The neuroscience of the traumatized mind
A traumatic experience can modify our brain. Trauma separates both brain hemispheres. The traumatized person may experience intense emotions but no thoughts or, conversely, thoughts without emotions. The left hemisphere deals with logical meaning and translates perceptual and emotional states into words. The right hemisphere deals with imagery so for a coherent narrative to exist, both hemispheres must work together. If this does not happen, the person’s description will be confused, experiencing overwhelming feelings and emotions, or it will be superficially logical with a lack of emotional energy.
When the traumatic memory is stored in the unconscious, which prevents it from being resolved due to difficult access, the intention to process the event is blocked. Thus, the traumatized skier thinks and feels only the trauma suffered instead of coherently reorganizing his past.
According to brain scan studies, when a person remembers the traumatic event, the left frontal cortex shuts down, particularly Broca’s area which corresponds to speech, and areas of the right hemisphere corresponding to emotional activation light up, especially around the amygdala, considered as the emotional detector of the brain.
Types of skiing traumatic events:
- Short, single event as a rock falling dangerously close.
- Recurrent and long-lasting event like being run over by an avalanche.
- Unfortunate event or event caused by others as a collision with a tree or being rammed by someone.
- Collective event like a derailment of a chairlift with several people on it.
Some of the traumatic events we may suffer while skiing can be classified as follows:
- Events occurring directly to us such as a collision with another person or an object, a fatal fall, being hit by an avalanche, or falling from a lift.
- Events occurring as a witness observing a serious or fatal injury accident.
- Events of which we have knowledge of a serious or fatal accident of a skier friend, acquaintance, or other skiers.
Coping strategies for post-traumatic stress
From our personal side:
- Avoiding invasive thoughts about the event.
- Re-facing the place of the event or situation to regain a sense of control.
- Analyzing how the traumatizing event is perceived and imagined in our memory in order to use various tools (dialogue with the pain, visualizing the return to skiing, body scanning, desensitization).
- Working on the trauma from the emotional point of view in order to face fears and recover our skiing prior to the event.
- Focusing and releasing feelings and retained emotions.
From the instructor’s and coach’s task:
- Changing location, using soft voice, distracting with something different.
- Showing acceptance even if the skier is acting strangely.
- Letting him/her express what is feeling.
- Listening quietly.
- Showing empathy.
- Conveying a sense of control and security of the situation/context.
- Developing positive counter-images.
- Expressing a sense of accomplishment.
Conclusions
- Post-traumatic stress arises after experiencing an accident with or without injury, or observing one which leaves psychological, affective, and perceptual sequelae.
- By experiencing a serious accident, we may have seen our life put at risk.
- Stress arises from experiencing negative images, sounds, physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions.
- A fixation with the trauma occurs, especially if the accident happened unexpectedly, and is manifested by intense distress and motor and mental disturbances.
- When we relive the traumatic experience in order to analyze and process it, our frontal lobe is usually blocked, preventing us from thinking and talking about what happened.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder generally includes four recurrent symptoms: re-experiencing the traumatic event through memory, flashbacks, or nightmares as well as intense physical and mental reactions related to the event; avoidance and numbing by avoiding anything reminiscent of the traumatic situation; constant alertness; and negative thoughts with changing moods.
- Post-traumatic stress-inducing events in skiing may include surviving an avalanche, being seriously injured in a collision with something, someone or in a sudden, uncontrolled fall down a steep slope, or suffering a lift derailment with physical consequences.
