Joy strength is developed as an actual brain structure through loving relationships. Joyful bonds create our identity, our ability to act like ourselves in distress, and our capacity to face pain. Joy strength both sets and limits our capacity to handle trauma. We can build joy strength throughout our lives if we know how.
The Bonding Process (Allan Schore)
Senses and Brain Development (Myelination of sensory regions)
- 0-6 Weeks – taste, smell and temperature
- 6-12 Weeks – touch
- 3-12 Months – visual
- 12-24 Months – voice tone
Joy (excitement) and bonding–someone is glad to be with me
- Right hemisphere to right hemisphere communication
- Matched brain chemistry
- Matched brain structure growth
- Authentic, rapid (six per second), non-verbal communication
What is growing during bonding is the Right Orbital Prefrontal Cortex
- Right-hemispheric growth spurts
- 0-18 months Peak 9 mo
- 3-5 years Peak 4
- 7-10 years Peak 8.5
- 15 year peak
- First child — particularly for mother
- Fetal biochemistry throughout life-span
Psycho-biology of Bonds
The Right Orbital Prefrontal Cortex
Developed by stimulation (prefrontal is 35% of adult brain)
First part of the cortex to receive incoming information from inside the body or outside
2. Control apex of the brain
(1) Right hemispheric emotion regulation
(2) Limbic system control
Non-verbal – knows and remembers in images and pictures
Center for “self” and bonds
The attachment center
Secure
Insecure (Fear Bonds)
Avoidant (always OFF) [dissociative signs until 12]
Ambivalent (always ON) [parental inversion]
Disorganized (Mixed with strong FEAR) [most PTSD]
Characteristics of a Healthy Bond (From The Red Dragon Cast Down pp. 323-4)
1. Healthy Bonds grow stronger by moving closer or moving apart
2. Healthy Bonds grow stronger by sharing positive and negative emotions
3. Healthy Bonds help all parties feel stable and act like themselves
4. Healthy Bonds provide freedom and connection
5. Healthy Bonds stretch limits and capacities slightly to promote growth
The Development of Identity in Infants
The theory of self center develops (right cortex) at 6 months.
The joyful identity grows in the Right Orbital Prefrontal Cortex from 6-12 months.
The return to joy circuits grow between 12-18 months.
Limbic system myelinates at 15 months.
The “joy ring” of an emotionally unified identity grows at 18 months.
Use it or lose it principle – critical periods, pruning and parcellation
2. Joy and God
Joy is strength
The joy of the Lord is your strength. (Nehemiah 8:10b KJV)
Joy and God’s face and voice
Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. (Acts 2:28 KJV)
Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance. (Ps 89:15 KJV)
The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious unto you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26 KJV)
3 Return to joy
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning. (Psalms 30:5 KJV)
They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. (Psalms 126:5 KJV)
I will turn their mourning into joy, and will comfort them, and make them rejoice from their sorrow. (Jeremiah 31:13 KJV)
Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. (Psalms 51:8 KJV)
[From] their shame…and confusion…they shall rejoice. (Isaiah 61:7 KJV)
Jesus and joy
the babe leaped in my womb for joy. (Luke 1:44b KJV)
These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. (John 15:11 KJV)
Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame. (Hebrews 12:2 KJV.)
3. Bonding: The Joy Camp and Joy Mountain analogy (From The Life Model page 39.)
Joy Camp
Our natural state
Our destination each night
Where we want others to be
Climbing Joy Mountain
Getting back to Joy Camp
The Ring of Joy
Direct paths back to joy — no avoidance and quick resolution
No path back
avoidance
side tracks to other feelings (sad, rage, sex)
extended disturbance (depression)
4. Two ways to bond
Climbing Joy Mountain
Our voice and face
Smells, food and touch and temperature (fellowship meal)
Bears, blankets, stories, tapes, singing, dogs, babies and old people
Giving joy to others
Returning to Joy Camp
Getting back from every emotion
Climbing strength–or the size of the bucket
Acting like oneself–ROPFC takeover under strong emotions
The flashlight of awareness
Touch is powerful
Jesus acted like himself (Mark 3:5 Colossians 3:8)
Sin as “not acting like ourselves” (Ephesians 2:10)
Singing our way back to joy (Psalms)
5. Joyful identity as the limiter of upset we can carry (joy bucket size).
The strength of the joyful identity in the ROPFC sets the limits for trauma resolution.
The strength of joyful love bonds set the limits of the joyful identity.
6. Maturity
How we grow and mature is based on our bonds.
Fear bonds
Love bonds
We mature in six stages: (From Stages of a Man’s Life)
Unborn – grow a body
Infant – develop a self
Child – learn to care for self
Adult – develop a group identity (care for 2 or more at once)
Parent – give life sacrificially so children can grow
Elder – raise a community
7. Joy and healing.
Building joy can be more important than resolving memories.
Teach joy as the goal (from bed to a happy classroom).
The necessity that we enjoy those we minister to if there is to be joy.
8. The Joy Component in discipleship.
Building the brain through joy
Returning to joy
Restoring the brain through joy – (From The Life Model page 12)
Smile whenever you greet those you love
Use a warm tone of voice
Do what you can to end positively
Before you fall asleep make every attempt to reach joy
Make sure those you love are in “Joy Camp” with you
Touch whenever appropriate
Give surprises that make their eyes light up. Let your eyes light up too. The joy builds as glances go back and forth.
Bonding to God with Joy
Bonding to the church with Joy
Bonding with the wounded by returning to joy
Raising God’s children to maturity in joy
The Red Dragon Cast Down, E. James Wilder, Grand Rapids: Chosen Books, 1999.
The Life Model, Friesen, Wilder, Bierling, Koepcke & Poole, Shepherd’s House 1999.
Stages of a Man’s Life, E. James Wilder, Springfield: Quiet Waters Publications, 1999.
The Developing Mind, Daniel Siegel, New York: Guilford Press, 1999.
Affect Regulation and The Origin of the Self, Allan Schore, Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1994.
Trauma: Its Impact and Implications for Recovery (“Joy Strength” continued)
Dr. E. James Wilder (626) 794-3670
How childhood traumas and deprivations affect brain development, sense of self, problem solving, emotional control, memory and dissociation. Trauma chemically “wipes out” portions of the brain while deprivations keep others from growing at all. New joy-bonded relationships are needed to stimulate the growth of replacement brain connections and circuits. Neurologically, joy means “we are glad to be together.”
1. Brain Development and Memory
Memory is remembering who we are so that we can act like ourselves in the future.
The Memory Process (Daniel Siegel-The Developing Mind)
Input Processing and Memory
Thalamus (Central Receiving)
Amygdala (Guard Shack)
Hippocampus (Library)
Anterior Cingulate (Head Librarian) affect & cognition integrated
Prefrontal cortex (Identity Center)
Right Hemispheric Memory
Implicit
No subjective sense of being recalled
Non-focal
Not suggestible at all (can’t be focused)
Not mediated by the library (hippocampus)
Left Hemispheric Memory
Explicit
Focal
Declarative
Conscious
Episodic/semantic
Very suggestible (focal)
Has a subjective sense of being recalled
Autobiographical with a sense of space and time
Cortically consolidated during REM sleep after age 8
2. Memory and Trauma
The Effects of Trauma
Two types of trauma
Type B
Type A
The Guard Shack’s (Amygdala) Four Actions
Armed response (sympathetic-hypothalamus)
Disaster shut down (parasympathetic-hypothalamus)
Fire Department (Cortisol-Hypothalamus-[ACTH]-adrenal cortex)
Send significant information to library for study
Effects of trauma on the Guard Shack (amygdala)
PTSD ping-pong between amygdalae of neutral stimuli
Hyperactivation to alarming material
Fear tracking
Fear bonding
Fear mapping
De-activation of Broca’s region and prefrontal cortex
Cortisol
Effects on nervous system-solvent
New connections
New growth
Effects on Library (Hippocampus)
21%-26% reduction in PTSD
Toxic effects proportional to serum levels
The Library (Hippocampus)
Developed between 2-3 can be lesioned by high cortisol levels
Can be blocked by
Massive discharges of the Guard Shack (amygdala)
Split attention
High cortisol levels
A life-long deficit managing emotions is the major result of childhood trauma (van der Kolk)
Age-specific effects of trauma and high cortisol levels (Fire Dept)
During Joyful Identity growth (6-12 mo) – Decreased coping capacity
During Return to Joy (12-18 mo) – Avoidance of certain feelings
During Integration of Self (18-24) – Mood/affect ego states
During Library myelinization (2-3 yr) – Memory disruption (amnesia)
Without Corpus Callosum (Before 3) – No story of trauma in Right Hemispheric Memory
During Corpus Callosum growth (about 3) – localized damage of bilateral integration between words and negative emotional states
Disorders connected with damage
Joy Ring Deficits and Mood States–borderline
Trauma and the Library–dissociative disorders
Mind Control Programming and the Guard Shack–preconscious control
3. The Size of a Strong Joyful Identity: How big is your “joy bucket?”
The ability of an individual to experience and integrate the right hemispheric memories related to a trauma is limited by two factors:
1) the strength of his joyful identity in the right prefrontal cortex, and
2) his learned capacity to regulate the negative emotions and return to joy.
Several key emotions to be regulated are: (Schore)
terror
rage
shame
disgust
hopeless/despair
The individual will not be able to tolerate a higher level of these negative emotions than the capacity he/she has grown to withstand the positive emotion of joy. Joy sets the limits for our emotional capacity. Our “joy bucket” is the limit of what we can bear. The emotional capacity to maintain a traumatic event in memory is limited by the growth level achieved in the prefrontal cortex. This makes joy, a joyful identity, and the capacity to return to joy from negative feelings, the limiters of trauma recovery.
4. Other Aspects of the Brain’s Function:
Front of brain for acting like oneself (joy/love)
Back of brain for solving problems (fear)
Left of brain for explanations and beliefs (same old story)
Right of brain sees something is wrong (upset)
5. An Eight Step Process for Resolving Traumas
Take God your best evidence for the painful view of reality and your beliefs created through traumatic experiences. You will be able to do this for any traumatic events that you can carry in your “joy bucket.” You have that amount of strength with which to face the pain.
1. Find the upset. (right hemisphere)
2. Find the belief that goes with the upset. (left hemisphere)
3. Ask the Holy Spirit to find the best evidence for that belief.
4. Invite Jesus into that event or evidence.
5. Test the truth of your evidence and conclusion.
6. Check for peace and rest internally.
7. Repeat if necessary.
8. Give thanks.
Some blocks to step 4. (Ed Smith)
Wrong question
Holding on to anger
Thinking (still want to figure it out yourself)
Demonic blockage
Responses to step 5. (Ed Smith)
See Jesus
Hear God
No-see no-hear
6. When Bonding is Needed for Healing.
When there is little joy strength
When they don’t know the way back to joy
When an identity is built on fear and weakness
Love or fear bonds (see chart from Life Model page 17)
Weak or strong bonds
Motivation comes from bonds
7. Bonds and identity.
Joy based identity
Fear based identity
dragon tracking
fear mapped
from the back of brain
concerned with results–not truth
not concerned with acting like ourselves
8. Guidelines for Redemptive Bonding from The Red Dragon Cast Down page 323.
Identity change through replacing fear bonds with love bonds.
1. Begin by accepting the fear bonds as your first connection, it is usually all they know.
2. Avoid all intensity/trauma bonding by staying calm during intense emotion and then moving close after the intensity has started to subside slightly.
3. Add love bonds to fear bonds until the fear bonds can be dropped.
4. Form bonds according to the structure of the spiritual community. If you will be a parent, form parental bonds, if you will be a sibling form sibling bonds, if you will be an adopted child form child bonds.
5. Be clear about the kind of bond you are forming: parent-child or sibling-sibling.
6. Expect suffering and pain. The stronger the bond, the more pain it will likely have to sustain.
7. Bonds form best during hard times.
8. Review your objectives and the nature of your bond and speak them often.
9. Admit failures but do not break bonds.
10. Always build toward strong, permanent bonds.
11. Establish your bond through public ceremony or confession with symbols and stories.
12. Expect rejection, misunderstanding, criticism, judgement, doubt, suspicion, hostility, abandonment, and distancing from others, especially when things get worse and you could really use some help, understanding and support. Use this time to purify your bonds and motives and clearly interpret the bond to the person you are bonding with as well as the skeptics. Be very patient with them all.
13. Teach others how to form love bonds. There are two ways:
1. Building Joy – Joy produces love bonds when people are genuinely glad to be together. The main sources of joy are nonverbal–a face that lights up to see us, and a warm tone of voice. Touch is third but may have the opposite results with sexually abused people.
2. Returning to Joy – Meeting people in their unhappy feelings, sharing the feeling, and letting them know you are still glad to know them, returns people to joy. The six biggest negative feelings are sadness, anger, terror, shame, disgust and hopeless despair.