Q&A: What neurological changes occur as a result of a relationship with a therapist?

Nov 19, 2018

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It's question time again and today we are addressing 2 questions from our listeners:

 

1. Bob Shebib - What specific neurological and biological changes occur for the client as a result of building a relationship with the therapist? Oxytocin? Dopamine? Reduction of stress hormones?
2. Hillary - when someone experiences trauma in early development there is a "shift" in the nervous system. What does the shift look like in adulthood and is it changeable with secure attachment

Links:

• Richard Hill - Nov 2017 NPT – Prepared, Ready and Able: How we biologically prepare ourselves for future experience.

  https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.com/the-neuropsychotherapist-volume-5-issue-11/

   

  McGowan, P. O., Sasaki, A., D'Alessio, A. C., Dymov, S., Labonté, B., Szyf, M., Turecki, G., … Meaney, M. J. (2009). Epigenetic regulation of the glucocorticoid receptor in human brain associates with childhood abuse. Nature neuroscience, 12(3), 342-8.

  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19234457

   

  Brent, L. J., Chang, S. W., Gariépy, J. F., & Platt, M. L. (2013). The neuroethology of friendship. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1316(1), 1-17.

  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4045505/

• "The Neurodevelopmental Impact of Stress, Adversity, and Trauma: Implications for Social Work" - by Janet Shapiro and Jeffrey Applegate in the September and October issues of The Neuropsychotherapist.

1. https://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/the-neurodevelopmental-impact-of-stress-adversity-and-trauma-part-1/
2. https://www.neuropsychotherapist.com/the-neurodevelopmental-impact-of-stress-adversity-and-trauma-part-2/

• Epigenetic changes - animal studies demonstrate that pre-natal and post-natal stress have a negative impact on the HPA-axis - both increasing the activation of the HPA axis and reducing the HPA-axis to regulate https://www.thescienceofpsychotherapy.com/epigenetics-the-dogma-defying-discovery-that-genes-learn-from-experience/

 

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5831952/ Preclinical and Clinical Evidence of DNA Methylation Changes in Response to Trauma and Chronic Stress
• Genome-wide Epigenetic Regulation by Early-Life Trauma https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4991944/ (Childhood adversity is associated with epigenetic alterations in the promoters of several genes in hippocampal neurons. - this study suggests that early-life adversity induces sustained modifications in DNA methylation across the genome that associate with alterations in transcriptional patterns that may be relevant to help understand suicide risk among individuals who were abused during childhood.)
• Bruce Ecker and The Science Of Memory Reconsolidation

 

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