Welcome to the universe is your therapist. We are your hosts, Dr. Amy Hoyt and Lena Hoyt. We are sisters. Take a seat and let's dive into this week's episode.
Hi, welcome back to the universities, your therapist. I am on my own today. Amy has a lot going on. And I'm really glad to talk to you today about trauma bonds. And this is part one of trauma bonds. And in this episode we are going to cover what is a trauma bond and how do they develop. In her book unbroken. Mary Katherine McDonald talks about the way that trauma bonds came to be conceptualized. And in the 1960s. There was some research done on the domestic violence dynamic, and women who were in that dynamic and the research indicated to the male investigators that the women were bringing on than domestic violence themselves. They were passive, they were clingy. They were shut down, they were defended. And it wasn't until the 80s When Donald Dutton and Susan painter speculated that there was something about the abuse that changed the personalities of the women. And they came to the conclusion that these women didn't go back to violent relationships because they wanted to be abused. They went back because they had lost their sense of self. And trauma bonds occur in a relationship in which there's uneven power, regardless of what the power is, whether it's social financial, and it is this uneven power dynamic that one partner takes advantage of, and it's intermittent with abuse and intense affection. And the intermittent piece is really important because together these components create devastating personality shifts and both people and as personalities become shaped around the relationship, a dangerously strong bond is formed and becomes very difficult to disengage in. Again, this is taken from the book Unbroken by Mary Katherine McDonald. When Dutton and painter did their research, they determined that this was a trauma bond. And they define this as a development and course of strong emotional ties between persons where one person intermittently harasses beats, threatens abuses or intimidates the other. When we are able to understand better about trauma bonds, it can help us figure out what is going on in our own relationship. The word trauma Vaughn has been used very loosely and frequently lately. And there are some important distinctions between being in a dysfunctional relationship and having a trauma bond with the abuser. Dr. McDonald also references the dynamics that occur biochemically when we're in a situation like this. She talks about how when we are young children, and we become distressed, and then we are soothed, which hopefully most of us were when we are soothed after that, then we become flooded with natural opioids. And the brain starts to form a connection, we associate this connection between distress and soothing with pleasure. And these chemicals can help us be social and stay social and make survival more likely. The same physiological reaction can play out when as adults, we experience conflict with another person and we then become distressed and then are soothed either by the other person in the conflict or by someone else. We can become addicted to these bursts of opioids that we can become addicted to these bursts. We don't become addicted to the conflict itself. But we may become addicted to the feeling that comes from being immediately soothed after conflict. And it is the cycle of abuse, not the abuse itself, that can become addictive, because there's a natural dose of occurring hormonal opioids during the upswing. The other thing that's really important to note is that within an intimate relationship, the conflict and the abuse can be portrayed as proof of deep love, not a refutation of it. And what happens at that point, then is we become wired differently in our brain in how we find pleasure and a relationship. I also used a lot of material from Dr. Patrick Carnes who is a A sex addiction specialist. And in 1997, he wrote a book called betrayal bonds. In that book, he identifies that many of us can be set up for this type of trauma bond, because of incidents or dynamics that happened in our childhood. He identifies that when we have been abused in our childhood, either mentally, emotionally, physically or sexually, and then it is the parent who abuses us who ends up soothing us at some point that we then have this neurobiological chemical setup to find that type of dynamic rewarding. One really important thing to remember is that trauma bonds are not our fault, we don't go into a relationship looking to be abused, that's a really important thing to distinguish and make sure that people understand. If you are in a relationship in which there's abuse, and you believe that you do have a trauma bond with your abuser, this is a great place to start. Once you have that awareness, the second most important piece, in my opinion, is to understand that it's not your fault, and you did not do this to yourself on purposed purpose, and you're not a masochist. We don't seek abuse or problematic relationships on purpose, to make our lives better. That's ludicrous, and it doesn't happen. So if you do happen to be in a relationship, where you recognize trauma bonds, whether you are the perpetrator, or the victim, it's really important to recognize that this was set up for you a long time ago. And that the beautiful thing about this realization is that now you have the power to do something about it. I find that extremely helpful. So as we looked at the definition of trauma bonds, what we want to do is we want to understand that when we have engaged in this kind of behavioral pattern, and we do tend to repeat it through different relationships, we did not create this for ourselves, they develop because of the dynamic that is occurring in the relationship where there's a profound intensity as Dr. Carnes mentions, and where there is a lot of distress, followed by soothing oftentimes by the abuser themselves. And that then creates that chemical dynamic that we talked about earlier that Dr. McDonald references. And then we have that chemical dynamic that Dr. McDonald references in her book unbroken. Now that we understand how trauma bonds get developed and what they are. We're going to talk a little bit in the next episode about what to do about a trauma bond and how you can start to heal your nervous system, and start to make repairs under your own will and volition, to turn the tide for what you find exciting, and compelling and intense, and find ways to become more calm and be able to soothe ourselves, to be able to find ways to be able to find ways to have a strong sense of self, which is really missing when we've engaged in relationships like this, when we have had dynamics like this from a young age and childhood. But there's a tremendous amount of hope, as Dr. McDonald mentions in her book. And if we can take small steps as we go and follow some well recommended interventions, we can have the power to start to heal our nervous system, and to find a way to distance ourselves from that trauma bond dynamic that is so compelling and so intense. I'm looking forward to seeing you guys on episode two of trauma bonds. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you'd like more information about anything that we talked about today, or in any of our podcasts, please check us out at www dot mending trauma.com And we look forward to hearing from you. Let us know if there's any additional podcast topics that you'd like to hear about and we'd be glad to take a look at those and put those into play. Thanks for joining me.
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