feel overwhelming when the brain is already overwhelmed because it is under the influence of strong negative emotions – it has experienced trauma or is experiencing trauma. Children can feel easily overwhelmed by sensory information if they do not know how to express it and may act out.
It's important to reduce sensory overload. You can’t just take the child to the de-escalation room and think it’ll magically work; you need a safe adult to reassure the child and help him regulate.
I think right now schools are not aware or trained in trauma-informed care and are understaffed. They might put the child in the time-out room because they don’t think the child’s behavior is their problem, but it does more harm. These rooms can further trauma.
Validating Trauma
What brings you the greatest joy in your work?
I am a scientist, and my training has been in the hard sciences, but I talk about emotions and feelings. Sometimes, people in my discipline say that what I talk about is not real science but “soft science.” When I started, it was lonely. One of the silver linings of COVID is that as a community of higher education, we looked into the science of trauma because not only our students but ourselves were experiencing trauma. More people have begun to appreciate its validity and believe we have an ethical imperative to consider.
I give workshops around the country and world and have people reach out to me whom I have never met. They say they feel “seen” by what I have said. They feel validated and those moments bring me joy. When you are in the midst of trauma and feel no one hears or sees you, but then learn that there is nothing wrong with you and that it’s your body, science, and physiology: That can be the beginning of healing.
When you understand: “There is nothing wrong with me. My body is experiencing a reaction, and it’s supposed to be doing this.” That knowledge – that we have the permission to feel, process, and grieve – is empowering. Those moments bring me joy.
Trauma-Informed Teaching & Knowledge Building
If you had a magic wand, what would be your wish for change in this field?
All college students should have the choice to enroll in a course about trauma and healing. In exchange, their tuition is paid. I don’t want to make the learning mandatory because I want to give people the choice. However, I also want to incentivize it with tuition-free education.
The more we learn about our own trauma, the more opportunities there are for healing and breaking the cycles of trauma because we know trauma begets trauma. I don’t believe we are ever going to be a trauma-free society, but at least we could have less trauma, fewer traumatic events, and less violence. I believe this starts with self-knowledge.
How do we enable parents and other educators to become trauma-informed ?
Allocate time. Teachers are overwhelmed, overburdened, and under-resourced right now. The same goes for parents. We need to be creative in helping teachers find the time to consider changing the curriculum and structures in our schools to become trauma-informed. This process has to include parents and increase their learning as well.
One critique of this field is that since COVID, everyone's been talking about trauma, and some have written: “If anything is trauma, is everything trauma?” On the one hand, that is valid, but it is also misinformed. I would ask you to consider how we can do justice to the topic of trauma by discussing and learning about it but not diluting the topic by saying that everything is trauma. We need to find that balance.
My blog is titled The Shoes We Wear in honor of people with differences and the folks who support them. What shoes are you wearing? I am wearing clogs!
More resources and information about Trauma Informed Schools to be found on the Inspiration page.