What happens when you 'lose your mind'? - How understanding the structure of your brain helps in conflict situations

Understanding the structure of your brain helps you and your partner to understand what happens when you are in a state of high emotional expression, e.g. when angry or feeling under attack. We briefly discuss the three main regions of the brain: the brainstem, the limbic area and the cortex by using Daniel Siegel's highly visual hand model of the brain. When we feel threatened we react - that's the way our brain works. Being reactive and mobilising for fight, flight or freeze responses means we are in survival mode. In this mode we are reactive rather than receptive to our partner. In order to be open to others we need to be able to employ the thinking part of our brain, the cortex which enables us to reflect, think and connect with others. We discuss how to be able to switch from a highly reactive survival response to having the capacity again for social engagement: listening, understanding why we responded the way we did and being able to generate understanding for the other person.