I can't trust my amygdala, can I?

The spelling might not be perfect, but thankfully perfect spelling is not needed for emotional healing.

Yesterday, a young client commented “I can’t really trust my amygdala can I ?”

Supporting a child or young person to understand their emotions, how they experience their emotions in their body, and how these emotions are processed in the brain and body, are key components of the therapeutic approach at the Little Bird House.

So hearing that young person’s growing self-awareness, and understanding of what is going on in their brain and body, when they experience anxiety, made ours hearts glow.

Because there is an abundance of evidence that self-awareness supports physical and emotional healing.

 We have been exploring their anxiety and psychoeducation is part of this. She regularly chooses to look at our brain model, take it a apart and put it together again, showing curiosity about the parts of the brain and how these relate to her own experiences and emotions.

We had previously pulled out the pastels and spent some time drawing parts of the brain, and this week we explored the two pathways in which anxiety enters the brain. When we think about anxiety we focus on 3 parts of the brain: the thalamus, amygdala and the cortex.

The cortex is like a thin blanket covering the top of your brain.

The thalamus is a walnut shaped in the middle of the brain. It plays and important role in taking in sensory information, how awake you feel, sleep patterns and alertness.

The amygdalae are 2 almond shaped parts on either side of the brain. They play an important role in our memory, decisions and how we experience emotions.

Neurobiology tells us that when sensory information comes in from the 5 senses (eyes, nose, ears, mouth or touch) it travels into the thalamus, which is a bit like a busy train station, sending signals to different parts of the brain.

The thalamus sends sensory information directly to either the cortex of the amygdala. In the cortex the sensory information gets processed, but it takes time.

 The thalamus may also send the sensory information directly to the amygdala, but in a lot less detail. It’s like a snap shot.

This means the amygdala can sense something before it understands it.

The amygdala can sense something before the cortex can properly process it. The amygdala creates this quick snap shot, and if it senses danger, can produce the Flight, Fight, Freeze, Fawn (FFFF) defence response.  

We have no control of which pathway the thalamus sends the information.

Once the cortex has processed the sensory information, it will also send the information to amygdala.

Only the amygdala can produce fear and anxiety and the FFFF danger response. The amygdala is like our alarm system.  We sense something, it gets sent to the amygdala from the thalamus, the amygdala reads it as danger and sets of the alarms. 

The amygdala is the cause of unexplained anxiety, when it appears out of the blue and there is no good reason for it- the case for many children. We may experience it in our body as heart pounding , wanting to go home, no control over emotional reactions, rushes of anxiety or feeling panicky with no warning, sweating or shaky or loss of appetite.

The cortex doesn’t create anxiety on hits own it needs the amygdala, it interprets the situation which can create unnecessary anxiety by interpreting situations, producing images or anticipates situations, which it passes to the amygdala, who sense danger from these. The cortex can make a safe experience provoke anxiety. 

This may seem too complicated for therapy, but for many children and young people understanding what is happening in their brain gives them a new perspective on their anxiety.  At the Little Bird House we use creativity to explore these processes. It may be through drawing, clay, doodling, paint, puppets or talking, always meeting the child’s developmental level and desire to understand and create.

This is just one aspect of the journey of understanding anxiety.  But this young person choses this approach and dives into psychological neuroscience in her own time. They have given consent for me to share the drawings we created.

Her perspective of “ I can’t really trust my amygdala can I”, is not only the processing but also the recognition of her developing understanding of her own anxiety. She observed that she was going to spend this week thinking how she could override her amygdala when her anxiety rears its head.

I look forward to hearing her strategies…

Self-awareness development at its best.