Definitions:
A.
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Adaptive coping strategies generally involve confronting problems directly, making reasonably realistic appraisals of problems, recognizing and changing unhealthy emotional reactions, and trying to prevent adverse effects on the body. Maladaptive coping includes using alcohol or drugs to escape problems.
B.
C.
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The process by which two entities mutually influence each other’s states across time.
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The social environment in which an individual lives. Culture shapes the context in which energy and information are shared among people by way of patterns of interactions, rituals of behavior, communicative symbols, and structural aspects of the environment.
D.
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A reaction of the mind to reduce states of dysfunction. Defenses are often automatic (enacted without conscious intention), can be learned and become traits of a person's personality, and can also have evolutionary origins
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Traumatic events/ experiences that occur during moments of integral developmental stages.
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The process by which usually associate processes are dis-associated or compartmentalized from one another. Clinical dislocation can result in blocked access to memory and emotions, bodily numbness, or impairments to the continuity of consciousness across states of mind.
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the inability to attain proper coordination and balance within a system (body, mind, group), leading to excessive arousal or insufficient arousal that are both outside a window of tolerance.
E.
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Anything that draws our attention to remembering and experiencing ourselves as a body. This can be dance, free movement, or mindfully enjoying your favorite meal; savoring the flavors.
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Changes in the state of integration. Within the brain, emotions link various systems together to form a state of mind. It also serves to connect one mind to another. Emotional processing prepares the brain and the rest of the body for action to ‘evoke motion’.
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(also known as affect regulation) - The mechanisms by which emotions and its expression are modulated. Attachment relationships are important in shaping the prefrontal circuitry involved in affecting regulation early in life.
F.
G.
H.
I.
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In general, the linkage of differentiated elements. The mind’s process of linking differentiated parts into a functional whole is assumed to be the fundamental mechanism of health. Without integration, chaos or rigidity can ensue.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
P.
Q.
R.
S.
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Includes qualities of kindness, acceptance, feeling a part of a larger human journey, and letting go of judgments of self.
T.
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Finding regulation in the window of tolerance and intentionally going to the edge of the Window of Tolerance and bringing ourselves back into regulation. Increases one’s capacity for learning regulation without being overwhelming.
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An overwhelming experience that has potential negative impacts on an individual in the moment and in the future. Trauma is often referred to as an experience that is beyond the capacity for an individual to adapt effectively. Trauma is defined by how a person experiences an event; not the event itself. Trauma occurs when something negative and unexpected happens, which leaves us feeling confused, overwhelmed and powerless.
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The body remembering, it is often remembered in the form of sensory elements without words. Our nervous system activates in response to this perceived threat and reacts the way that it had to to survive the past trauma.
U.
V.
W.
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A span of arousal, or nervous system activation, within which a person’s system can maintain the harmonious and adaptive flow of integration (Siegel, 2012). At one end of the window the system moves towards rigidity (dissociation/freeze/hyperarousal), at the other end our system moves towards chaos (anxiety/fight/hyperarousal). Our windows can broaden or narrow depending on our ability to regulate ourselves. Optimal healing is accessed when we are inside our window of tolerance, or regulated.