NEUTRALIZING APPROACHES
There are three basic approaches to resolving trauma (that I know of).
The bottom-up approach, the top-down approach and a combination of the two.
- Bottom-Up
The bottom-up approach focuses on the body and calming the nervous system first.
When the body and nervous system have calmed down, then the mental or emotional work of identifying and neutralizing the underlying trauma can be done.
Somatic trauma healing techniques that just focus on releasing stuff held in the tissues of the body are also bottom up approaches. After doing them, memories and/or emotions may or may not come up.
The bottom-up approach works best for most people I have met.
Some people need to lean heavily into de-escalating (calming the nervous system) first; otherwise, the emotional pain is too great or their thoughts are bouncing all over the place, making it impossible to get a handle on what the real underlying issue is. - Top-Down
The top-down approach is doing the emotional or mental work of identifying and neutralizing the underlying trauma first, and then the nervous system naturally calms down and gets regulated as a result.
The top-down approach works best for me.
I can move quickly or immediately into neutralizing with little to no de-escalation first, finding that my nervous system calms down as soon as I have done the emotional or mental work of neutralizing the past trauma.
However, if my triggered reaction is very intense, I will sometimes need to take a bottom-up approach by doing Safety Cues or other De-Escalation techniques first.
The intensity of my trigger will determine how much de-escalation I need to do to calm my nervous system down before I can start to uncover and neutralize the anchor. - Combo
Some techniques work with both the body and the mind/emotions at the same time.
It is also possible to combine de-escalation and neutralizing and do them at the same time.
De-escalating can be added to practically any neutralizing technique, and addressing past trauma can be added to practically any de-escalation technique.
The most common way is to add rhythm - which is very calming and grounding - to a neutralizing technique.
Many neutralizing techniques can be done while walking, hiking, jogging, running, cycling or swimming (adding bilateral rhythm).
For example, EMDR is a neutralizing technique, which has rhythm built into it in the form of bilateral (side to side) movements. These rhythmic bilateral movements can be side-to-side eye movements (without moving your head), sound, vibration, touch (such as crossing your arms and alternately patting each shoulder or upper arm with the palm of your hand or alternately patting your thighs with your hands), or alternating footsteps while walking or running.