As I continue to learn, little by little, about collaborative problem solving and trauma-informed care - thanks to great UMFS trainers and well-educated counselors in my life - I frequently encounter the metaphor "upstairs brain/ downstairs brain." It's a model used to explain why reasoning, logical consequences, and such discipline/teaching frameworks don't work very well for kids who are constantly dealing with stress and trauma. The downstairs brain contains the "basic" survival and life functions, while the upstairs brain contains the "higher" reasoning and linguistic capabilities. If you consistently face stress or trauma, especially in your early years of life, then you kinda get stuck in a state of stress response: fight, flight, freeze, so forth. The "upstairs" functions aren't very accessible to you when you're running for cover and screaming downstairs. And even when you can make it upstairs, you may not be as familiar with the floor-plan as someone who hasn't had to deal with the same types of toxic, chronic stress.
From what I've heard, this metaphor has been very successful. Kids and adults both grasp it, and its been especially helpful to counselors trying to persuade parents and care-takers to focus on calming strategies and trust-building before teaching "lessons" and such.
But...of course I have a but, as always, a but...
Isn't this another iteration of the mind/body, rational/animal, logic/emotion, male/female hierarchy that we've believed for so long, in the west at least? Besides, aren't reason and language and other advanced skills just a small, relatively recent additional room in the house of the brain? Or maybe more like various pieces of furniture and decoration throughout the house? I don't think "upstairs brain" gets its own floor, with a similar amount of square footage as "downstairs brain." If we have to describe our brain as split between reason and everything else, I like Haidt's metaphor of the elephant with a person riding it, a person who evolved to serve the elephant, not the other way around.
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