The I-brainmap™ or integrated brain map was developed by psychologist Rita McInnes. It is a model for
understanding how the brain gets Stuck on Stress (SoS brain) through overwhelming or traumatic
events. It explains how overwhelming events are stored in the body for years and when triggered, can
drop you into the felt experience as if it’s happening right now. What makes (grey) matters worse is
that you often remain unaware that the current experience is tied to something that may have
happened decades ago, because the parts of the brain that orient you to time and place have
disconnected. In short your brain doesn’t have a map or a compass during these events of
re-experiencing.
The I-brainmap™ is a bottom-up-inside-out model. It starts at the bottom
by
firstly
describing the
common ways brain overwhelm is experienced, from the inside. Next it explains, using relevant
brain-science, how and why the brain functions in this way. The I-brainmap™ then outlines how to
change the (SoS) brain using mindfulness-based techniques that you can use when you experience lower
brain activation.
Our big brain is exquisitely useful in the classroom or managing complex maths equations, but it doesn’t know much about emotional or lower brain (grey) matters. The i-brainmap™ maps the experience of the brain-body-mind dynamic of distress and the process of integration. It assumes the brain can change itself. The challenge is showing the brain how to do that and what inhibits it. Often the greatest challenge is our intellect and cognitive function – our big brain.
The I-brainmap explains all this to the brain and how to work from bottom up at the time the distress is happening. Until we engage the whole brain we are working from fragmented maps and stories and the brain is unable to make the required connections for integration to occur.
The I-brainmap™ was developed over more than seven years in clinical practice.
In the beginning, as I explained to people what I knew about how the brain behaves and why
it gets stuck on stress or overwhelming experiences of the past, I was preparing clients for
therapy. But I found as I explained what was happening in the brain people reported change
before we began “treatment.”
I-brainmap, freeing your brain for happiness,
by Rita McInnes
Meet your brain as you’ve never encountered it before.
In this lively and imaginative book, psychologist Rita McInnes invites your curious brain to join her and other characters in dialogue to uncover the experience of brain change in the everyday.
i-brainmap takes you on a journey of discovery into practical brain change, starting with a field map of experience on how the brain gets Stuck on Stress (SoS brain) and what you can do to free your brain.
If you’ve ever tried to kick a habit, felt stuck in the same old round-and-round conversation in your head, watched on in horror as you threw a tantrum in the boss’s office or at the traffic lights, or experienced any other kind of ‘stuck’, I-brainmap can show you the simple secrets of practical brain change.
I-brainmap combines insights, discovered from intimately tracking brain integration in hundreds of clients, with brain science. The techniques used in I-brainmap are grounded in the principles of mindfulness to create a practical, bottom-up approach to brain change.
What people are saying:
“This book gave me a new way if seeing anxiety with strategies I could use immediately. Highly recommend it for anyone with anxiety.” – Kylie
“This is the missing piece of the puzzle.” Joe
The book is also available at Paradise Books Daylesford, Stoneman’s Bookroom Castlemaine, and Reader’s Companion Armidale.
