Trauma is an all-quadrant affair that seriously impacts the objective organism and its neural system. As van der Kolk notes, thalamus (sensory integration) and dorsolateral PFC (timekeeping) go offline, so flashbacks are experienced in an endless now, without time perspective, as if a person is rigidly stuck in the past. There can also be total dissociation & numbing via parasympathetic shutdown. In most cases amygdala (threat detector) gets affected as well as other neurobiological systems such as anterior cingulate cortex (filtering what’s relevant) and orbital PFC (impulse inhibition), etc. Van der Kolk argues for an integrative approach—fine-tuned to an individual—that enacts body awareness practices to attune to your body; mindfulness meditation & neurofeedback to affect amygdala; etc. These are only few of the remedies proven effective by actual research. Other methods may exist which could also prove effective. I propose a possibility that Integral Awareness Meditation (IAM) could be used as a system that is simultaneously enacting a body-integration process, a mindful-awareness process, and a kind of native “feedback” process that uses shifts in perception (e.g. in the visual field and other fields) to effect change; it’s also an intersubjective-resonance therapy. IAM discloses a spiritually healing space in which all phenomena arise & dissipate moment by moment as felt-witnessed by attuned primordial awareness. We will explore this meditation process experientially.
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