In this video I share Dr Dan Siegel’s hand model of the brain. The hand model explains what exactly happens when you suddenly lose control or, as Dan Siegel puts it, flip your lid.

🔵 CHAPTERS

0:00 Explanation of the hand model of the brain
1:35 What happens when you flip your lid?
2:29 How to get your frontal cortex back on line

🔵 If you put your thumb in the middle of your palm and then curl your fingers over the top, you’ll have a hand model of the brain. Your face is the front of the knuckles, the back of your head is the back of your hand and your wrist represents your spinal cord.If you lift up your fingers and raise your thumb you arrive at the first part of the nervous system called the reptilian brain. If you put your thumb over the top, this is the limbic area, most notably the amygdala, which is involved in your emotional and behavioural responses, especially when it comes to survival, reproduction, caring for young and the fight, flight or freeze response.

If curl your fingers back over the top and we have your frontal cortex which allows you to think critically, maintain emotional balance, create representations of time, have empathy and to tune into another person. It’s also responsible for problem solving, moral judgement and rationality. Dan Siegel calls this your upstairs brain and it’s your master controller. So an easy way to look at this is the lower part or downstairs brain is where you carry your feelings, and the upstairs brain is the thinking part of your brain

Have you ever flipped your lid? This is when your prefrontal region goes off line because your limbic system or downstairs brain is firing off. The downstairs brain will fire and fire and fire and eventually the fire will be too much and the your pre-frontal cortex (the upstairs brain) will go off line. All sorts of factors can contribute to the upstairs brain going off line, hunger, lack of sleep or someone touching an emotional button. Traumatic experiences can sensitise limbic reactivity, so that even minor stresses can cause you to flip you lid and the upstairs brain going off line. At that point you’ve lost it, you’re inflexible and reactive, you’ve lost emotional balance, reasoning skills, empathy, moral awareness and insight. You also can act in ways which are dangerous and terrifying to others, you temporarily lose your mind.

How do you gain control after you have flipped your lid? You have to find a way to get your frontal cortex back on line and you can do this by redirecting your attention. If you work out you know that you need to coordinate and balance the different muscle groups to keep yourself fit. In a similar manner you can flex your neuronal circuits by focussing your attention in a special way. I’m talking about mindfulness mediation, this can get your cortex back on line and reinforces positive neuronal connections so it harder for you to flip your lid in the future.

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Teresa Lewis is the founder and Director of Lewis Psychology and a Senior Accredited psychotherapist with the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (MBACP Snr. Accred). Qualified in 1995, Teresa has been providing counselling and psychotherapy treatment for nearly 30 years. Teresa holds a masters degree in counselling and psychotherapy and is a qualified EMDR Practitioner having completed training accredited with EMDR Europe. Teresa is also a qualified adult educator and an accredited Mindfulness teacher As a recognised expert in her field Teresa is frequently asked to conduct editorial reviews and endorse counselling and psychotherapy books for international publishing houses.

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