[Applause]
bezel Vander Kolk an American
psychiatrist said that the parent-child
connection is the most powerful mental
health intervention known to mankind and
that really echoes and really resonates
with the clinical work that I’ve done
but I’m going to extend and expand that
to all relationships are the most
powerful mental health intervention
known to mankind and we’re not I talk
about relationships
I’m talking about relationships on the
wider front relationships to our bodies
relationships to our mind relationships
to behavior and relationships to society
as a clinical psychologist I’ve been so
privileged to work with people from
survivors the Rwandan genocide to asylum
seeking young people to those who have
experienced sexual abuse physical abuse
and neglect and I have to say I’m yet to
witness one of those situations that
hasn’t been significantly influenced by
relationships because relationships
shape who we are so let’s just zoom in a
little bit to one of those relationships
I’ve got baby Sasha and baby Sasha looks
at me and she smiles and so we think
twinkle twinkle little star and she
loves twinkle twinkle little star so I
sing it again and then it’s a bit much
because baby’s a bit overstimulated so I
say oh okay we’ve had enough of twinkle
twinkle little star and then a few hours
later baby starts screaming and crying
and I say Oh sweetie what’s wrong you
can’t be hungry I’ve just fed you Oh yep
I can smell what you’ve given to me
let’s change that and we get her and she
goes kick kick kick and I give raspberry
kisses oh you’re all nice and clean come
to me
it’s these parent-child serve and return
interactions that start teaching
children about the guiding principles
things like trust things like safety
things like how to invest in reciprocal
relationships
those interruptions start to show
children their Maps their guides and
their kaleidoscopes of how to see
themselves others and the world baby
Sasha who was enveloped in love is
likely to think I’m lovable I’m
important other people are worth
investing in other people are
predictable my world is a safe place and
that kaleidoscope is going to color her
future interactions it’s going to color
the way that she operates in the world
but imagine in the context of trauma
where children haven’t had those
beautiful emotional exchanges those
serve and return imagine how you would
look at the world differently if you
thought I’m unlovable
I’m disposable the world is a dangerous
unpredictable place other people are out
to get me which is why we’ve truly need
to start thinking about people’s life
experiences and the kaleidoscope that
they look at the world through and maybe
if we would start doing that we would
have a movement that shifts us away from
saying what’s wrong with you that
pejorative blaming statement and we
actually started asking people what
happened to you who are you what is your
story
what kaleidoscope do you look at the
world through we need to see the person
behind that behavior because
relationships are that common theme
today the theme is mind over matter but
really I’m going to be talking about the
relationships that matter and I’m going
to share an amazing psychological
process with you that I think is
extraordinary and that is that our
brains our neural pathways our sign
answers our architecture and our
function of our brain are directly
shaped and influenced by the environment
and by relationships our brains aren’t
born they’re not in vacuums they are
plastic which means that they can be
positively and negatively
molded and influenced which means that
all of us in this room we can all be
brain architects we can all be brain
sculptors because relationships either
strengthen the brain or they can weaken
it and if we truly then think that
brains directly affect our relationships
surely we need to put relationships at
the focus instead of how society is
moving to be less connected more
dehumanized more focused on exams on
outcomes of processors on machines and
maybe we need to think about how we can
bring relationships back into the heart
to have those compassionate empathetic
societies I’m yet to work with a young
person who’s experienced sexual abuse
physical abuse that hasn’t the common
thread has been that the traumas
happened during their development but
that it’s happened by people in their
relationships and if the traumas
occurred by people in relationships then
of course the healing has to be in the
context of relationships because the
relationships are the magic put simply
relational trauma requires relational
repair we need to model and show
children different ways of doing
relationships and different ways to be
in relationships we need to show
children that relationships can be worth
and safe investing in because what
children really need they need to be
held in safe hands they need to be held
in thinking minds and they need to be
held in regulating bodies and by that I
don’t just mean physically safe they
need to be held in an embodied place of
safety in a felt sense of safety a place
imagine what it’s like what does your
body feel like when it’s safe how do you
know what safety is imagine what it’s
like if you’ve never had a sense of
safety like in the context often in
trauma thinking minds minds that can be
reflective minds that can reflect
instead of react minds that can be the
rainbow in that storm and regulating
bodies both bodies that can be
still that can be containing that can be
calm that can be present without this
without this safety and these
relationships everything else fades into
the background everything else exists on
fragile ground they say that if a flower
doesn’t bloom you don’t fix the flower
you change the environment in which it
grows in so really we want children to
be an environment where they can
flourish where they can bloom where they
can breathe we want children to be in
environments where they can thrive not
just survive where they can have secure
bases and safe havens we want to bring
environments but a trauma-informed and
relationship based and they shouldn’t be
best practice they should be standard
practice they should be the norm because
those environments benefit everyone
Peter Benson beautiful iam powerfully
said that relationships are the very
oxygen of human development so guys what
will we breathe in
what will we exhale what air do we want
our society to breathe and what’s it
like if that air is polluted and you
know I was really really lucky that the
air that I breathe was mostly really
pure and fresh my parents were crazy
about me they still are they delighted
in me and that’s what children need
children need someone who’s going to
unconditionally adore them they were my
life cheerleaders they were my safety
net they’re here now rooting me on and I
was kept in the mines and in the hearts
of my parents if we think of this as a
metaphor my life treasure box was full
and spilling out with relational
treasures relational memories relational
experiences and developmental skills
developmental skills like how do we
regulate recognize a relationship how do
we see what an emotion is how do we
learn to soothe ourselves and my
goodness was my treasure box adorned and
decorated and held precious and my
treasure box was protected and it was
held and handled with care
but sadly for the children that I work
with for the children who have
experienced various different forms of
relational trauma and developmental
trauma their treasure boxes they’re not
empty but they very often haven’t been
filled with those same relational
treasures relational memories relational
experiences and they certainly have not
been protected in the same way and
handled with care which is why we need
to fill up their treasure boxes with
millions of relational memories and
relational treasures and developmental
skills and why we truly need to see our
children and hold them precious and you
know what maybe if we really saw our
children maybe if we really held our
children in our hearts and minds maybe
we would create a societal movement that
shift away from pushing people into
boxes from defining people by labels by
diagnosis by just seeing a behavior and
reducing someone to a behavior because
would any of you want to be reduced and
defined by our behavior we need to start
seeing and connecting with the person
behind the behavior if the behavior
could talk what would it say to us
because behavior is communication we
just need to start being curious and
interested about what that behaviors
telling to us so meet Nathan Nathan was
a 16 year old boy he was involved in a
gang he’d been arrested several times he
had been excluded from school lots of
times he had been in multiple foster
placements but let’s actually think
about what happened to Nathan not what’s
wrong with Nathan Nathan’s first
classroom his first lesson into life the
womb was characterized by Dannette
domestic violence he was marinated in
toxic stress the war zone the the womb
at times had been like a war zone for
him and then he was born and he really
his home that should have been his safe
haven was more like shark-infested
waters characterized by domestic
violence
by physical abuse imagine what that’s
like being trapped feeling powerless
feeling hyper-vigilant feeling on edge
not sure what calm waters signify what
lurks behind what I’m going to protect
and say for Nathan he did what so many
children do sometimes he went into
flight mode sometimes went into fries
but for most of the time he learnt that
to survive shark-infested waters you go
into fight mode you become like a shark
you act like a shark and you go into a
shark attack mode which is what he did
with me with his teachers with his
foster carers because for Nathan he had
lurked that it’s better to be feared
than to be fearful it’s better to attack
than be attacked because anger is a mask
emotion anger is a bodyguard emotion and
anger is generally married to another
hidden emotion like fear pain sadness
and even when Nathan was moved into a
different environment a swimming pool
like school or foster care that
environment still felt like
shark-infested waters because those
shark-infested waters were in his mind
were in his body because trauma travels
with you and then we say to someone like
Nathan you just need to stop being angry
or you just need to calm down well for a
child who’s been marinated in toxic
stress who hasn’t been given those
skills is the equivalent of saying when
you in shark-infested waters just do a
queer aerobics guys just do think Rinnai
swimming so he really did try and find
ways to survive those shark-infested
waters and thank God he did because he’s
here with us to be the amazing boy years
so just look at this picture and I use a
lot of art in the work that I do for
various reasons but because Troma is a
multi-sensory experience therefore we
need multi-sensory interventions
whole-body whole-brain interventions the
mask the red mask I said to Nathan what
do you think other people see you as how
would they describe you and he said
things like angry GRU
hard keep out skeleton monsters imagine
what that’s like to feel that people
define you in that way what that does to
your sense of identity what that does to
your self-esteem and then I asked Nathan
if I saw the person behind the behavior
if I had an emotional x-ray and I could
truly see you what would I see and what
he said was small scared hurt invisible
fragile alone
just think how differently I would
respond to the mask on the left the mask
on the right how different I would
interact how different I would emphasize
with Nathan Nathan wasn’t attention
seeking he was attention needing he
wasn’t manipulative he’d learned how to
get his knee his needs met and you know
what what we did is we worked as a whole
team around Nathan because it takes a
whole village to raise a child
we gave him those safe hands thinking
minds regulating bodies we filled up his
treasure box over and over again and we
took his brain to the relationship Jim
over and over again we saw the person he
was behind the behavior we held that
hope for him saw the incredible
strengths that he had and if he was
standing here today he used different
words for he would be saying those are
some of the things that made a
difference to him and you know what it’s
children like Nathan and I could tell
you hundreds of stories like Nathan that
truly keep me in this work that are my
glue that are my inspiration
his survivorship and the strength of
this human spirit is remarkable if only
we could try and sew some of that into
our society because I’ll tell you
something we all could be a Nathan and
we all need a Nathan in our lives and we
could all learn from Nathan some people
might be sitting in here and thinking
I’ve experienced trauma traumas not
relevant to me but just hold in mind
that adverse life experiences trauma is
widespread it’s an epidemic it
basically goes into all the systems we
operate in from our police into our
schools into our businesses into
politics trauma is a public health issue
it affects our brains and it affects our
bodies our immune systems our central
nervous systems and beyond so just
imagine what it would be like if we had
a society that supported people to bloom
if we had a society the bought people
clothes and connected with them rather
than ostracized people imagine what
society would be like that actively
encouraged emotional expression
vulnerability compassion empathy
connection and what’s the cost of us not
doing that what air do we want our
society to breathe so before I finish my
wish for all of you is that we
consciously and deliberately remember
these things
relational trauma requires relational
repair we all can be those safe hands
thinking minds and regulating bodies
behavior is communication let’s see the
person behind the behavior let’s fill
out own treasure boxes because we want
people to have the best of us not what’s
left of us and let’s fill other people’s
treasure boxes and let’s remember that
we all contribute to the air that our
society breathes to me those are ideas
worth investing in and believing and
spreading thank you
[Applause]
bezel Vander Kolk an American
psychiatrist said that the parent-child
connection is the most powerful mental
health intervention known to mankind and
that really echoes and really resonates
with the clinical work that I’ve done
but I’m going to extend and expand that
to all relationships are the most
powerful mental health intervention
known to mankind and we’re not I talk
about relationships
I’m talking about relationships on the
wider front relationships to our bodies
relationships to our mind relationships
to behavior and relationships to society
as a clinical psychologist I’ve been so
privileged to work with people from
survivors the Rwandan genocide to asylum
seeking young people to those who have
experienced sexual abuse physical abuse
and neglect and I have to say I’m yet to
witness one of those situations that
hasn’t been significantly influenced by
relationships because relationships
shape who we are so let’s just zoom in a
little bit to one of those relationships
I’ve got baby Sasha and baby Sasha looks
at me and she smiles and so we think
twinkle twinkle little star and she
loves twinkle twinkle little star so I
sing it again and then it’s a bit much
because baby’s a bit overstimulated so I
say oh okay we’ve had enough of twinkle
twinkle little star and then a few hours
later baby starts screaming and crying
and I say Oh sweetie what’s wrong you
can’t be hungry I’ve just fed you Oh yep
I can smell what you’ve given to me
let’s change that and we get her and she
goes kick kick kick and I give raspberry
kisses oh you’re all nice and clean come
to me
it’s these parent-child serve and return
interactions that start teaching
children about the guiding principles
things like trust things like safety
things like how to invest in reciprocal
relationships
those interruptions start to show
children their Maps their guides and
their kaleidoscopes of how to see
themselves others and the world baby
Sasha who was enveloped in love is
likely to think I’m lovable I’m
important other people are worth
investing in other people are
predictable my world is a safe place and
that kaleidoscope is going to color her
future interactions it’s going to color
the way that she operates in the world
but imagine in the context of trauma
where children haven’t had those
beautiful emotional exchanges those
serve and return imagine how you would
look at the world differently if you
thought I’m unlovable
I’m disposable the world is a dangerous
unpredictable place other people are out
to get me which is why we’ve truly need
to start thinking about people’s life
experiences and the kaleidoscope that
they look at the world through and maybe
if we would start doing that we would
have a movement that shifts us away from
saying what’s wrong with you that
pejorative blaming statement and we
actually started asking people what
happened to you who are you what is your
story
what kaleidoscope do you look at the
world through we need to see the person
behind that behavior because
relationships are that common theme
today the theme is mind over matter but
really I’m going to be talking about the
relationships that matter and I’m going
to share an amazing psychological
process with you that I think is
extraordinary and that is that our
brains our neural pathways our sign
answers our architecture and our
function of our brain are directly
shaped and influenced by the environment
and by relationships our brains aren’t
born they’re not in vacuums they are
plastic which means that they can be
positively and negatively
molded and influenced which means that
all of us in this room we can all be
brain architects we can all be brain
sculptors because relationships either
strengthen the brain or they can weaken
it and if we truly then think that
brains directly affect our relationships
surely we need to put relationships at
the focus instead of how society is
moving to be less connected more
dehumanized more focused on exams on
outcomes of processors on machines and
maybe we need to think about how we can
bring relationships back into the heart
to have those compassionate empathetic
societies I’m yet to work with a young
person who’s experienced sexual abuse
physical abuse that hasn’t the common
thread has been that the traumas
happened during their development but
that it’s happened by people in their
relationships and if the traumas
occurred by people in relationships then
of course the healing has to be in the
context of relationships because the
relationships are the magic put simply
relational trauma requires relational
repair we need to model and show
children different ways of doing
relationships and different ways to be
in relationships we need to show
children that relationships can be worth
and safe investing in because what
children really need they need to be
held in safe hands they need to be held
in thinking minds and they need to be
held in regulating bodies and by that I
don’t just mean physically safe they
need to be held in an embodied place of
safety in a felt sense of safety a place
imagine what it’s like what does your
body feel like when it’s safe how do you
know what safety is imagine what it’s
like if you’ve never had a sense of
safety like in the context often in
trauma thinking minds minds that can be
reflective minds that can reflect
instead of react minds that can be the
rainbow in that storm and regulating
bodies both bodies that can be
still that can be containing that can be
calm that can be present without this
without this safety and these
relationships everything else fades into
the background everything else exists on
fragile ground they say that if a flower
doesn’t bloom you don’t fix the flower
you change the environment in which it
grows in so really we want children to
be an environment where they can
flourish where they can bloom where they
can breathe we want children to be in
environments where they can thrive not
just survive where they can have secure
bases and safe havens we want to bring
environments but a trauma-informed and
relationship based and they shouldn’t be
best practice they should be standard
practice they should be the norm because
those environments benefit everyone
Peter Benson beautiful iam powerfully
said that relationships are the very
oxygen of human development so guys what
will we breathe in
what will we exhale what air do we want
our society to breathe and what’s it
like if that air is polluted and you
know I was really really lucky that the
air that I breathe was mostly really
pure and fresh my parents were crazy
about me they still are they delighted
in me and that’s what children need
children need someone who’s going to
unconditionally adore them they were my
life cheerleaders they were my safety
net they’re here now rooting me on and I
was kept in the mines and in the hearts
of my parents if we think of this as a
metaphor my life treasure box was full
and spilling out with relational
treasures relational memories relational
experiences and developmental skills
developmental skills like how do we
regulate recognize a relationship how do
we see what an emotion is how do we
learn to soothe ourselves and my
goodness was my treasure box adorned and
decorated and held precious and my
treasure box was protected and it was
held and handled with care
but sadly for the children that I work
with for the children who have
experienced various different forms of
relational trauma and developmental
trauma their treasure boxes they’re not
empty but they very often haven’t been
filled with those same relational
treasures relational memories relational
experiences and they certainly have not
been protected in the same way and
handled with care which is why we need
to fill up their treasure boxes with
millions of relational memories and
relational treasures and developmental
skills and why we truly need to see our
children and hold them precious and you
know what maybe if we really saw our
children maybe if we really held our
children in our hearts and minds maybe
we would create a societal movement that
shift away from pushing people into
boxes from defining people by labels by
diagnosis by just seeing a behavior and
reducing someone to a behavior because
would any of you want to be reduced and
defined by our behavior we need to start
seeing and connecting with the person
behind the behavior if the behavior
could talk what would it say to us
because behavior is communication we
just need to start being curious and
interested about what that behaviors
telling to us so meet Nathan Nathan was
a 16 year old boy he was involved in a
gang he’d been arrested several times he
had been excluded from school lots of
times he had been in multiple foster
placements but let’s actually think
about what happened to Nathan not what’s
wrong with Nathan Nathan’s first
classroom his first lesson into life the
womb was characterized by Dannette
domestic violence he was marinated in
toxic stress the war zone the the womb
at times had been like a war zone for
him and then he was born and he really
his home that should have been his safe
haven was more like shark-infested
waters characterized by domestic
violence
by physical abuse imagine what that’s
like being trapped feeling powerless
feeling hyper-vigilant feeling on edge
not sure what calm waters signify what
lurks behind what I’m going to protect
and say for Nathan he did what so many
children do sometimes he went into
flight mode sometimes went into fries
but for most of the time he learnt that
to survive shark-infested waters you go
into fight mode you become like a shark
you act like a shark and you go into a
shark attack mode which is what he did
with me with his teachers with his
foster carers because for Nathan he had
lurked that it’s better to be feared
than to be fearful it’s better to attack
than be attacked because anger is a mask
emotion anger is a bodyguard emotion and
anger is generally married to another
hidden emotion like fear pain sadness
and even when Nathan was moved into a
different environment a swimming pool
like school or foster care that
environment still felt like
shark-infested waters because those
shark-infested waters were in his mind
were in his body because trauma travels
with you and then we say to someone like
Nathan you just need to stop being angry
or you just need to calm down well for a
child who’s been marinated in toxic
stress who hasn’t been given those
skills is the equivalent of saying when
you in shark-infested waters just do a
queer aerobics guys just do think Rinnai
swimming so he really did try and find
ways to survive those shark-infested
waters and thank God he did because he’s
here with us to be the amazing boy years
so just look at this picture and I use a
lot of art in the work that I do for
various reasons but because Troma is a
multi-sensory experience therefore we
need multi-sensory interventions
whole-body whole-brain interventions the
mask the red mask I said to Nathan what
do you think other people see you as how
would they describe you and he said
things like angry GRU
hard keep out skeleton monsters imagine
what that’s like to feel that people
define you in that way what that does to
your sense of identity what that does to
your self-esteem and then I asked Nathan
if I saw the person behind the behavior
if I had an emotional x-ray and I could
truly see you what would I see and what
he said was small scared hurt invisible
fragile alone
just think how differently I would
respond to the mask on the left the mask
on the right how different I would
interact how different I would emphasize
with Nathan Nathan wasn’t attention
seeking he was attention needing he
wasn’t manipulative he’d learned how to
get his knee his needs met and you know
what what we did is we worked as a whole
team around Nathan because it takes a
whole village to raise a child
we gave him those safe hands thinking
minds regulating bodies we filled up his
treasure box over and over again and we
took his brain to the relationship Jim
over and over again we saw the person he
was behind the behavior we held that
hope for him saw the incredible
strengths that he had and if he was
standing here today he used different
words for he would be saying those are
some of the things that made a
difference to him and you know what it’s
children like Nathan and I could tell
you hundreds of stories like Nathan that
truly keep me in this work that are my
glue that are my inspiration
his survivorship and the strength of
this human spirit is remarkable if only
we could try and sew some of that into
our society because I’ll tell you
something we all could be a Nathan and
we all need a Nathan in our lives and we
could all learn from Nathan some people
might be sitting in here and thinking
I’ve experienced trauma traumas not
relevant to me but just hold in mind
that adverse life experiences trauma is
widespread it’s an epidemic it
basically goes into all the systems we
operate in from our police into our
schools into our businesses into
politics trauma is a public health issue
it affects our brains and it affects our
bodies our immune systems our central
nervous systems and beyond so just
imagine what it would be like if we had
a society that supported people to bloom
if we had a society the bought people
clothes and connected with them rather
than ostracized people imagine what
society would be like that actively
encouraged emotional expression
vulnerability compassion empathy
connection and what’s the cost of us not
doing that what air do we want our
society to breathe so before I finish my
wish for all of you is that we
consciously and deliberately remember
these things
relational trauma requires relational
repair we all can be those safe hands
thinking minds and regulating bodies
behavior is communication let’s see the
person behind the behavior let’s fill
out own treasure boxes because we want
people to have the best of us not what’s
left of us and let’s fill other people’s
treasure boxes and let’s remember that
we all contribute to the air that our
society breathes to me those are ideas
worth investing in and believing and
spreading thank you
[Applause]
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