Thread by @suzannezeedyk

A THREAD on Emotional Containment.
I've just spotted ths post on @jebrittan2 FB page for Boarding School Survivors. I've realised most ppl may not recognise the CONTAINMENT happening in this moment. Mum Diana is helping her child cope with his anxiety by singing together.

2. CONTAINMENT is a physiological process. Whn another person helps you w/ yr worries, it has a biological impact. You feel safer. It isn't as scary. Your body doesn't slip so quickly into overwhelm. After overwhelm comes dissociation. It's too uncomfortable to 'stay' in yr body.

3. The concept of Containment was introduced by psychologists Bion & Winnicott. It is really valuable in understanding what children (people!) need when they are struggling. The responsiveness of another person helps make big feelings more 'tolerable'. c-f-g.co.uk/blog/10-the-co…

4. So in this description, singing together makes the mounting anxiety SHARED. The child isn't carrying those feelings alone.
In the photo, the cuddling will generate the hormone oxytocin (the Teddy Bear Hormone), which promotes a sense of safety & trust.

5. The applicatn to Boarding School Survivors is: Many children who headed off to school (a growng feeling of dread in thr tummy) will not hv had cuddles or singing to contain thr feelings. They were left to do that on thr own.
Maybe parents made it worse w/ their own anxiety.

6. Take those examples I gave yesterday from @axrenton's book Stiff Upper Lip. The child who had to have his "fingers levered one by one from the headrest in the car"? NO containment or comfort. Instead: Dread, conflict, betrayal. Likely: dissociation.

https://twitter.com/suzannezeedyk/status/1484615908781928452?s=20

7. Boarding School Survivors hv lots of opportunity for their body to learn to dissociate. We discussd that today at @nickduffell training session on BSS. They'll come to do it automatically, unbidden, when faced w/ threat. We hv been watchng this lots at PM Questions recntly...

8. We talk about the concept of Containment in the #DaringVentures Programme offered by @TIGERS_UK. The Managing Director @paulinescott222 has ensured that all 100 of their staff understand this concept. Here's one of our slides, featuring the amygdala in the brain.

9. Here's what happens when the amygdala gets hijacked, and you can't contain your big feelings of threat, and no-one is there to help. You go into Fight or Flight Mode. If things get really bad, you go into Freeze Mode. You are on yr way to dissociation.

10. One of t most informative videos I know on Containment is by @TheBabyExpert . She explains it through t analogy of a box of cornflakes. I know that mum @13Jstar found this explanation of Containment to be massively helpful to her as a parent.

11. The other video I love depicting Containment is by @CalmFamilyorg . Here's Alexandra Harris SHOWING us what an overflowing container of emotions looks like. Literally: Its a mess. 😃

12. So what are t implications for Boarding School Survivors, given I've been talking abt them quite a lot recently? Well, if you didn't get reassurance & help with big emotions as a child...you very probably ended up w a stress system that struggles w/ some emotions as an adult.

13. Were (are?) institutional spaces & staff teams good at containing emotions? @axrenton tells us that CS Lewis described school as "very like living permanently in a large railway station". Renton's book tells countless stories of violence, bullying & terror within those walls.

14. And what are the implications for the citizens of a country governed by a group of people who have amongst them a large number of Boarding School Survivors - who struggle emotionally, easily dissociate, carry around a high sense of threat within their central nervous system?

15/end. It takes #FierceCuriosity for us to ask these questions of ourselves & our society. It takes #UnimaginableCourage for Boarding School Survivors to begin to untangle a lifetime of emotional confusion. I admire both. And I hope these threads help.
Thank you all.

@nickduffell @PiersCross1 @SimonPartridge @jebrittan2 @paulinescott222 @pauldixtweets @janehmul @KeeganSmith_Law @Lorrain05617625 @yvonnestanley21 @fionalarkin13 @ShivieSmith @JANEOROURKE @Mr_PaintPots @katesilverton @bainsfordht @DirectorVRU @Prev_Justice @Dr_Pam_Jarvis