Life Change Health Institute

Essential, data-derived advice for leading a happy, healthy life, shared by researcher and psychiatrist Robert Waldinger. Have you ever wished you could fast-forward your life so you could see if the decisions you’re making will lead to satisfaction and health in the future? In the world of scientific research, the closest you can get to that is by looking at the Harvard Study of Adult Development — a study that has tracked the lives of 724 men for 78 years, and one of the longest studies of adult life ever done. Investigators surveyed the group every two years about their physical and mental health, their professional lives, their friendships, their marriages — and also subjected them to periodic in-person interviews, medical exams, blood tests and brain scans. With a front-row seat on these men’s lives, researchers have been able to track their circumstances and choices and see how the effects ripple through their lives. Psychiatrist Robert J. Waldinger, the study’s director and principal investigator, shared some of the major lessons in a popular TED Talk (What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness). The big takeaways from that talk: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier, and loneliness kills. But there were, of course, many more lessons to be learned — the study has yielded more than 100 published papers so far, with enough data for “scores more” — and Waldinger shares four of them here.  1. A happy childhood has very, very long-lasting effects. Having warm relationships with parents in childhood was a good predictor you’ll have warmer and more secure relationships with those closest to you when you’re an adult. Happy childhoods had the power to extend across decades to predict more secure relationships that people had with their spouses in their 80s, as well as [...]

When we meet our partners, we make an unconscious contract to help each other resolve emotional injuries of the past , we unconsciously pick or hire the perfect person to trigger this stored painful memory of our past , it is for this exact reason we have come together . Relationships are not a problem to be solved but an adventure to be embraced. Conflict is a gift to be unpacked , to embrace, an opportunity to grow , resolve and mature . Conflict can not be resolved at the level with which it was created. We hire the person in our life who is most compatible to help us resolve what is unresolved from our childhood. Our relationship lives in the space between us and it is sacred . This becomes the playground for our children . When there are only two options , take the third option ! Keep the space between you safe and sacred . Honour the space between you , by visiting the other by crossing the bridge . Cross the bridge with an open mind to learn , with curiosity and compassion , leave behind your hurt and trauma. Crossing the bridge is becoming completely present with your partner, listening without interruption, defensiveness or judgement, holding an unconditional space for your partner to share. Beyond right thinking and Beyond wrong thinking there is a field , I will meet you there - This is the third option   Seven principles for conscious relationships 1. The relationship lives in the space between us. 2. The emotional charged part of your partner is the child in them trying to tell their story , allow each other to tell that story by crossing the bridge. 3. We are energy that can be positive and negative , be aware of this [...]

Group Psychotherapy, why it is good for all of us. As humans we are social animals who remains group-oriented to ensure survival, connection and belonging. Our lives begin in family groups and we function thereafter as members of groups at school, work and in communities. The origin of the power of the group as an agent of change to promote healing lies buried in antiquity. But, as noted by Rutan and Alonso (1979), group psychotherapy, where one’s family and community are represented in the room, provides unique opportunities to work on issues of intimacy and individuation. It is well known that anyone with a history of destructive relationships will continue, long into adult life, continue to attract destructive relationships into their lives as a debilitating and painful life pattern. Group Psychotherapy becomes a very powerful platform to change this pattern as it is explored within a framework of healthy relating within the group. Even for those without a history of overt trauma can carry behaviors from primary relationships as a child and continue these behaviors into adult life even when these behaviors do not serve as healthy prerequisites for healthy, happy and intimate relationships. In a sense these unconscious behaviors get in the way of Life, very often it can be difficult to make sense of why life is not working as we would like or relationships are not as successful as we would like and without a platform such as Group Psychotherapy, it is very difficult to explore these behaviors and work through these early relational patterns that are getting in the way of health and happiness.   "Everyone sees the unseen in proportion to the clarity of his heart, and that depends upon how much he has polished it. Whoever has polished it more sees more — more unseen forms become [...]

The term Emotional Incest (also known as covert incest or psychic incest) describes a relationship between parents and children that is sexualized, without actual incest/sexual contact. The relationships are harmful and one-sided, and similar to a relationship between adult sexual partners but without the type of physical contact that would qualify it as child sexual abuse. The effects are similar to, though less severe, than that of actual incest. The definition of Emotional Incest has a broad set of criteria. Basically, Emotional Incest, is a covert incest, a form of emotional abuse in which the relationship between a parent and a child is inappropriately sexualized without actual sexual contact. Often substance abuse, as seen through the alcoholic dependent needy dysfunctional parent for instance, is associated with covert incest. The effects of this covert incest somewhat mimic sexual incest but often to a lesser degree. The victims have been described as having anger or guilt towards parents and issues with self-esteem, addiction and sexual and emotional intimacy Emotional Incest started to be recognized about 25 or 30 years ago. It has primarily been defined by the few researchers and therapists who acknowledge it and work with it, as as an emotionally abusive relationship between a parent (or step-parent) and child that does not involve incest or sexual intercourse. It involves similar interpersonal dynamics much like the relationship between sexual partners. Particularly similar to ‘old time’ seasoned partners who have gotten comfortable with each other, marriages where sex is no longer the prime purpose in their lives, but the emotional support and bond is strong between the members of the relationship. Think of the couple that has been married for many years, sex has waned, or is non-existent, but they still rely on each other, and at times need each other, for [...]

Transferences, unlike descriptive unconscious processes are dynamically repressed object attachments that transfer in the wrong place with compulsive, repetitive and affective charge. - Freud Transference, Countertransference and reenactment in Therapy by Richard B. Gartner- Director of centre for the study of psychological Trauma and The Sexual Abuse Program New York city. Recurrent themes affecting the transference and countertransference with people who have suffered huge trauma in early childhood, start with the patient’s wariness of the therapist and the dangers involved in intimacy. In addition, dependency, reliance and counter dependent and counter phobic defenses tend to emerge, often-cloaked in overt idealization of the therapist. In this idealization, patients may expect the therapist to be all attentive, nurturing, non-seductive and nonabusing parent who will heal and undo the trauma. All these themes tend to appear in concerns about boundaries, secrecy, control and power and in dicussion of fees, confidentiality, and other issues related to the frame of the treatment. Behavioral reenactments in treatment allow a patient to communicate previously dissociated and therefore unsymbolised, material to the therapist. By exploring verbally what has been communicated through behavior the therapist and patient initiate a process by which the dissociated material becomes encoded in language, and therefore available for conscious consideration.Behaviors associated with a reenactment in therapy are unconscious messages from the patient to the therapist and to himself about a traumatic past. They represent an attempt to bypass the need for symbolized experience. Reenactments are most likely to occur when the patient has a reduced capacity for self-reflection, another result of being unable to verbalize traumatic experiences that were never encoded when they first occurred, as a result of not have a present witness to their pain. Memories became trapped encased within a wordless world. Incapable of articulating what he has never symbolized verbally, [...]

The Polyvagal Theory is the product of decades of research by Dr Stephen Porges and his team at the Brain-Body Center in the University of Illinois, Chicago. Adopted by clinicians around the world, the Polyvagal Theory has provided exciting new insights into the way our autonomic nervous system unconsciously mediates social engagement, trust, and intimacy, and how these may be influenced by our interactions with others.It was whilst studying the evolution of the nervous system that Porges first made an important discovery concerning the vagus nerve which alters the way we understand autonomic nervous system functions. Before this time it was widely understood that our autonomic nervous system operated in a balanced sympathetic/parasympathetic manner, but Porges research changed this through two discoveries; firstly that the vagus nerve in mammals has not one but two branches, and secondly that the newest branch is able to inhibit other nervous system activity. Porges research showed that in the process of evolution, animals first developed immobilised defense responses (innervated by the vagus/parasympathetic system) –where they would adaptively collapse, shut down or feign death when faced with threats. Over time, the nervous system evolved to enable mobilised responses to threat through the activation of a sympathetic nervous system. This mobilised circuitry was able to speed up the heart and lungs, and act on the same visceral organs as the parasympathetic system, in order to promote adaptive fight, flight and active freeze responses to threat. The third stage of evoluntionary development saw the addition of a newer branch of the vagus nerve which is also able to slow the heart and lungs and which links the innervation of these two with the use of facial nerves involved in social engagement. For this reason, Porges theory proposes that this newer Vagal ̳brake‘ evolved in order to make [...]

Depression is a common symptom of hypothyroidism, yet many people become frustrated when their thyroid hormone medication does not relieve depression. This is because the effects of hypothyroidism on the brain are more complicated than people realize and thyroid hormone medication alone may not solve brain-based problems such as depression. The problem is many people suffer from hypothyroidism for years before receiving diagnosis and treatment, raising their likelihood of developing brain-based issues–sufficient thyroid hormone is vital to good brain health. Thyroid hormones facilitate function of the brain’s neurotransmitters, chemicals that communicate information throughout the bran and body. They also prevent brain inflammation and reduce the risk of developing an autoimmune reaction in the brain. When doctors in the standard health care model fail to properly manage hypothyroidism, they increase their patients’ risks for brain-based disorders.   Hypothyroidism and neurotransmitters   Neurotransmitters play a role in shaping who we are and how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. They influence our moods, memory and learning, self-esteem, anxiety levels, motivation, and more. I think this explains why some people who have been suffering for years with unresolved thyroid symptoms can become grouchy, angry, and pessimistic. That reflects not who they are necessarily, but instead their worsening brain function. As neurotransmitter function begins to fail due to thyroid hormone deficiency, the brain’s cells increasingly lose the ability to communicate with one another. This lack of activity causes neurons to die, creating accelerated brain degeneration in those pathways. When it comes to brain health, if you don’t use it you lose it—inactive neurons are swept up and discarded by the brain’s immune system. This is a scenario that cause a variety of symptoms, one of the more common being depression. When thyroid hormone replacement fails to resolve your depression you may need to support [...]

The gut (gastrointestinal tract) is the long tube that starts at the mouth and ends at the back passage (anus). The mouth is the first part of the gut (gastrointestinal tract). When we eat, food passes down the gullet (oesophagus), into the stomach, and then into the small intestine. The small intestine has three sections - the duodenum, jejunum and ileum. The duodenum is the first part of the small intestine and follows on from the stomach. The duodenum curls around the pancreas creating a c-shaped tube. The jejunum and ileum make up the rest of the small intestine and are found coiled in the centre of the tummy (abdomen). The small intestine is the place where food is digested and absorbed into the bloodstream. Following on from the ileum is the first part of the large intestine, called the caecum. Attached to the caecum is the appendix. The large intestine continues upwards from here and is known as the ascending colon. The next part of the gut is called the transverse colon because it crosses the body. It then becomes the descending colon as it heads downwards. The sigmoid colon is the s-shaped final part of the colon which leads on to the rectum. Stools (faeces) are stored in the rectum and pushed out through the back passage (anus) when you go to the toilet. The anus is a muscular opening that is usually closed unless you are passing stool. The large intestine absorbs water and contains food that has not been digested, such as fibre. The gut (gastrointestinal tract) processes food - from the time it is first eaten until it is either absorbed by the body or passed out as stools (faeces). The process of digestion begins in the mouth. Here your teeth and chemicals made by [...]

Conscious parenting is parenting through connection instead of coercion, through love instead of fear.Conscious Parenting recognizes that securing and maintaining a healthy parent-child bond is our primary work as parents and the key to our children's optimal human development. Our effectiveness as parents is in direct proportion to the strength of the bond we have with our child. Connection Parenting promotes parenting practices that support a strong, healthy parent-child bond.The Latest Neuroscience now confirms attachement theory and the critical importance of the parent child attachment, This above all will influence the appropriate brain development of your child and influence the adult your child will become. The model of parenting most of us grew up with was authoritarian parenting, which is based on fear. Some of us may have grown up with permissive parenting, which is also based on fear. Authoritarian parenting is based on the child's fear of losing the parent's love. Permissive parenting is based on the parent's fear of losing the child's love. Connection parenting is based on love instead of fear. Connection Parenting recognizes that securing and maintaining a healthy parent-child bond is our primary work as parents and the key to our children's optimal human development. Our effectiveness as parents is in direct proportion to the strength of the bond we have with our child. Connection Parenting promotes parenting practices that support a strong, healthy parent-child bond. Both authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting are reactive. Connection parenting is proactive. Rather than focusing on ways to discipline children when their feelings of disconnection result in uncooperative or unacceptable behavior, Connection Parenting focuses on ways to maintain and increase the parent-child bond/connection. Connection parenting is an ideal, a navigation star we can look to for guidance. Whenever we question how to respond to a child we can ask ourselves, will [...]

Intimate relationships are our universities of the heart. In them we will find challenges and blessings, ecstasy and sorrows, and come to realise that our lovers are our mirrors and we are reflected in their eyes. If there is conflict in our relationships it is because we ourselves are in conflict; if there is joy and fulfillment it is because we have found peace within ourselves. ~Ross Haven   When we meet our partners, we make an unconscious contract to help each other resolve emotional injuries of the past , we unconsciously pick or hire the perfect person to trigger this stored painful memory of our past , it is for this exact reason we have come together . Relationships are not a problem to be solved but an adventure to be embraced. Conflict is a gift to be unpacked , to embrace, an opportunity to grow , resolve and mature . Conflict can not be resolved at the level with which it was created. We hire the person in our life who is most compatible to help us resolve what is unresolved from our childhood. Our relationship lives in the space between us and it is sacred . This becomes the playground for our children . When there are only two options , take the third option ! Keep the space between you safe and sacred . Honour the space between you , by visiting the other by crossing the bridge . Cross the bridge with an open mind to learn , with curiosity and compassion , leave behind your hurt and trauma. Crossing the bridge is becoming completely present with your partner, listening without interruption, defensiveness or judgement, holding an unconditional space for your partner to share.   Beyond right thinking and Beyond wrong thinking there is a field , I [...]

Trauma can be conceptualized as stemming from a failure of the natural physiological activation and hormonal secretions to organize an effective response to threat. Rather than producing a successful fight or flight response the organism becomes immobilized. Probably the best animal model for this phenomenon is that of ‘inescapable shock,” in which creatures are tortured without being unable to do anything to affect the outcome of events. The resulting failure to fight or flight, that is, the physical immobilization (the freeze response), becomes a conditioned behavioral response. In his book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Allen Schore has outlined in exquisite detail the psychobiology of early childhood development involving maturation of orbitofrontal and limbic structures based on reciprocal experiences with the caregiver. Dysfunctional associations in this dyadic relationship result in permanent physicochemical and anatomical changes, which have implications for personality development as well as for a wide variety of clinical manifestations. An intimate relationship may exist, with negative child/care giver interaction leading to a state of persisting hypertonicity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems that may profoundly affect the arousal state of the developing child. Sustained hyperarousal in these children may markedly affect behavioral and characterological development. Many traumatized children and adults, confronted with chronically overwhelming emotions, lose their capacity to use emotions as guides for effective action. They often do not recognize what they are feeling and fail to mount an appropriate response. This phenomenon is called alexithymia, an inability to identify the meaning of physical sensations and muscle activation. Failure to recognize what is going on causes them to be out of touch with their needs, and, as a consequence, they are unable to take care of them. This inability to correctly identify sensations, emotions, and physical states often extends itself to having difficulty appreciating [...]

Dr. Emeran Mayer, professor of medicine and executive director of the UCLA Center for Neurobiology of Stress, offers a revolutionary and provocative look at this developing science, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health and listen to the innate wisdom of our bodies.How the Hidden Conversation Within Our Bodies Impacts Our Mood, Our Choices, and Our Overall Health. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with the latest discoveries on the human microbiome, a practical guide in the tradition of The Second Brain, and The Good Gut that conclusively demonstrates the inextricable, biological link between mind and the digestive system. We have all experienced the connection between our mind and our gut—the decision we made because it “felt right”; the butterflies in our stomach before a big meeting; the anxious stomach rumbling we get when we’re stressed out. While the dialogue between the gut and the brain has been recognized by ancient healing traditions, including Ayurvedic and Chinese medicine, Western medicine has by and large failed to appreciate the complexity of how the brain, gut, and more recently, the gut microbiota—the microorganisms that live inside our digestive tract—communicate with one another. Dr. Emeran Mayer suggests that consuming a predominantly plant based diet is key for gut and brain health. The Most important Decision anyone can make today is what to put into your body. Learn how to feed your body with the healthiest foods on the planet that you can prepare easily in your own kitchen. Save Money while saving your health and the planet. - Plant Based Academy "Raw vegan food is not boring salads and uncooked vegetables, raw food is a culinary pursuit, a dedication and endeavor to transforming the highest quality of vegetables using simple techniques to extract exquisite flavors, preserving the essential [...]

The only way to heal our wounds is to expose them, to bring them to the light. When the longing to be free is bigger than the fear of being exposed, we open ourselves to experiences that re-program our deepest beliefs about ourselves. This deep process work helps you to look at emotional incidents from the past in order to liberate the flow of energy held in dysfunctional psychological behavior patterns. We aim to create an atmosphere in which love and awareness surround and support you, allowing you to drop layers of protection which are no longer needed, release suppressed energy and return to your essence, redirecting the energy once used for protection, to engage in rich human experiences -Trauma Recovery Institute  Trauma Recovery Institute offers unparalleled services and treatment approach. Trauma Recovery Institute provides unique individual and group psychotherapy specialising in personality disorders, complex trauma & neglect, sexual trauma, chronic illness and relationship difficulties. We also offer specialised group psychotherapy for psychotherapists and psychotherapy students, People struggling with addictions and substance abuse, sexual abuse survivors, people suffering with cancer or recovering from cancer and their family members, Parents exploring the art of conscious parenting and people looking to function in life at a higher level. Trauma recovery Institute offers a very safe supportive space for deep relational work with highly skilled and experienced psychotherapists accredited with Irish Group Psychotherapy Society (IGPS), which holds the highest accreditation standard in Europe. Trauma Recovery Institute uses a highly structured relationship and body focused psychotherapeutic approach called Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotherapy (DPP). To explore our unique approach come in for an initial consultation by filling out the form below.     Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotheyapy (DPP) Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotherapy (DPP) is a highly structured, once to twice weekly-modified psychodynamic treatment based on the psychoanalytic model [...]

The New Science of Romantic Love: Love is the continual search for a basic, secure connection with someone else. Through this bond, partners in love become emotionally dependent on each other for nurturing, soothing, and protection. We have a wired-in need for emotional contact and responsiveness from significant others. It's a survival response, the driving force of the bond of security a baby seeks with its mother. This observation is at the heart of attachment theory. A great deal of evidence indicates that the need for secure attachment never disappears; it evolves into the adult need for a secure emotional bond with a partner. Think of how a mother lovingly gazes at her baby, just as two lovers stare into each other's eyes. Although our culture has framed dependency as a bad thing, a weakness, it is not. Being attached to someone provides our greatest sense of security and safety. It means depending on a partner to respond when you call, to know that you matter to him or her, that you are cherished, and that he will respond to your emotional needs. The most basic tenet of attachment theory is that isolation—not just physical isolation but emotional isolation—is traumatizing for human beings. The brain actually codes it as danger. The drama of love is all about the human hunger for safe emotional connection, a survival imperative we experience from the cradle to the grave. Once we do feel safely linked with our partner, we can tolerate the hurts they will—inevitably—inflict upon us in the course of daily life.   Hold Me Tight - Broken connections Love demands the reassurance of touch. Most fights are really protests over emotional disconnection. Underneath the distress, partners are desperate to know: Are you there for me? We start out intensely connected to and responsive to our partners. But [...]

“To Exist is to Change, To change is to Mature, To mature is to go on creating one’s self endlessly – Henri Bergson   Darren Maguire M.I.G.P.S is the founding director of Life Change Health Institute, where he currently serves as clinical director and functional health psychologist. He is in private practice specializing in complex trauma and personality disorders with Trauma Recovery Institute. Trauma Recovery Institute offers unparalleled services and treatment approach through unique individual and group psychotherapy, Specialising in long-term relational trauma recovery, sexual trauma recovery and early childhood trauma recovery. The Institute also offers specialized group psychotherapy for psychotherapists and psychotherapy students, People struggling with addictions and substance abuse, sexual abuse survivors and people looking to function in life at a higher level. Trauma recovery Institute offers a very safe supportive space for deep relational work with highly skilled and experienced psychotherapists accredited with Irish Group Psychotherapy Society (IGPS), which holds the highest accreditation standard in Europe. Darren is a Plantrician and Psychobiotic expert specializing in alternative holistic treatment of chronic disease and autoimmune disorders. Darren holds a number of appointments such as dance facilitator at Tantric Dance & Ecstatic Movement School, plant based chef & lecturer at Plant Based Academy, embodied tantra & relationship coach at Embodied Tantra Ireland and conscious parenting educator at Conscious Parenting Ireland. Darren has dedicated the last 15 years studying the impact of traumatic stress and its role in emotional and physical syndromes and diseases. Darren has developed a unique multidiscipline approach to body mind medicine called Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotherapy (DPP). This approach is an integrative treatment approach for working with complex trauma, borderline personality organization and dissociation. This treatment approach attempts to address the root causes of trauma-based presentations and fragmentation, seeking to help the client heal early experiences of abandonment, neglect, trauma, [...]

The 5Rhythms comprise a simple movement practice designed to release the dancer that lives in everybody, no matter what its shape, size, age, limitations and experience. To find your dance is to find yourself, at you’re most fluid and creative level. While the practice itself is the essence of simplicity, it has the power to catalyze deep healing and creative expression. The primary teaching of this work is: If you put the psyche in motion, it will heal itself. To start with, the music for flowing should be slowish, grounded, internal – allowing you to let the dance in and connect with yourself. For staccato, find something with a beat that will let your hips groove and the breath out. For chaos, the top of the wave, something faster, something to shake out to and let it all go. In lyrical the music could be light, joyous, trancey. And ending in stillness…its a moving stillness so choose music that has the spirit of stillness within it – sometimes classical music can be beautiful to dance too. These 5 Rhythms come together to create the Wave, a movement meditation practice. Rather than having steps to follow, each rhythms is a different energy field in which you find your own expression and choreography, thereby stretching your imagination as well as your body. Each rhythm is a teacher, and you can expect to meet different and sometimes unknown aspects of yourself as your dance unfolds and your practice of the rhythms deepens over time.   "I have come to drag you out of yourself and take you in my heart I have come to bring out the beauty you never know you had and lift you like a prayer to the sky." ~Rumi           Flowing,  Earth, Let it in, Receptive, Fluid, [...]

Spiritual bypassing, a term first coined by psychologist John Welwood in 1984, is the use of spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with our painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs. It is much more common than we might think and, in fact, is so pervasive as to go largely unnoticed, except in its more obvious extremes. Part of the reason for this is that we tend not to have very much tolerance, both personally and collectively, for facing, entering, and working through our pain, strongly preferring pain-numbing “solutions,” regardless of how much suffering such “remedies” may catalyze. Because this preference has so deeply and thoroughly infiltrated our culture that it has become all but normalized, spiritual bypassing fits almost seamlessly into our collective habit of turning away from what is painful, as a kind of higher analgesic with seemingly minimal side effects. It is a spiritualized strategy not only for avoiding pain but also for legitimizing such avoidance, in ways ranging from the blatantly obvious to the extremely subtle. Spiritual bypassing is a very persistent shadow of spirituality, manifesting in many ways, often without being acknowledged as such. Aspects of spiritual bypassing include exaggerated detachment, emotional numbing and repression, overemphasis on the positive, anger-phobia, blind or overly tolerant compassion, weak or too porous boundaries, lopsided development (cognitive intelligence often being far ahead of emotional and moral intelligence), debilitating judgment about one’s negativity or shadow elements, devaluation of the personal relative to the spiritual, and delusions of having arrived at a higher level of being. The explosion of interest in spirituality, especially Eastern spirituality, since the mid-1960s has been accompanied by a corresponding interest and immersion in spiritual bypassing—which has, however, not very often been named, let alone viewed, as such. It has been easier to frame spiritual bypassing as [...]

Trauma Recovery Institute offers unparalleled services and treatment approach. Trauma Recovery Institute provides unique individual and group psychotherapy specialising in personality disorders, complex trauma & neglect, sexual trauma, chronic illness and relationship difficulties. We also offer specialised group psychotherapy for psychotherapists and psychotherapy students, People struggling with addictions and substance abuse, sexual abuse survivors, people suffering with cancer or recovering from cancer and their family members, Parents exploring the art of conscious parenting and people looking to function in life at a higher level. Trauma recovery Institute offers a very safe supportive space for deep relational work with highly skilled and experienced psychotherapists accredited with Irish Group Psychotherapy Society (IGPS), which holds the highest accreditation standard in Europe. Trauma Recovery Institute uses a highly structured relationship and body focused psychotherapeutic approach called Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotherapy (DPP). To explore our unique approach come in for an initial consultation by filling out the form below.   Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotheyapy (DPP) Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotherapy (DPP) is a highly structured, once to twice weekly-modified psychodynamic treatment based on the psychoanalytic model of object relations. This approach is also informed by the latest in neuroscience, interpersonal neurobiology and attachment theory. As with traditional psychodynamic psychotherapy relationship takes a central role within the treatment and the exploration of internal relational dyads. Our approach differs in that also central to the treatment is the focus on the transference and countertransference, an awareness of shifting bodily states in the present moment and a focus on the client’s external relationships, emotional life and lifestyle. Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotherapy (DPP) is an integrative treatment approach for working with complex trauma, borderline personality organization and dissociation. This treatment approach attempts to address the root causes of trauma-based presentations and fragmentation, seeking to help the client heal early experiences of abandonment, neglect, trauma, [...]

Humans are social creatures. We live, work, and grow up in social groups. For the vast majority of the last 200,000 years, humans have lived in multigenerational, multifamily hunter-gatherer bands characterized by a rich and continuous relational milieu; the concept of personal space and privacy is relatively new. Child mortality during our history was high; children were highly valued by the band and in these groups of 40–60 members, there were roughly four developmentally more mature potential caregivers for each child under the age of 6. This enriched relational ratio helped the group protect, nurture, educate, and enrich the lives of each developing child. These living groups were the source of safety and sustenance for individuals in a dangerous world. Survival depended upon the ability to communicate, bond, and share with and receive from other members of the band. Then, as today, the presence of familiar people projecting the social–emotional cues of acceptance, understanding, compassion, and empathy calmed the stress response of the individual. We feel safest in the presence of familiar and nurturing members of our family and community. These powerful regulating effects of healthy relational interac- tions on the individual—mediated by various key neural networks in the brain—are at the core of relationally based protective mechanisms that help us survive and thrive following trauma and loss. Individuals who have few positive relational interactions—a child without a healthy family/clan—during or after trauma have a much more dif cult time decreasing the trauma-induced activation of the stress response systems. The result is an increased probability of developing trauma-related prob- lems. Further, children in a relationally impoverished setting will likely be unable to recover or heal from these effects without a change in the relational milieu. Positive relational interactions regulate the brain’s stress response systems and help create positive and healing neuroendo- [...]

Recent research into the physiological and neurological impact of touch-based therapies has created a surge of interest in the body as an appropriate resource for psychological well-being. The body is now recognized as inextricably linked to our thoughts, emotions, and unconscious selves. Fogel’s extensive research as a developmental psychologist and his clinical practice of a modality developed by Marion Rosen, Rosen Method Bodywork, led to his interest and subsequent research into ‘Embodied Self-Awareness.’ Embodied Self-Awareness (ESA) is a core concept of the Rosen Method somatic approach to whole-person integration which employs original touch and dialogue techniques to contact the unconscious through the body. The specific qualities that identify Embodied Self-Awareness make it an important tool of value to those working with clients suffering from trauma or prolonged stress. Alan fogel has published neuroscientific research showing conclusively that Embodied Self-Awareness offers an avenue for self healing and reparation that sustains as well as repairs the parts of us damaged or closed down through trauma, stress, difficult experiences and lack of self awareness. Moreover the range of benefits associated with ESA make it attractive to those who wish to explore human potential without having a ‘problem’ or ‘pain’ to prompt their curiosity. Such clients value the resource of ESA for enhancing and expanding their emotional and physical well- being rather than looking to be ‘ fixed’. Embodied Self- Awareness also offers benefits that are in some way comparable to mindfulness for the body, acting as a form of preventative healthcare for those who believe that prevention is preferable to cure. Both clients and practitioners experience a quality of ESA different to that tolerated in everyday life. This is because the level of relaxation and awareness in the practitioner needs to be sufficiently authentic to invite the autonomic response in the client. Both are ‘touched’ by [...]

  "If in childhood a certain quality of expression such as anger cannot be felt or experienced, then we cannot relate to this expression in a patient." - David Wallin This is a right-brain-to-right-brain connection—what Allan Schore calls "implicit nonverbal affect-laden communication [that] directly represents the attachment dynamic . . . nonverbal primary process clinical intuition." At the same time, the therapist must maintain a left-brain-to-left-brain connection with the client in order to co-create a coherent narrative about the client's unarticulated, even formerly undefined, emotional experience. Therapists need "binocular vision," says Wallin, to keep "one eye on the patient, and one eye on ourselves." In fact, the therapist may need something like "triocular" vision as he tries to be in the client's mind, in his own mind, and in between the two minds, establishing and maintaining between himself and the client mutually resonant affective, cognitive, and physical states of being. The therapist isn't just an observer of the client's emotional journey or even a disinterested guide, but a fellow traveler, resonating with the client's sadness, anger, and anxiety. Rather than recoiling from the intensity of the client's experience, the therapist is providing—through voice tone, eye contact, expression, posture, as well as words—the stability, the ballast, so to speak, to keep the client feeling not only understood, but safely held and supported. Obviously this kind of demanding work, more than some other modalities, requires therapists to have their own inner act together. "We are the tools of our trade, the primary creative instrument with which we do the work," says California clinical psychologist David Wallin, author of Attachment in Psychotherapy. The insecurely attached infant never got the maternal neural imprinting that would help her learn to regulate her own nervous system, thus making her susceptible to uncontrollable storms of inconvenient and [...]

The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study is one of the largest investigations ever conducted to assess associations between childhood maltreatment and later-life health and well-being. The study is a collaboration between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Kaiser Permanente's Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego. More than 17,000 Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) members undergoing a comprehensive physical examination chose to provide detailed information about their childhood experience of abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction. To date, more than 50 scientific articles have been published and more than100 conference and workshop presentations have been made. The ACE Study findings suggest that certain experiences are major risk factors for the leading causes of illness and death as well as poor quality of life in the United States. Neglect, physical abuse, custodial interference and sexual abuse are types of child maltreatment that can lead to poor physical and mental health well into adulthood. It is critical to understand how some of the worst health and social problems in our nation can arise as a consequence of adverse childhood experiences. Realizing these connections is likely to improve efforts towards prevention and recovery. If you are suffering with an illness or addiction, finding relationships challenging, attracting the wrong people into your life, continously falling in love with an emotionally unavailable partners, struggling with porn, sex & love addictions, or struggling to find joy in life. There is a very high possibility that you have suffered adverse childhood experiences regardless of how covert they may seem and when left unresolved can manifest in a host of life challenges with Money, Sex, relationships, mental Health, emotional health and physical health. It is important to note that working through early childhood adverse experiences is not about blaming parents, and does not have to mean talking for long [...]

Sex is one of the most powerful forces in the human condition. It can drive individuals to the pinnacle of emotional and physical ecstasy or, conversely, spiral other people into depths of despair and anguish. The power of sexual energy and expression exists because our sexuality is tied, or connected, to the core of who we are; it is our essence, our life force, our creativity, and our passion. A sense of self means an inner knowing, clarity of our true nature or authenticity. In healthy sexual expression, there is desire, connection, and a sense of well-being. The act of expressing one’s self sexually results in a positive, life-enhancing experience; it is an expression of love, an exchange of mutual pleasuring and respect that leads to an intimate connection. The sexual compulsive person may think this is what he or she is experiencing. However, the opposite is true. Sex for the addict is about intensity, danger, power, and control. It is about emotional numbing, conquering, and getting high. Sex becomes a commodity to be manipulated, a means to a self-defeating end. Sex and love become a game to play, avoidance, a push/pull, or a hunger so powerful that the addict will risk everything to reach that sexual high. No risk or consequence has stopped the addict: disease, financial ruin, lost relationships, legal injunctions, career setbacks, or self-respect. The addict is caught in an intoxicating dance that has induced a delusional reality. This is the cycle of sex addiction, and it is deadly—not always in physical form, but most assuredly in emotional experience. This “soul” death is temporarily allayed when the addict is on the “hunt” for sex or, at the other extreme, is avoiding sex at all costs. At either end of the spectrum, the addict feels in control and powerful. This [...]

Trauma can be conceptualized as stemming from a failure of the natural physiological activation and hormonal secretions to organize an effective response to threat. Rather than producing a successful fight or flight response the organism becomes immobilized. Probably the best animal model for this phenomenon is that of ‘inescapable shock,” in which creatures are tortured without being unable to do anything to affect the outcome of events. The resulting failure to fight or flight, that is, the physical immobilization (the freeze response), becomes a conditioned behavioral response. In his book, Affect Regulation and the Origin of the Self, Allen Schore has outlined in exquisite detail the psychobiology of early childhood development involving maturation of orbitofrontal and limbic structures based on reciprocal experiences with the caregiver. Dysfunctional associations in this dyadic relationship result in permanent physicochemical and anatomical changes, which have implications for personality development as well as for a wide variety of clinical manifestations. An intimate relationship may exist, with negative child/care giver interaction leading to a state of persisting hypertonicity of the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems that may profoundly affect the arousal state of the developing child. Sustained hyperarousal in these children may markedly affect behavioral and characterological development. Many traumatized children and adults, confronted with chronically overwhelming emotions, lose their capacity to use emotions as guides for effective action. They often do not recognize what they are feeling and fail to mount an appropriate response. This phenomenon is called alexithymia, an inability to identify the meaning of physical sensations and muscle activation. Failure to recognize what is going on causes them to be out of touch with their needs, and, as a consequence, they are unable to take care of them. This inability to correctly identify sensations, emotions, and physical states often extends itself to having difficulty appreciating [...]

Psychodynamic psychotherapy is a product of the evolution and modernization of psychoanalysis, which originated with the work of Dr. Sigmund Freud in the late nineteenth century. It is one of many types of therapy used by mental health practitioners today. Generally speaking, therapy is both a way of understanding human emotions and of helping people with their relationships and their personal problems. In psychodynamic psychotherapy, specific problems are viewed in the context of the whole person. The mature or rational self that functions more or less successfully in the real world is only a part of the total person. The more immature, irrational, or unconscious self functions silently in the background to produce various symptoms and maladaptive behaviors that often intrude into the person's social life, personal relationships, school or work activities, and physical health. Because of the importance of addressing both the conscious and unconscious parts of the self, a compassionate quest for self- knowledge is seen as the most important key to changing thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, and to living a fuller, more satisfying life. Psychodynamic psychotherapy is based on the insight that our personalities are the result of passing through and solving relationship issues at many developmental stages. At any stage, the way we have reacted to events in our lives may have caused us to get stuck at a certain level of insight or problem solving. While we go ahead and mature satisfactorily, in many ways we may carry within us the parts that didn't have a chance to develop. We can have a mature exterior and be functioning more or less successfully, while internally we may feel vulnerable, confused, depressed, angry, afraid, and childlike. We may not feel able to bounce back from rejection, get past blocks, allow our real feelings to surface, or stay [...]

You love animals, right? Well, did you know that the best way to save animals is by going vegan? By cutting meat and dairy products from your diet, you'll be saving the lives of more than 100 animals a year. Animals value their lives as much as you value yours. So do your best not to eat them. Make the switch to a compassionate, healthy lifestyle today by signing up for our Raw Food Mastery course at Plant Based Academy. After 30 days of living meat- and dairy-free, you'll feel so great that you just might turn 30 days into a lifetime. Watch the videos below and sign up for one of our upcoming course if you would like to eat better, feel better, and stop supporting cruelty to chickens, pigs, cows, and other animals raised for food.       "Raw vegan food is not boring salads and uncooked vegetables, raw food is a culinary pursuit, a dedication and endeavor to transforming the highest quality of vegetables using simple techniques to extract exquisite flavors, preserving the essential nutrients and enzymes and complementing them with an array of mineral rich nuts, seeds, seaweeds, sprouts and fruits. Raw vegan food is the pursuit of perfect food, art for the eyes, a taste of naturalness, unparalleled nourishment for the body and great for the planet too" - Plant Based Academy       Making a commitment to healthy eating is a great start towards a healthier life for you, for animals and our planet. Watch the educational movie below which outlines the practises used in meat and dairy production. We believe that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, use for our entertainment or abuse in any other way. Yet many people have never considered the impact that their clothes, food, cosmetics or entertainment [...]

Stress Researchers have demonstrated that the brain responds to psychological stress in the same way that it reacts to physical threats: by activating the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and “fight or flight” responses via the sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Robert Sapolsky is one of the world's leading neuroscientists.In studying wild baboon populations, Sapolsky examined how prolonged stress can cause physical and mental afflictions. His lab was among the first to document that stress can damage the neurons of the hippocampus. Sapolsky has shown, in both human and baboon societies, that low social status is a major contributor to stress and stress-related illness. He boils down the contemporary human's relationship with stress as follows: "We are not getting our ulcers being chased by Saber-tooth tigers, we're inventing our social stressors—and if some baboons are good at dealing with this, we should be able to as well. Insofar as we're smart enough to have invented this stuff and stupid enough to fall for it, we have the potential to be wise enough to keep these stressors in perspective." Sapolsky's study of stress in non-human primates has offered fascinating insight into how human beings relate to this universal pressure. A stressor is anything in the outside world that knocks you out of homeostatic balance. So to reestablish that balance, you secrete adrenaline and other hormones. You mobilize energy and you deliver it where it’s needed, you shut off the inessentials like the sex drive and digestion, you enhance immune defenses, and you think more clearly. You’re facing a short-term physical crisis, and the stress response is what you do with your body. For 99 percent of the species on this planet, stress is three minutes of screaming terror in the savannah, after which either it’s over with or you’re over with. That’s all you [...]

Personality disorder, as a term, may sound negative and judgmental and it is important to have a clear understanding with our patients of the meaning of the term. We explain that there is a group of disorders in the DSM-V, six of them to be specific, that are thought to be long-term and enduring, in contrast to episodic, personality styles that at their core are defined by difficulties in the person’s subjective, internal sense of identity, and chronic difficulties in his or her interpersonal relationships. It is noteworthy that the DSM-V description of personality disorders includes this emphasis on sense of self and relations with others more than the previous editions of the DSM did.   These different styles have many overlapping features and most people have a mixture of those styles, but most importantly, that when people personify and live out any of those styles with a certain consistency, inflexibility, and in such a way that causes a certain level of distress in one’s emotional and interpersonal life, they meet criteria for a personality disorder. For patients with BPD, in reviewing the DSM-V symptoms that the particular patient in question meets, we note that there are different sub-types of BPD patients, each with different sets of primary or most-problematic features. Some may be more impulsive and overtly inappropriately angry, whereas others may be more “under the radar,” characterized more prominently by the sense of emptiness, fears of abandonment, suicidal feelings, and more subtle shifts in their experience of others, from idealizing others to more quietly feeling devaluing or contemptuous of them. So with each patient we explain our understanding of his or her BPD symptoms. We also find it helpful to give an overview of BPD as a disorder comprising difficulties in four areas: 1) emotions tend to be intense and [...]

Trauma Recovery Institute specializes in the treatment of trauma such as complex trauma, sexual trauma and relational trauma including personality disorders. Trauma Recovery Institute is the psychotherapy department of Life Change Health Institute which is a world unique holistic treament centre known for its focus on the connection between mind and body health working with people through Nutrition, Lifestyle, sexuality, parenting and psychotherapy. Trauma Recovery Institute promotes and offers long term relational bod focused psychotherapy as opposed to other ineffective treatment strategies offering quick-fix solutions to complex issues. Trauma Recovery Institute runs a wide range of specialised groups in Dublin 2. Trauma Recovery Institute uses a very unique highly structured psychotherapeutic approach called Dynamic Psychosocialsomatic Psychotherapy (DPP) which addresses effectively not only the symptomology of complex trauma and addiction but also the root causes of these very common and destruictive life challenges. “The greatest damage done by neglect, trauma or emotional loss is not the immediate pain they inflict but the long-term distortions they induce in the way a developing child will continue to interpret the world and her situation in it. All too often these ill-conditioned implicit beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives. We create meanings from our unconscious interpretation of early events, and then we forge our present experiences from the meaning we’ve created. Unwittingly, we write the story of our future from narratives based on the past.” ― Gabor Maté                                                     Addiction is a Response to Childhood Suffering By gabor mate I completely appreciate the 12 steps, and I talk about them in my book where I have an appendix on them. I think where they fail or where they miss something is when [...]

This Radical Aliveness workshop is a unique blend of shamanic breathwork, Core energetics, Tantra and Group Psychotherapy. This will be a day of deep transformative exploration and healing within a very safe and supportive space held by very experienced therapists. There will be a maximum of 12 participants (Male and Female). Prebooking is essential. No prior breathwork experience required. What is Shamanic Breathwork? It is a powerful tool of transformation using the BREATH to induce a trance-like state. Because we are not used to breathing so deeply and consistently for such a long period of time, the oxygen floods the body and the brain allowing the ego mind to step aside. Under the influence of breath, the psyche is able to bring up anything from the subconscious that is ready to present itself to you and be worked through. Typically there may be something that is needing to be released, realized, redefined, etc. In this way, it is possible to shift patterns of thought and behavior that lie deep in the unconscious.

Plant Based Academy is a raw and vegan culinary school. Training, educating and empowering students on plant based culinary art, vegan nutritional science and conscious living. Plant Based Academy is the only classically structured raw food course in Europe and world unique in its content, Certification and delivery. Plant Based Academy offers a number of comprehensive and single module raw food programs both on site at our raw kitchen and online. Plant Based Academy offers the most advanced Raw Food Training available anywhere in the world. Our Raw Food Programs are suitable for beginners and advanced raw foodists. Curriculum includes advanced classes in cacao making, raw cosmetics, herbal tonics and tinctures, medicinal mushrooms, raw lifestyle, travelling on raw, advanced fermentation and much more. On all of our Raw Food Mastery Programs students learn about real organic raw foods & raw food nutrition and how to prepare delicious, healthy raw organic meals just like a professonal chef. The course is delivered by a professional chef with over 20 years of professional chef experience. Students learn how to think and work like a chef using skills and techniques that will transform how you think about raw foods, giving you the skills to not only be healthly but to thrive with delicious raw foods, fermented foods, herbal preapartions and how to prepare and use raw organic skin care products to enhance your health and well being. Students Learn how to create delicious refined clean raw food without the use of cashew nuts and agave. All Modules are delivered within a framework of nutritional science, students will learn how to extract maximum nutrients from raw food and learn techniques to help the absorption of nutrients as very often many long term vegans, and raw foodists are deficient in many nutrients such as iodine, zinc, [...]

In this article we will explore Object Relations Theory of Personality Disorders introduced by theorist and researcher Otto Kernberg, Dr. Kernberg is an object relations theorist, a psychoanalyst and professor of psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College. He is most widely known for his psychoanalytic theories on borderline personality organization and narcissistic pathology. He is founder of transference focused psychotherapy He is one of the more influential voices today on the subject of severe personality disorders. In order to understand his work, it is helpful to understand the object relations theory upon which it is based. According to object relations theory, beginning during infancy, people develop "internal representations" of themselves and of other people. Representations of the self ultimately give rise to what is popularly known as the "self-concept." Similar representations form as a means of organizing knowledge of other people. Though these representations are of people, the psychodynamic tradition is to refer to them as "objects" thereby highlighting the distinction between two people; the person of the self who is the observer, and the person being observed, the object. Thus, a person's internal representations of self-and-other (self-and-object) and their representation of how self-and-other get along are collectively known as internal object relations. These object relations are seen as the building blocks organizing people's internal life, including their motivations and behavior. The information stored within internal object relations includes the emotional tone of those relations; i.e., the emotional tone of what it is like for the self-and-other to interact with each other. Though many emotions may occur within the context of a given relationship, there is generally a dominant tone, or "affect" which reflects the way each relationship usually feels. As infants interact with their caregivers, they begin to form internal object relations to represent these interactions. This experience is stored along [...]

Embodied Tantra Ireland, empowering you to thrive in love, sexuality and intimacy. Embodied Tantra is living with an awareness in the moment through the body in an intimate connection with self, others and all that is. This allows you to have more choice, and to access more of what you are capable of, including pleasure, love, Intimacy and healthy attachments. Embodied Tantra groups and workshops are very powerful , safe, empowering, informative, psychoeducational, psychotherapeutic and liberating. Embodied Tantra is suitable for people at all levels including complete beginners of Tantra practise. Embodied Tantra is a dive deeper, a tantra workshop with difference, where not only will you learn tools for living intimately but get an opportunity to work through any blocks you have to intimacy and is perfect for anybody looking to create a healthy relationship with strong boundaries, communication, intimacy, connection, love, happiness and passionate love making.   "Tantra is not technique but prayer. Is not head oriented but a relaxation into the heart. Please remember it. Many books have been written onTantra, they all talk about technique but the real Tantra has nothing to do with technique. The real Tantra cannot be written about, the real Tantra has to be imbibed(absorbed). How to imbibe real Tantra? You will have to transform your whole approach." Osho   Embodied Tantra Events  Deepen your relationships, communication and intimacy during a transformational introduction workshop of psychoeducation, intimacy & Boundaries exercises and gentle exploration of attachmnet style and patterns. Both workshops are suitable for both singles and couples. In bothj our workshops you will get the following: 1)Develop an understanding of the Tantric framework. 2)Discover Tantric principles for creating extraordinary relationships. 3)Learn how to break old relationship patterns and shift the cycles that do not serve you. 4)Discover how Tantric principles can help you attract your perfect [...]

Plant Based Academy is a raw and vegan culinary school. Training, educating and empowering students on plant based culinary art, vegan nutritional science and conscious living. Plant Based Academy is the only classically structured raw food course in Europe and world unique in its content, Certification and delivery. Plant Based Academy offers a number of comprehensive and single module raw food programs both on site at our raw kitchen and online.  Plant Based Academy offers the most advanced Raw Food Training available anywhere in the world. Our Raw Food Programs are suitable for beginners and advanced raw foodists. Curriculum includes advanced classes in cacao making, raw cosmetics, herbal tonics and tinctures, medicinal mushrooms, raw lifestyle, travelling on raw, advanced fermentation and much more. On all of our Raw Food Mastery Programs students learn about real organic raw foods & raw food nutrition and how to prepare delicious, healthy raw organic meals just like a professonal chef. The course is delivered by a professional chef with over 20 years of professional chef experience. Students learn how to think and work like a chef using skills and techniques that will transform how you think about raw foods, giving you the skills to not only be healthly but to thrive with delicious raw foods, fermented foods, herbal preapartions and how to prepare and use raw organic skin care products to enhance your health and well being. Students Learn how to create delicious refined clean raw food without the use of cashew nuts and agave. All Modules are delivered within a framework of nutritional science, students will learn how to extract maximum nutrients from raw food and learn techniques to help the absorption of nutrients as very often many long term vegans, and raw foodists are deficient in many nutrients such as iodine, zinc, [...]