Episode 78 of the Becoming Centered Podcast is the second part of an arc focusing on self-injurious behaviors among children and youth living at a residential treatment center.  The first part of this episode continues to look at relatively light head-banging, but specifically among kids with severe and profound autism.  As part of that, there’s a brief description of how to conduct a Functional Behavioral Analysis as a technique for responding to kids who are largely non-verbal.  This episode then moves on to look at intense head-banging among emotionally disturbed kids and kids with psychosis. 

Intense head-banging is inherently upsetting to witness and intervening is often times an adrenalated event.  That almost guarantees that this self-injurious behavior exposes staff to traumatic stress.  Time is devoted to talking about what staff can do both before and after such exposure to minimize the lasting negative effects on their own nervous system.