Talking Heads
Talking Therapies
There are different types of talking therapies, but all involve talking with a therapist. Here are some examples available on the NHS:
Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)
Guided self-help
Counselling
Interpersonal therapy (IPT)
EMDR (Eye movement desensitisation / reprocessing)
Mindfulness-based therapies
Psychodynamic psychotherapy
Couple therapy
See: NHS – Types of talking therapy (March, 2022)
Yet such therapies are only successful for 50% of clients who engage with them. See: New statistics released on talking therapies in England (NHS Digital, 2021)
Talking cannot reach the sub-cortical levels of the brain. Instead, talking keeps a person ruminating = repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and distress and their causes and consequences. See American Psychiatric Association - Rumination: A Cycle of Negative Thinking (March, 2020).
Therefore the brain stays in a cortical level of stimulation.
Mental health and the brain
It is handy to know a bit about the brain and particularly what happens under high stress and trauma from a psychological 🧠 and physiological 💪🏾 perspective.
The amygdala, prefrontal cortex and hippocampus are brain regions that work together to support complex learning and memory. See Mental Wealth Hub: Amygdala, Hippocampus, Prefrontal Cortex
Spotlight on Stress
The amygdala is specifically important when it comes to detecting fear and enables an individual to react in an attempt to keep safe.
🧠 The amygdala can be triggered by something in the immediate environment – a sound, smell, sight or other sense such as touch. Here it acts on memory of a past traumatic event. The body is then flooded with adrenalin and is (needlessly) prepared to react, causing a potential build up of the stress hormone cortisol.
🧠 The prefrontal cortex can struggle to function when exposed to high stress and traumatic situations. The result is to feel disconnect from one’s social support network, a kind of emotional ‘anaesthesia’.
🧠 The hippocampus logs memories. This is why a memory of a traumatic time can feel as though it is happening again by way of intrusive thoughts, flashbacks and other hyperarousal symptoms. Source Mental Wealth Hub
Top-down, and out?
Traditional talk-based therapies take a top-down approach to treatment. Most often this involves efforts to resolve trauma symptoms by working with the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain most responsible for logic and reason. See: Limitations of Top-Down Processing (complextrauma.org, 2024)
Research has demonstrated, however, that the brain’s ability to regulate through cognition becomes compromised, and can even be paralysed, by acute stress.
Top-down therapies actually hyper-activate the brain’s salience network (SN) - see below. ⚠️By talking at length about stress-triggers, the brain starts to prioritise external stimuli (the triggers) as more deserving of attention.
The power of 3
Three key brain networks have recently been identified as hubs for complex processing of perception, emotion and behaviour as well as introspection, theory of mind and self-awareness.
1. the salience network (SN) - selects external stimuli deserving of more attention
2. the central executive network (CEN) - responsible for tasks and decision making
3. the default mode network (DMN) - internal mind (contemplation or daydreaming)
See: Towards a new model of understanding – The triple network (Menon, 2019)
Irregularities in the CEN may correlate with lack of focus or abnormal levels of reaction - attention-deficit/hyperactivity/inattentive disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety.
It has also been speculated that in contrast, mindfulness activities used in meditation may increase or strengthen the functional connectivity of the CEN. See: What is the central executive network? (Omniscent Neurotechnology, July 2022)
How the Tomatis® method can help with mental health
The Tomatis® method of sound stimulation therapy uses a unique Gating® system. The Gating® process switches the music between softer and more harsh sounding channels (with filters applied) to keep the brain active and interested in the listening experience, and less focused on external stimuli.
Gating® constantly ‘surprises the brain’ and due to brain plasticity can help develop greater listening clarity, which in turn improves overall listening.
The brain is especially sensitive to sudden changes that it cannot anticipate. See The Tomatis® Method Technology
Gating® also helps the brain switch from the Salience Network (SN) back to the Central Executive Network (CEN) - see above - allowing relief from perceived threats.
This works more like a ‘side door approach’ to healing trauma, similar to mind-body practices such as meditation, biofeedback, and sensory motor regulation/integration.
Because the ear is a motor-sensory organ, Tomatis® sound therapy develops interoceptive awareness and proprioception – the way we perceive our body internally and externally. Activating these senses has a regulating effect on the body and brain.
If you have tried talking therapies, or work with clients using talking therapies, and have not experienced the success you would hope for, consider sound therapy.“Once an individual has shifted their sound processing, they are more primed for success when they engage with talking therapies.”
