The Healing Cocoon Podcast

In today’s episode of the podcast, we’re joined by Stephanie Kuehn, a mental health counselor who is certified in EMDR and micro-current neurofeedback. Stephanie shares her journey of feeling disconnected from her cultural and personal identity growing up, and how she now uses her knowledge and experiences to help others integrate their own traumas to find greater peace in their lives. 

Stephanie holds a Bachelor of Arts in Human Behavior and is working towards her Ph.D. She is on her way to becoming a licensed psychologist and has a deep understanding of how the brain works. Stephanie successfully helps others reprocess trauma, which allows them to break harmful response cycles, improve brain function and reduce symptoms of a variety of conditions, including anxiety, depression and ADHD.

Intergenerational Trauma and the Path Forward

As the child of parents from different nationalities, her mother being Japanese and her father mostly Western European, Stephanie often found she did not identify with enough of either culture to fully assimilate with one or the other. It was hard to make friends and integrate into the world around her. 

Her grandparents met at an internment camp, which had the effect of passing down further intergenerational trauma around cultural assimilation. Not fully knowing who she was pushed Stephanie into a space of searching for connection, and a deep  desire to understand how to feel both internally and externally unified. This quest developed the empathy and support she’s able to pass onto others during their own integration processes today,  and her passion for the techniques that help her do so.

Trauma, EMDR, and Microcurrent Neurofeedback

It may be a new concept to many, but the truth is that we have all experienced trauma to some degree in our lives. It might not be what typically comes to mind, because maybe it wasn’t the “big” traumas that we naturally think of, like abuse or abandonment. But once we’ve experienced an emotionally destabilizing situation, relative to our own baseline for safety, future similar experiences build on the original, creating more ingrained patterns of response. 

When the brain encounters trauma, the frontal lobe responsible for logic begins to shut down, and the limbic system, responsible for our fight, flight, freeze, and the newly added “fawn” response, switches into high gear. This response is naturally built into us for survival, but once activated by a traumatic event, our bodies can lock into these heightened states even when there is no danger present.

This is where modalities such as EMDR and micro-current neurofeedback come in. It is a mind-body-spirit holistic approach. Through specific techniques, EMDR (which stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) offers an opportunity to walk back through the impacting moments and re-engage our frontal lobe in the process, reframing the experience with logic, and diminishing the connected effect of our survival responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn). Micro-current neurofeedback is the work of creating awareness of what your body is telling you, especially in triggering  moments, to learn how to move away from dissociating during these events, and instead learning how to calm the body by activating the parasympathetic nervous system (‘rest and digest’ rather than ’fight or flight’).

Ready to Face the Trauma

EMDR is a powerful tool to reprocess trauma, but it doesn’t come without courage. It requires being with the painful memory, which can be triggering and scary as you are called to relive it. 

This is where micro-current neurofeedback can be a complementary modality, and the two therapies intersect beautifully. Using neurofeedback to become aware of your physical reactions, and rewire your neurological pathways, ushers in feelings of calm and safety that empower clients with the comfort to continue the more challenging aspects of the healing process, and allows the experience of release.

Integration

Finding the right modality at the right moment for each person takes some trial-and-error, but with deeper investigation it becomes clearer what methods are most healing and effective. 

EMDR and neurofeedback offer the ability to integrate trauma back into a cohesive brain space. And while there is much beauty to this, as part of the complexity and individuality of life, a patient may decide it serves them best not to fully integrate their experience, and so another modality may serve them better.

Integration occurs when the memory is reprocessed and becomes connected to the mind, body, and spirit, instead of being dissociated and therefore causing the holistic trifecta to operate separately from each  other. This dissociation is where people tend to become emotionally numb, and may lead toward addictions as a way to self-soothe. But when the fight or flight signals are activated, integration allows space to down regulate safely from within and embrace calm.

Learn more about Stephanie at https://www.stephaniemariekuehn.com and find her on social media at @stephaniemariekuehn.

For the full interview with Stephanie, listen via the link on this page, thehealingcocoon.co, or find us on Instagram @thehealingcocoonpodcast.