Tag Archives: Nervous System
Medical Sabbaticals: Reducing Exposure as Harm Reduction in Healthcare
It’s awful to be disbelieved, unseen, minimized, and dismissed, particularly by the people we turn to for support and help. It’s also really bad for the nervous system. This is part of why I cut way back on seeing healthcare … Continue reading
Posted in Healthcare
Tagged harm reduction, healthcare, medical sabbatical, Medicine, Nervous System, practitioners, sabbatical, stress load
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What if Mental Health Care Actually Cared?
Mental health doesn’t come from a drug or cognitive behavioral therapy. Real mental health is built on what has always made humans whole: safety, connection, dignity, and the right to be felt and seen in the truth of our pain. … Continue reading
Listening to My Nervous System is Not Optional
Trauma recovery is not a belief system, moral stance, prescription, or a choice based on what feels convenient, politically aligned, or socially condoned. Recovery is about learning, often the hard way, what my nervous system actually needs in order to … Continue reading
Posted in Neurobiology
Tagged danger, IPNB, Nervous System, Relational Neuroscience, threat, trauma recovery
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Why the Treatment Doesn’t Hold: The Truth About SGB for Complex PTSD
I’ve had 28 Stellate Ganglion Blocks (SGBs) for Complex PTSD, hypervigilance, quadrilateral Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, and other sympathetically driven conditions. These are symptoms of extreme central sensitization from a lifetime of environments adverse to my well-being, especially repeated sexualized … Continue reading
Posted in SGB for PTSD
Tagged Nerve Block, Nervous System, SGB, SGB4PTSD, Stellate Ganglion Block, tools
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Can Trauma Survivors Recover Even Without Access to Professional Help?
According to a 2021 study, “most states have fewer than 40% of the mental health professionals needed” and “more than half (51%) of counties in the United States have no practicing psychiatrists.” Even where mental illness industry practitioners exist, many … Continue reading
Posted in PTSD, Trauma
Tagged Complex PTSD, CPTSD, Medicine, Mental Health, Nervous System, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Psychology, PTSD, Regulation, Trauma
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Complex PTSD From An IPNB Perspective: Survival Adaptations and the Roots of Symptoms
When people talk about Complex PTSD or other trauma-related conditions, they often focus on the symptoms. They make lists of patterns, put them into clusters, and give them names. That sounds organized, but it hides the bigger picture. It puts … Continue reading
Posted in PTSD
Tagged Complex PTSD, CPTSD, IPNB, labels, Medicine, Nervous System, psychiatry, recovery, relationships, survival, survival adaptations
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Symbols as Mirrors: Building Coherence Through Tarot
I pulled three cards from a tarot deck without looking: the Knight of Swords, the Six of Swords, and the Five of Wands. At first glance, they are just symbols: energetic, chaotic, transitional. But when I looked at them together, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged archetypes, cohesive narrative, Nervous System, story, survival, symbolic, tarot
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Announcing My First Book!
Of all the things I could have predicted for my life, becoming a watercolor graphic medicine artist who uses cartoon ladybugs to teach Relational Neuroscience was not one of them. But here I am. My “Della the IPNB Ladybug™” books … Continue reading
Big Ways to Support Your Nervous System With Tiny Actions
You can support your nervous system by building small, regular practices into your daily life to support your system’s ability to find steadiness over time. These practices don’t have to be complicated or take much time; consistency is what matters … Continue reading
Posted in Neurobiology
Tagged coregulation, Nervous System, Regulation, repair, safety, support
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The DSM Misses the Mark: IPNB Offers a Humane and Scientific Understanding of Mental Health
Some trauma experts have said that if the psychiatric Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) acknowledged trauma, it would be a very thin volume because virtually everything else would fall beneath it. But from an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) … Continue reading
Posted in Mental Health, Psychiatry
Tagged Behavioral Health, DSM, illness, IPNB, Mental Health, mental illness industry, Nervous System, pathologizing, psychiatry, Psychology, recovery, Trauma, wellbeing
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