Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model: Regulate, Relate, Reason

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hi i'm john richardson-love director of

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mental health and lead trauma and

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resilience educator here at child savers

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i want to share with you a way to think

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about our brains and understand our

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brains particularly when they're going

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through times of stress and sometimes

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trauma too this comes from bruce perry

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who's a physician who has written a

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number of different books most recently

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with oprah winfrey the book called what

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happened to you he also created

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something called the neurosequential

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model of therapeutics that sounds pretty

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fancy but in the nmt model he created

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this idea that helped us understand how

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our brain functions brain states and if

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we don't understand people's brain state

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it's hard to understand how we can

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interact with them and help them be

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successful the first and most basic

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fundamental brain state that people have

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is their need to real to regulate and

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our regulating need is regulating our

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survival response when someone's not

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well regulated in this basic fundamental

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brain state they're going to be in their

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survival response that might be their

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fight their flight their freeze that

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kind of of basic animalistic response to

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the world around them because it's

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focused on survival and if i don't feel

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safe if i'm not well regulated then i'm

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going to have a hard time being

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successful and doing anything else once

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we help people be well regulated we need

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to help them feel related to feel

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connected with the world with other

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individuals so that they don't feel

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alone in the world because when

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somebody's not related someone is not

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connected to other people oftentimes bad

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things happen and then the third brain

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state and the highest level of brain

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state is reasoning and that reason is

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our ability to reason to learn to

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process to think to plan to

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operationalize to regulate and

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self-regulate all those kind of skills

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that we really need in that reasoning

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state and that reasoning brain state is

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where we want people to be 90 if not 100

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of their lives but sometimes they're not

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we understand these brain states we can

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understand how we can support them

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because when someone is in this need for

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regulation then i'm going to approach

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that individual with helping them

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regulate which might be about play it

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might be about movement it might be

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about music it might be about giving

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them food and rest it might be about

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just giving them time to to be peaceful

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a peaceful quiet space and we need to

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understand that because if someone's in

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that need for regulating then i'm not

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going to be able to help them and

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connect with them in a relationship if

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they are well regulated then i can work

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on that reasoning brain state and when

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we're working in the reasoning brain say

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that's when i can use my body language

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my voice tone my empathy my compassion

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um the words that i have and my

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relationship in general to help them

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understand that they're not alone in the

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world to help them feel connected and

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it's only after they feel safe and they

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feel connected that we can be in that

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highest level of brain state that

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learning brain state that

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reasoning brain state so that we can

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help people to do all those things that

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they need to do once they're there

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they're golden and we want to help keep

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them there and maintain their presence

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there understanding people's brain

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states is essential to this

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interpersonal communication to helping

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anyone whether adult or child to be

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successful in the world and to have good

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positive interventions with them and

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remember behavior communicates the brain

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state i hope this helps you understand

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the people around you that you serve

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that you work with particularly the

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children in your lives as we help them

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walk through those critical moments

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and we have the gift to be in being able

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to spend time with them and help them be

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successful thanks for listening

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you