Blurred vision. The feeling of being trapped. A heavy chest. The senses are remembering and so is the body. This is post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
When someone with PTSD is experiencing a panic attack or trigger, all of these fight or flight responses can occur, according to Brittany Snyder, licensed mental health counselor and trauma specialist.
Snyder gained experience in working with survivors that have trauma through her graduate school program and has worked in the profession for 10 years since graduating.
Although Snyder currently holds a full-time position as a staff counselor at the Indiana University Purdue University of Indianapolis (IUPUI), last year she opened her own private practice, Aura Counseling and Wellness.
Snyder meets virtually with clients from areas all over Indiana. Even though it’s much different than meeting with clients in person, she’s still able to tell so much from a person’s screen.
“You can still do very good work virtually,” Snyder says. “You can still really read emotion over a screen. Backgrounds tell us a lot, facial expressions, tense shoulders, noticing if they’re jittery, eye contact with the camera and changes in voice.”
Although there are a lot of different trauma practices in the profession, Snyder uses body emotion awareness. Body emotion awareness is the act of getting a survivor to connect their emotions to what they’re feeling in their body.
Emotions can show up in the body in many different ways, and sometimes certain areas of the body are associated with certain feelings, says Snyder. Most commonly, shame can be felt in the stomach or gut. Chronic stress can be found in the stomach, stress and anxiety can be felt in the chest and sadness can be felt in the eyes, nose or overall facial area.
“PTSD is when somebody’s basic trauma responses are activated after experiencing something threatening or perceived threat, but they get stuck in their survival response,” says Snyder.
The “survival responses” are most commonly known as fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. Someone with PTSD gets stuck in one of those survival responses – their brain doesn’t go to recovery mode the way it needs to, says Snyder.
People with PTSD find that their somatic nervous system is activated a lot, and the work Snyder does involves trying to get their nervous system to be parasympathetic, or the proper pathway to recovery mode.
According to the Queensland Institute, the somatic nervous system, otherwise known as the voluntary nervous system, contains afferent and sensory neurons that inform the central nervous system about the five senses and voluntary movements of the body. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the parasympathetic nervous system is a “network of nerves that relax your body after periods of stress or danger.”
Although PTSD might commonly be associated with veterans and fireworks, Snyder hopes the culture has a shift around the idea of trauma.
“It takes a collective paradigm shift,” says Snyder. “It’s important to challenge these wrong biases. We just need to talk about it. That’s the key.”
Although a person experiencing PTSD might feel like something is wrong with them, it’s their brains and bodies adapting to the threat, says Snyder. She likes to normalize adaptation with her clients.
“You’re not broken… This is what the adaptation would be. But we can change it, with help.”
Brittany Snyder, Owner of Aura Counseling and Wellness
Although clients may see Snyder and exercise a talk-based therapy, she noted three main techniques that are used for clients experiencing PTSD: Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Brain Spotting and Somatic Experiencing.
Even though talk therapy, EMDR, Brain Spotting and Somatic Experiencing are all therapy techniques for PTSD, there’s another technique that might be more appealing to a canine-loving client.
Although society calls them a “man’s best friend” because of their affection and personalities, they should be given the title due to their similar brain activity to their owners.
When humans are experiencing a panic attack or a stimulus that reminds them of a traumatic event, a “neuro superhighway” forms that leads to the back part of their brain, says Lydia Wood, CEO of the Freedom K9 Project.
Every time that the person experiences a panic attack or trigger, the electricity in their brain travels down the neuro superhighway and becomes entrenched with activity, and all that electricity travels down to the back part of their brain – a part of their brain they don’t have access to during a panic attack. The same neuro superhighway forms in dogs, but instead of a panic attack, it’s called barrier aggression.
When a dog furiously barks at another dog while restrained on a leash, that is an example of barrier aggression.
Dogs’ mechanisms and “survival techniques” are the same as humans, says Lydia. Their brain also creates a neuro superhighway and the information travels down to the back part of their brain.
“It’s not a matter of disobedience,” says Lydia. “When we’re working with dogs, we utilize this and step in before the neurotransmitters become overwhelming. We use motivation to rewire the neuro-pathways so when the dog sees another dog the electricity is being pushed elsewhere. Then we can take the electricity out and let it just flow where we want it to.”
In the past Lydia found herself visiting a church in Atlanta that presented about survivors of human trafficking. She had a strange feeling about the message of the presentation after listening to it.
She felt that there had to be an organization that had service dogs solely for survivors with PTSD, but with intense internet search, she had no luck.
According to Lydia, the average cost of paying for or fundraising for a service dog for a PTSD survivor can range anywhere from $40,000 to $60,000.
Lydia has always classified herself as a “dog person” and immediately got certified as a dog trainer when she was 18.
After finding out that there were no organizations solely for PTSD survivors, she “fell down the rabbithole,” she says. She completed an internship program with veterans that allowed her to take dogs with her to restaurants, on vacation and simply in her home.
Five years later, Lydia is the CEO of the Freedom K9 Project and she runs her own dog training business, Naptown K9.
Because the Freedom K9 Project is a non-profit business, they are constantly restructuring their program and working to help survivors all around the world. Lydia is currently working with dog trainers in different states to expand the project through the nation.
The training process for these service dogs generally takes from one to two years, says Lydia. The organization gets information from the survivor and the survivor’s therapist to try and teach the dog to see early signs of panic.
Although signs of panic vary for each survivor, some include freezing, changes in breath, cuticle picking, hyperventilating and blinking quickly.
“It’s kind of a game at first,” says Lydia. “We have to be creative with it. Often, the dog is so tuned in that they start recognizing the psychological changes that happen before, like your heart beat starts changing or labored breathing.”
The Freedom K9 Project is actively training Genesis and Sam to be service dogs for PTSD survivors.
Generally, Lydia has reached out to rescue organizations to find out when they get a new litter of puppies in, which is where Sam came from. Sam is a mix between a pitbull, border collie and golden retriever, and his black and white spots mirror a cow, says Lydia.
“He’s like a fun little cocktail,” says Lydia.
Genesis, a black Labrador, was donated to the Freedom K9 project from a purpose breeder in Montana. Although Lydia can’t remember the specific family tree, Genesis could be the seventh generation in her canine family to be service dog bred.
Sources: Queensland Institute, Cleveland Clinic
