Episode 5: COVID-19 and trauma with Dr. Madeleine De Little
It was inevitable that a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic would impact our health and affect our emotional wellbeing. In this episode, Dr. Madeleine De Little, a trauma expert, shares about the impact of COVID-19 on our mental health.
As Dr. De Little shares, trauma with a capital T is one big event, however, there are small traumas that happen to us on a daily basis—not realizing how they impact our wellbeing. With COVID-19, we’re afraid of getting sick and the way we interact with others has completely changed. In this episode, we learn about COVID-19’s impact on our overall health and wellbeing and how we gain a new sense of normalcy.
Key Takeaways
What trauma is exactly
Different forms of trauma
Her take on the idea of being uncomfortable with the unknown
Ways trauma can impact people
Why it pays to listen to your body rather than your head
Professional work she does with children
How COVID-19 has impacted individuals, families, and communities
How the pandemic has affected how people relate to one another
The impact of COVID-19 on children
How to regain some sense of balance and normalcy post-pandemic
Her thoughts on what the new normal looks like
Dr. Madeleine De Little was a therapist for children and adults who have experienced trauma. She is also an author of a book for therapists entitled “Where Words Can’t Reach: Neuroscience and the Satir Model in the Sand Tray.” She created a new way of working with children and adults which combines the neuroscience of safety and therapeutic attunement and attachment with the novel metaphors that emerge from implicit memory.
She facilitated the transformations of the default defences through the use of the emergence of novel metaphors in the form of figurines in the sand tray. The results of this work are powerful and lasting because it is accessing non-verbal images of the right brain and body. She is the founder of Neuroscience and Satir in the Sand Tray Certificate Program which she taught in Canada, China, Singapore, Thailand, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Madeleine’s roles included being a mother, a partner to a wonderful man, an academic, an author, a trainer and a gardener. Madeleine’s legacy on this earth was to help as many children and adults who had been traumatized in some way and to train therapists to use the science behind imaginative and playful ways to heal (NSST). With gratitude for Dr. Madeleine De Little.