Dr. Don Wood explains a metaphor distinguishing the brain as physical hardware and the mind as software. He describes trauma as software glitches that loop and cause distress, and outlines a reset-style program he developed to stop those loops and bring relief.
Chapters
So when I talk about the brain and the mind, I'm talking about two different things. The brain is the physical brain, the hardware. It's like the computer. So if I have a computer and I drop the computer, the computer is going to get damaged. So the same way if I hit my brain on the ground or something hits it, I can damage my brain physically. So because of the physical damage that's going to affect the way it operates, when I talk about the mind, I'm talking about the software. The software are the programs that are running inside the computer. And those programs will develop glitches and error messages. And so just like any software, what do you do if you have a glitch or an error message? You reset it. What do you do when your computer stalls? You know, you remember seeing the little pinwheel spinning in the computer. What do you do with that? Well, you don't get rid of the computer. You basically shut it off and reset it. And that's really what I developed, is a program to shut down the way the trauma is looping, affecting the mind, and then it brings relief.