IPNB: Bucking the Culture That Keeps Us in Survival Mode 

Standard treatments do not address ongoing conditions. They try to change thoughts while the body is still organized around threat. From a Relational Neuroscience perspective, that is a mismatch. The system is responding accurately to the conditions under which it must live.

Meanwhile, entire industries are built around managing the outcomes: pharmaceutical companies, the mental illness industry, universities producing practitioners, diagnostic systems, insurance structures, and hospitals. Each makes money off what happens when a child grows up in chronic adversity and becomes an adult shaped by those conditions.

That person is treated like the problem the entire time. Told they are not trying hard enough, need to think differently, be positive, let it go, and find the right medication. Instead of anyone looking directly at the conditions that maintain their survival adaptations.

If those conditions changed, the nervous system would change. If there were consistent attunement, safety, relational repair, and actual support, the system would have what it needs to reorganize. Instead, the environment keeps demanding protection. So the system keeps protecting.

This is why I teach Relational Neuroscience/Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB). People can learn to recognize what their bodies actually need, understand how their nervous systems respond to ongoing threats, and find ways to meet those needs in daily life. Learning this gives tools to create safety, attunement, and support outside of the systems that often cause additional harm while claiming to provide care.

About Shay Seaborne, CPTSD

Shay Seaborne CPTSD teaches Relational Neuroscience for stress reduction, trauma recovery, and community building. Shay has studied the neurobiology of fear / trauma /PTSD since 2014 and Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) since 2019. They write, speak, teach, and make art to convey their experiences as well as their understanding of the neurobiology of fear, trauma theory, Interpersonal Neurobiology concepts, and principles of trauma recovery. A native of Northern Virginia, Shay settled in Delaware to sail KALMAR NYCKEL, the state’s tall ship. But once they finally had mental health insurance, their life rapidly changed. The standard treatment for PTSD nearly killed them. The psychiatric abuse began a cascade of negative medical encounters that repeatedly caused additional harm and the development of severe Medical PTSD. Shay wishes everyone could recognize that "mental health problems" are symptoms of dysregulation, our mainstream culture is neuro-negative, and we can heal ourselves and each other through awareness, understanding, and safe connection.
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