1. Dr. Robert Rhoton PsyD; LPC; D.A.A.E.T.S
Arizona Trauma Institute Presents Family relationship enhancement strategies
Your Speaker is
Dr. Robert Rhoton PsyD; LPC; D.A.A.E.T.S
For resources that support this presentation please Dr. Rhoton and you will be sent a link for further resources.

2. We will focus on four Principles
Body before behavior
Reduce stress and increase integrated brain function
Skills practiced hierarchically
Supportive Responsive Relationships

3. Principle #1: Body before behavior
The brain regions involved in the arousal response play a critical role in regulating emotion, thinking and behavior, irritability, movement, attention, the response to sleep, and stress. Arousal or activation causes an increased release of excitatory (neurotransmitters and Hormones) causing changes to the emotions, thinking and behavior.

4. R D RR Trauma Regulated Dysregulated Re-Regulated D
Bruce Banner Brain Hulk brain Bruce Banner Brain
Being stuck in D
Begins to generate
Symptoms
Arizona Trauma Institute

5. R D RR Trauma Regulated Dysregulated Re-Regulated
Bruce Banner Brain Hulk brain Bruce Banner Brain
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6. Arizona Trauma Institute
Impact of 2 ingredients of the fiery cocktail! There are many more ingredients
CORTISOL
Reduced Hippocampal activity
Reduced executive functioning
Reduce ability to create sequential memory
Restricts access to and activity in the mPFC (impulse control center)
Reduces the ability to create distinctions in experience
In high doses, acts as a neurotoxin and erodes nervous system proteins
ADRENALIN
Increases encoding of emotional memory
Increases encoding of sensory experience.
Reduces ability to focus
Interferes with sleep patterns
Increases fear, anxiety and phobic behavior, thinking and emoting
Interrupts problem solving and goal follow through.
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When working together
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Amygdala Function
Project negative, distressing or danger from past experience into the present.
Project negative, distressing or danger from past experience into the future
Less or no time sequencing
Increases emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactivity to enhance survival response
When Amygdala is dominate
reduces cognitive flexibility
Supports dissociation and hallucinations
Interferes with sensory motor processing
interrupts multiple brain region connections
Represses prefrontal cortex function
Reduces ability to distinguish intention from effect
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9. Arizona Trauma Institute
Hippocampal function
Creates discrete/distinct elements from experience
Necessary for reality checking
Modifies and governs Amygdala function
Serialize and/or sequence time within a context
Connect separate brain regions as part of active integration
Enhance cognitive functioning and access to executive functioning
Enhances cognitive flexibility
Increases ability to inhibit behavior
Greater sequential memory
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11. When the brain is not integrating well What would been seen?
Lack of emotional balance and emotional control
Can’t think clearly and check reality
No planning of behavior
No self-reflection or self-evaluation
Difficult relating to others in effective and satisfying ways over prolonged time
Difficulty sitting quietly with themselves without dissociating
Difficulty tuning into body sensation and awareness
Not read social cues well
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12. Arizona Trauma Institute
The annoying, unpleasant, and sometimes illegal behaviors, out-of-control emotions, and strange thinking are absolutely correct when the body is in a state of sympathetic system dominance
Do not expect logic and reason, learning, thinking, planning, follow through, living with integrity, moral judgement, self reflection or evaluation for the Dragon!
We must engage others while keeping our own dragons in check, we must help others calm their dragons, before we do anything else.
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13. Principle #2: Reduce stress to increase integrated brain function
Self-control is about inhibiting impulses
Self-regulation is about identifying the causes and reducing the intensity of impulses and, when necessary, having the energy to resist the arousal
Having strategies to keep the body relaxed

14. What are the sources of stress?
The regulation cycle
What happens when the environment and relationships move in to the “D” Space
Best functioning only possible when the brain is working in an integrated way.
Amygdala dominated behaviors
What are the sources of stress?

15. Reduce family environmental stress!
We are keeping the parts of our brain integrated
We regulate our own emotions
We are intentional and deliberate (not reactive)
We recognize that when we feel frustration, and irritation with others it has nothing to do with them and everything to do with our failure to regulate ourselves
We are the message. . . In other words we are living the life we are inviting others to live into
Reduce family environmental stress!

16. New advances in neuroscience are unlocking the secrets of why we behave the way we do and, more to the point, why it is so hard at times to behave the way we want.
The limbic system plays an important role
This system contributes to how we respond to threats and worries, but it is largely out of our conscious control, including the control of children.
Children who are in a heightened state of emotional arousal can have very sensitive limbic systems, where their brains are primed to respond to threats even when none exist
Recognize the feeling of excessive stress and determine how to regain calmness?

17. Arizona Trauma Institute
What is stability?
When the brain is well linked, with differential parts working together it creates stability.
When individuals are able to stay calm and act with integrity, intentionality and deliberateness.
When the adults in charge of children are able to keep themselves calm and a relaxed body regardless of what is going on.
When the adults calm children before teaching, correcting and disciplining, and avoid strategies that drive a child into a dysregulated state.
When one has full access to the hippocampus and the frontal regions of the brain.
The Developing Mind: Toward a Neurobiology of Interpersonal Experience (New York: Guilford Press, 1999)
Healing Trauma: Attachment, Mind, Body and Brain (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2003). Co-edited with Marion Solomon.
Foreword to Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy by Kekuni Minton, Pat Ogden, and Clare Pain (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2006)
The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2007)
The Healing Power of Emotion: Affective Neuroscience, Development & Clinical Practice (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2009). Co-edited with Diana Fosha and Marion F. Solomon.
The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician's Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2010)
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation (New York: Bantam, 2010)
The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind, Survive Everyday Parenting Struggles, and Help Your Family Thrive (New York: Delacorte Press, 2011). Co-author with Tina Payne Bryson.
The Developing Mind, Second Edition: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are (New York: Guilford Press, 2012). ISBN 
Pocket Guide to Interpersonal Neurobiology: An Integrative Handbook of the Mind (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012)
Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (New York: Penguin Putnam, 2013)
Parenting From the Inside Out: How A Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive (New York: Tarcher, 2004). Co-author with Mary Hartzell.
No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind (New York: Bantam, 2014). Co-author with Tina Payne Bryson.
Mind: A Journey to the Heart of Being Human (New York: WW Norton & Company, 2017)
Arizona Trauma Institute

18. Principle #3: Skills practiced hierarchically
Are the Example
Are the message

19. Now that you know, what can you do?
Active in daily personal growth
We work on our own self-regulation, self-awareness, courage, compassion toward others, and personal integrity in our own daily lives.
What have you done today “on purpose with a plan” to improve your character, talents, skills, relationships
How do make sure you grow past your upsets, failures or disappointments
What is your PLAN to grow tomorrow and then the next day, and so on
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20. Do you really want to help?
Activate the inner resources in self and others
Focus on helping other find their inherent competency and capacity, emphasizing wholeness and possibility over pathology or weakness. Use our daily interactions with others to lift them up and empower.
What are you doing everyday to keep and enjoy relationships
What things do you do to build your inner resources daily
Faith
Learning
Moving your body/exercising
Actively practicing compassion and kindness, even in the most annoying circumstances
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21. Do you really want to help?
Are you an Amygdala Whisperer?
Do you invite Bruce Banner or the HULK into the environment with your behavior, emoting and thinking?
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22. Now that you know, what can you do?
People with histories of adversity have less processing capacity because they have many broken links. Get the brain and nervous system calm first, restoring the links!!!!
Think thru what to say before saying
Make sure you are in Bruce Banner mode, before you open your mouth
Make sure you can stay in Bruce Banner mode, no mater what others do or say
Realize no one can solve problems well in HULK mode, stop trying to intervene with the Hulk and invite others to live Bruce Banner lives.
Be brief and clear, give many vivid descriptive examples of success, that show real effort!
Arizona Trauma Institute

23. Now that you know, what can you do?
Logic and reason systems will likely be off-line unless the brain and nervous system are calm.
Stop trying to get logic, and reason out of the HULK brained folks
Always go for regulation and stability first, so that you can be effective
Focus on the environment and it’s qualities more than behavior and emotion.
Pay attention to the environment, is it one that invites Bruce Banner or the HULK, not for you but for the other that you are dealing with
Learn to calm environments and people
Do not activate negative memories if a person doesn’t have the capacity to keep themselves regulated in body and calm.
Arizona Trauma Institute

24. Now that you know, what can you do?
Do not ask anyone to do something outside of being together that they haven’t clearly done competently while with you.
Think about the underlying assumptions of what is being said… does it empower, strengthen or add competence?
No lists…one item at a time. As the person with a history of adversity develops the ability to self-regulate you may be able to give more at a time, but it may be a while.
Arizona Trauma Institute

25. Principle #4 Supportive Responsive Relationships
All too often we confuse our needs with the child's. We seek to make children more manageable, rather than self- managing. We must focus on building and sustaining secure relationships with a child. Which is a shift from managing kids to helping kids regulate so that they can manage themselves better

26. What comes first?

27. Now that you know, what can you do?
Genuinely like and care for without performance standards. (stop making their compliance or performance a criteria of liking).
When giving information follow this format:
Overview/orient
Show how this “activity/part” fit in the overviewed material
Give examples of how people are successful achieving this activity/part
Summarize by embedding them in a their success story
Ask for their feedback, “so as you move through this situation what do you expect you will experience?”
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28. Now that you know, what can you do?
Be organized and planful
Develop and maintain faith in others
Be predictable and routine
Be reliable and transparent
Collaborate on decision making, and give many decisions
Never expect mastery until mastery has been repeatedly demonstrated
Always listen and act on requests, questions, suggestions, and any feedback
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29. Arizona Trauma Institute
Key Points
Design all that you do to get and keep a relaxed body
Focus on the environment
Understand that most problems are not because of serious thought out choice, but is predictable thinking, emoting and behaving that is congruent with the state body.
If Emoting, thinking, behavior are manifest…assume it is has to do with the links between the brain regions being broken or interrupted, before anything else move toward reconnecting them
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30. Arizona Trauma Institute
Key Points
Children will not out regulate their parent
Parents will seldom out-regulate the helper
Children or parents will have difficulty being more regulated than the environment
Everything you do is deliberate and intentional, no shooting from the hip
Be mindful of the subtle meaning or assumptions made by your statements or questions.
Prepare and orient others to be successful
Arizona Trauma Institute

31. Now that you have this information
What do you recognize that you will need to do?
What do you need to do to keep yourself self-regulated so you have access to your genius?
How will you learn to pay attention
to what your body is doing?
How will you give yourself space to
not become reactive to behavior,
emotions and thinking?
Thank you for joining us today
Arizona Trauma Institute

32. Arizona Trauma Institute Presents Five ways to improve child behavior
Your Speaker is
Dr. Robert Rhoton PsyD; LPC; D.A.A.E.T.S
For resources that support this presentation please Dr. Rhoton and you will be sent a link for further resources.