Four Stages of Brain Development
United States Department of Homeland Security
Key Points
- The brain develops in a specific sequence: the survival brain, emotion brain, attachment brain, and cognition brain.
- Children exposed to chronic trauma experience overdeveloped survival brains.
- Trauma survivors process their reality through the filters of fight, flight, freeze, fear and anger, insecure attachments, negative beliefs, and impulsive decision making.
- Healing from trauma requires stabilization of all these systems.
