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| life after trauma: Healing from Trauma Jasmin Lee Cori, 2009-02-23 Psychotherapist and trauma survivor Jasmin Lee Cori offers new insight into trauma-related difficulties (including PTSD, depression, substance abuse), provides self-care tools, candor about therapy and medications, and addresses spiritual issues. While there are many different approaches to healing trauma, few offer a wide range of perspectives and options. With innovative insight into trauma-related difficulties, Jasmin Lee Cori helps you: Understand trauma and its devastating impacts; Identify symptoms of trauma (dissociation, numbing, etc.) and common mental health problems that stem from trauma; Manage traumatic reactions and memories; Create a more balanced life that supports your recovery; Choose appropriate interventions (therapies, self-help groups, medications and alternatives); Recognize how far you've come in your healing and what you need to keep growing. Complete with exercises, healing stories, points to remember, and resources, this is a perfect companion for anyone seeking to reclaim their life from the devastating impacts of trauma. |
| life after trauma: Finding Life Beyond Trauma Victoria M. Follette, Jacqueline Pistorello, 2010-02 The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced. - Zen saying While the pain and suffering of trauma can seem unbearable, every day we see examples of people who have found a way not only to survive their experiences but also to really live their life to the fullest. This book is about finding your way back to your valued life. In Finding Life Beyond Trauma we hope to help you to move toward living a vital, rich, and awake life. |
| life after trauma: Life After Trauma Dena Rosenbloom, Mary Beth Williams, 2015-04-07 Trauma can turn your world upside down--afterward, nothing may look safe or familiar. This compassionate workbook has already helped tens of thousands of trauma survivors start rebuilding their lives. Full of practical strategies for coping and self-care, the book guides you toward reclaiming a solid sense of safety, self-worth, trust, and control, as well as the capacity to be close to others. The focus is on finding the way forward in your life today, no matter what has happened in the past. The updated second edition has a new section on managing emotions through mindfulness and an appendix on easing the stress of health care visits. Dozens of step-by-step questionnaires and exercises are included; you can download and print additional copies of these tools for repeated use. |
| life after trauma: Reclaiming Life after Trauma Daniel Mintie, Julie K. Staples, 2018-06-12 Integrative tools for healing the traumatized mind and body • Combines cutting-edge Western cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and ancient Eastern wisdom to heal Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) • Teaches Kundalini yoga practices specifically designed to reset parts of the brain and body affected by PTSD • Presents a fast-acting, holistic, evidence-based, and drug-free program for eliminating PTSD symptoms and restoring health, vitality, and joy Trauma, the Greek word for “wound,” is the most common form of suffering in the world today. An inescapable part of living, the bad things that happen to us always leave aftereffects in both body and mind. While many people experience these aftereffects and move on, millions of others develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)--a painful, chronic, and debilitating barrier to happiness. Reclaiming Life after Trauma addresses both the physical and psychological expressions of PTSD, presenting an integrative, fast-acting, evidence-based, and drug-free path to recovery. Authors Daniel Mintie, LCSW, and Julie K. Staples, Ph.D., begin with an overview of PTSD and the ways in which it changes our bodies and minds. They present research findings on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and yoga, giving the reader insights into how these powerful modalities can counteract and reverse the physical and mental aftereffects of trauma. The authors provide a suite of simple, powerful, and easily learned tools readers can put to immediate use to reset their traumatized bodies and minds. On the physical side, they teach four Kundalini yoga techniques that address the hypervigilance, flashbacks, and insomnia characteristic of PTSD. On the psychological side, they present 25 powerful CBT tools that target the self-defeating beliefs, negative emotions, and self-sabotaging behaviors that accompany the disorder. Drawing on many years of clinical work and their experience administering the successful Integrative Trauma Recovery Program, the authors help readers understand PTSD as a mind-body disorder from which we can use our own minds and bodies to recover. Woven throughout the book are inspiring real-life accounts of PTSD recoveries showing how men and women of all ages have used these tools to reclaim their vitality, physical health, peace, and joy. |
| life after trauma: After Trauma Ali W. Rothrock, 2022 We all have the ability to redefine ourselves, to feel hope about what lies ahead, and to choose our own way forward. After Trauma is a story of adversity, grit, defiance, choice, and hope. Each chapter offers a lesson to help readers overcome their own trauma, including concrete and actionable advice on how to re-story a life after adversity. |
| life after trauma: Your Life After Trauma Michele Rosenthal, 2015-03-17 Restoring your sense of self after trauma. “In 1981 as a thirteen-year-old child I was given a routine antibiotic for a routine infection and suffered anything but a routine reaction. An undiscovered allergy to the medication turned me into a full-body burn victim almost overnight. By the time I was released from the hospital I had lost 100% of my epidermis. Even more importantly, I had completely lost myself.” Now a professional coach who specializes in helping trauma victims rebuild their lives, Michele Rosenthal struggled with the effects of medically-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for over 25 years before reaching a full recovery. Today, she is 100% free of symptoms of PTSD. In this book, she applies her personal experience and professional wisdom to offer readers an invaluable roadmap to overcoming their own trauma, in particular the loss of sense of self that often accompanies it. If you suffer from the effects of trauma or PTSD, whether it was caused by a single-incident like a car accident, or from chronic childhood abuse, domestic violence, illness, or war trauma, you are well aware of how disconnected you feel from the person you most deeply wish to be. Trauma interrupts—even hijacks—your identity. To cope, you may rely on mechanisms to keep your emotions, triggers, and responses in check, but these very habits can often prevent the true restoration of safety, stability, and inner connection. How can you rediscover your sense of self so that you honor who you were before the trauma (even if that trauma began at birth), understand who you are at this very moment, and determine who you want to be going forward? Like a therapist in your back pocket, Your Life After Trauma guides you in finding answers to these tough questions. Expertly written by a helping professional who keenly understands the post-trauma identity crisis that is so common among trauma and PTSD sufferers, it is a simple, practical, hands-on recovery workbook. Filled with self-assessment questionnaires, exercises, tips, and tools—not to mention insightful personal and professional vignettes—it takes readers through a step-by-step process of healing the identity crisis, from understanding some of the basic brain science behind trauma and why you feel the way you do, to recognizing who you were (or had the potential to be) before the trauma, who you are today, after the trauma, and who you want to become. With this book by your side, it is possible to regain a sense of calm, confidence, and control on your road to recovery. |
| life after trauma: Thriving After Trauma Shari Botwin, 2019-11-04 Thriving After Trauma offers insight into overcoming trauma related to an array of circumstances including physical and sexual abuse, war-related injury, loss due to accident or illness, and natural disasters. Tips, tools, and personal stories shed light on how to let go of the shame, guilt, anger and despair after experiencing trauma. |
| life after trauma: After the Tears Jane Middelton-Moz, Lorie Dwinell, 2010-08-12 Adult children of alcoholics have learned how to survive, but often have difficulty living their lives. The trauma and grief of childhood losses affect every aspect of the life of an adult child of an alcoholic (ACoA). Now the authors of the bestselling After the Tears offer further insight into the origin and cost of childhood pain for those who grew up in alcoholic families. In this revised and expanded edition, Jane Middelton-Moz and Lorie Dwinell combine their years of experience in working with ACoAs, tackling issues such as intimacy, sibling relationships, codependency, breaking the alcoholic pattern, building a relationship with the inner child, forgiveness, and opening a window to spirituality. |
| life after trauma: Trauma and Recovery Judith Lewis Herman, 2015-07-07 In this groundbreaking book, a leading clinical psychiatrist redefines how we think about and treat victims of trauma. A stunning achievement that remains a classic for our generation. (Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., author of The Body Keeps the Score). Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war. Hailed by the New York Times as one of the most important psychiatry works to be published since Freud, Trauma and Recovery is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand how we heal and are healed. |
| life after trauma: The PTSD Workbook Mary Beth Williams, Soili Poijula, 2013-04-01 Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an extremely debilitating anxiety condition that can occur after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal. Although many know that this mental health issue affects veterans of war, many may not know that it also affects victims of domestic violence, sexual violence, natural disasters, crime, car accidents and accidents in the workplace. No matter the cause of their illness, people with PTSD will often relive their traumatic experience in the form of flashbacks, memories, nightmares, and frightening thoughts. This is especially true when they are exposed to events or objects that remind them of their trauma. Left untreated, PTSD can lead to emotional numbness, insomnia, addiction, anxiety, depression, and even suicide. In The PTSD Workbook, Second Edition, psychologists and trauma experts Mary Beth Williams and Soili Poijula outline techniques and interventions used by PTSD experts from around the world to offer trauma survivors the most effective tools available to conquer their most distressing trauma-related symptoms, whether they are a veteran, a rape survivor, or a crime victim. Based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), the book is extremely accessible and easy-to-use, offering evidence-based therapy at a low cost. This new edition features chapters focusing on veterans with PTSD, the link between cortisol and adrenaline and its role in PTSD and overall mental health, and the mind-body component of PTSD. This book is designed to arm PTSD survivors with the emotional resilience they need to get their lives back together after a traumatic event. |
| life after trauma: You’re Not Broken Sarah Woodhouse, 2021-03-30 The hidden trauma that holds back so many people. In one way or another, we all carry trauma. It can manifest as anxiety, shame, low self-esteem, over-eating, under-eating, addiction, depression, confusion, people-pleasing, under-earning, low mood, negative thinking, social anxiety, anger, brain fog and more. Traumas, big or 'little', leave us trapped in cycles of dysfunctional behaviours, negative thoughts and difficult feelings. Yet many people are unaware they're stuck in old reactions and patterns that stem from their past traumas. Many of us are wary of the word and push it away instead of moving towards it and learning how to break free. Dr Sarah Woodhouse is a Research Psychologist who specialises in trauma and is passionate about helping people face this word and their past. In You're Not Broken she teaches you what a trauma is (it's probably not what you think), and how to recognise when, why and how your past is holding you back. She gently explains the pitfalls of ignoring awkward, upsetting episodes and how true freedom comes from looking back at your past with honesty. Then, sharing the latest research-based techniques and her own personal experience, she guides you towards breaking the trauma loop, reawakening your true self and reclaiming your future. |
| life after trauma: Getting Through It Alexandra Chauran, 2020-12-08 Heal, Rebuild, and Stay Strong, Even on the Worst Days, with this Inspiring Book's Guidance Filled with exercises and meditations designed around the Kübler-Ross five stages of grief, this profound book shows you how to work through the worst that life can throw at you. Alexandra Chauran presents personal stories and proven techniques for healing and handling trauma. With her help, you can rebuild your life in the wake of illness, divorce, death, and other trauma-inducing circumstances. Getting Through It not only supports you in staying positive in the face of difficult times, but also comforts you when positivity is not enough. Alexandra has spent years developing the best strategies for getting through incredible hardships. Discover traditional and alternative methods of healing, how to recover your emotional and physical strength, and ways to find your new normal. This uplifting book gives you the hope and courage to navigate life's greatest challenges. |
| life after trauma: The Body Keeps the Score Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., 2014-09-25 #1 New York Times bestseller “Essential reading for anyone interested in understanding and treating traumatic stress and the scope of its impact on society.” —Alexander McFarlane, Director of the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives. |
| life after trauma: Reconstructing Meaning After Trauma Elizabeth M. Altmaier, 2016-12-25 Reconstructing Meaning After Trauma: Theory, Research, and Practice informs actual therapeutic work with clients who present with traumas or other life disruptions by providing clinicians with information on the construction of meaning. It includes material on diverse mechanisms of clinical change and positive-promoting processes. The book covers identifiable treatments and specific lines of research in assisting clients in developing new meaning, such as posttraumatic growth (after sexual assault, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer, destructive natural phenomena, such as hurricanes, and refugee experiences), and finding benefit (in the context of loss—loss of health, or loss of a loved one). - Addresses a specific treatment or line of research - Includes extended case vignettes at the beginning of each chapter - Describes the associated theoretical background for each method - Summarizes the research supporting each mechanism - Concludes with a discussion of future directions for treatment, research, and theory |
| life after trauma: Transformation After Trauma Yabome Gilpin-Jackson, 2020 This book expands on the idea of transformation after trauma through the concept of Resonance. Resonance is presented as the key to posttraumatic growth and transformation and provides practical guidance for accessing it. Resonance is defined as a moment of awakening, through personal stories, that creates an opportunity for transformational learning. This book presents an integrative, holistic and narrative development understanding to individual, organizational and social systems change and transformation after trauma. It proposes a Trauma-Informed Narrative Development Pathway for consideration at all levels of systems and institutions who support people post-trauma. Resonance is critical, timely, and relevant now more than ever. As we continue to work for a world of social justice where preventable sufferings are no longer normalized, a posttraumatic transformation lens allows us to take a developmental perspective to supporting ourselves and those among us touched by trauma to achieve transformational outcomes. In a world with ongoing suffering, the ability to return to core identity memories and access greater connection and love for humanity unleashes the desire to take actions to create a better world for all. |
| life after trauma: Posttraumatic Growth Richard G. Tedeschi, Jane Shakespeare-Finch, Kanako Taku, Lawrence G. Calhoun, 2018 Posttraumatic Growth reworks and overhauls the seminal 2006 Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth. It provides a wide range of answers to questions concerning knowledge of posttraumatic growth (PTG) theory, its synthesis and contrast with other theories and models, and its applications in diverse settings. The book starts with an overview of the history, components, and outcomes of PTG. Next, chapters review quantitative, qualitative, and cross-cultural research on PTG, including in relation to cognitive function, identity formation, cross-national and gender differences, and similarities and differences between adults and children. The final section shows readers how to facilitate optimal outcomes with PTG at the level of the individual, the group, the community, and society. |
| life after trauma: Reclaiming Pleasure Holly Richmond, 2021-10 Go beyond surviving to reclaim your sexual self. If you have experienced sexual abuse, assault, harassment, or rape, you may feel disconnected from your sexual self--even if you've overcome the initial trauma of your experience. You are a survivor; but surviving is just the beginning. This book explores what comes next. Written by a psychologist and grounded in cutting-edge research, Reclaiming Pleasure picks up where other sexual trauma recovery books leave off. It offers practical tools to help you cultivate a sense of safety, security and trust in order to reclaim the vitality, pleasure and great sex you deserve. The book will also serve as your compass on a journey toward the rediscovery of desire, letting you explore what you want from others and for yourself. This groundbreaking book will help you: Understand the lasting mental, physical, sexual, and relational impacts of sexual trauma Move beyond feelings of shame Reclaim pleasure and reignite passion in your life Surviving is merely the first step in the process of recovery from sexual trauma. With this sex-positive and empowering guide, you are invited to take your recovery to the next level. You'll feel emboldened by the desire for better sex, healthier relationships, and a more connected, pleasurable life. |
| life after trauma: Meditations for Healing Trauma Louanne Davis, 2017-01-02 Post-traumatic stress isn’t your fault. Many people suffer traumatic events, which can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and debilitating symptoms. This evidence-based book delivers easy-to-use mindfulness skills that can be used as needed to alleviate symptoms and promote healing. Some people heal naturally after they experience a traumatic event, but some trauma lasts and can develop into PTSD, with symptoms like depression, anxiety, panic, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping, or losing interest in life. You may find yourself on the sidelines, disengaged from your own life, with little sense of who you are and how to relate to others. The body, heart, and mind are all profoundly affected by trauma; in this way it can live on, causing a serious disconnect and a state of imbalance in which you’re always in survival mode. How do you move on? This book is designed to target the most common symptoms of post-traumatic stress and PTSD, providing mindfulness-based practices to help relieve your symptoms and increase self-compassion. Offering meditations for reconnection with your body, heart, mind, and life, this guide presents a unique, evidence-based way to heal the disconnects and help you re-engage. Instead of getting stuck reliving your trauma or worrying about it happening again, these mindful meditations will ground you in the present moment and enable you to better cope with unpleasant thoughts and feelings as they arise—and then let them go. With Meditations for Healing Trauma, you’ll explore your experience of post-traumatic stress and learn how the healing power of mindfulness can free you from suffering and bring back connection and balance to your life every day. This book will help you cultivate a wise mind and heart for regaining peace and well-being in the present moment—anytime, anyplace. |
| life after trauma: Healing Together Suzanne B. Phillips, Dianne Kane, 2009-01-02 When one or both partners in a relationship experience a major traumatic event, the strain can really put the relationship in jeopardy; Healing Together offers couples simple techniques for communicating, regaining trust, and supporting one another through the process of trauma recovery. |
| life after trauma: Lost Voice Debbie Major, 2017-12-06 For those who suffer with no identity voice purpose or say. Discover your voice today. By reading Lost Voice you will: stop the pain and abuse in your life, learn how to get to a safe place, live a positive self-image, define describe and differentiate your voice and discover love for you. Standing tall one voice at a time! |
| life after trauma: A Brave Life: Survival, Resilience, Faith and Hope After Childhood Trauma Janyne McConnaughey, 2020-09 Readers of Janyne's two previous books in the series will recognize her whimsical weaving of informative narration, creative storytelling, and raw vulnerability. This third book will help educators and church leaders to better understand those who, as children, were victims of the unspeakable and who live every day with the effects of trauma. |
| life after trauma: Invisible Wounds of War Terri L. Tanielian, 2008 Since October 2001, approximately 1.64 million U.S. troops have been deployed for Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) in Afghanistan and Iraq. Early evidence suggests that the psychological toll of these deployments -- many involving prolonged exposure to combat-related stress over multiple rotations -- may be disproportionately high compared with the physical injuries of combat. In the face of mounting public concern over post-deployment health care issues confronting OEF/OIF veterans, several task forces, independent review groups, and a Presidential Commission have been convened to examine the care of the war wounded and make recommendations. Concerns have been most recently centered on two combat-related injuries in particular: post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. With the increasing incidence of suicide and suicide attempts among returning veterans, concern about depression is also on the rise. The study discussed in this monograph focuses on post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and traumatic brain injury, not only because of current high-level policy interest but also because, unlike the physical wounds of war, these conditions are often invisible to the eye, remaining invisible to other servicemembers, family members, and society in general. All three conditions affect mood, thoughts, and behavior; yet these wounds often go unrecognized and unacknowledged. The effect of traumatic brain injury is still poorly understood, leaving a large gap in knowledge related to how extensive the problem is or how to address it. RAND conducted a comprehensive study of the post-deployment health-related needs associated with these three conditions among OEF/OIF veterans, the health care system in place to meet those needs, gaps in the care system, and the costs associated with these conditions and with providing quality health care to all those in need. This monograph presents the results of our study, which should be of interest to mental health treatment providers; health policymakers, particularly those charged with caring for our nation's veterans; and U.S. service men and women, their families, and the concerned public. All the research products from this study are available at http://veterans.rand.org. Data collection for this study began in April 2007and concluded in January 2008. Specific activities included a critical reviewof the extant literature on the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression, and traumatic brain injury and their short- and long-term consequences; a population-based survey of service members and veterans who served in Afghanistan or Iraq to assess health status and symptoms, as well asutilization of and barriers to care; a review of existing programs to treat service members and veterans with the three conditions; focus groups withmilitary service members and their spouses; and the development of a microsimulation model to forecast the economic costs of these conditions overtime. Among our recommendations is that effective treatments documented in the scientific literature -- evidence-based care -- are available for PTSD and major depression. Delivery of such care to all veterans with PTSD or majordepression would pay for itself within two years, or even save money, by improving productivity and reducing medical and mortality costs. Such care may also be a cost-effective way to retain a ready and healthy military force for the future. However, to ensure that this care is delivered requires system-level changes across the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the U.S. health care system. |
| life after trauma: Different after You Michele Neff Hernandez, 2022-02-15 A Life-Affirming Process That Provides Transformative Support No one who lives and loves will be immune from grief and trauma. While this suffering is universal, living through a devastating event often leaves people feeling alone and even alienated. Michele Neff Hernandez experienced this when her thirty-nine-year-old husband died after being hit by a car while riding his bicycle. Her most transformative realization was that grief changes us. There is no going back or bucking up. Life is now different. In Different after You, Michele presents easy-to-digest steps based on her work with thousands of widowed people and her innovative grief support programs. Through this process, anyone who has experienced life-altering trauma will discover a map for grieving what they’ve lost, identifying what they’ve gained, and learning to embrace the person they’ve become. |
| life after trauma: Moving On After Trauma Michael J. Scott, 2014-02-04 The effects of extreme trauma can continue to be emotionally devastating. Moving On After Trauma offers hope, providing survivors, family members and friends with a roadmap for managing emotional, relationship, physical and legal obstacles to recovery. Dr Scott details examples of the strategies used by twenty characters who have recovered and the survivor (with or without the help of a family member, friend or counsellor) is encouraged to identify with one or more of them and follow in their footsteps. |
| life after trauma: Healing Traum Peter A. Levine, 2010-10-19 Researchers have shown that survivors of accidents, disaster, and childhood trauma often endure lifelong symptoms ranging from anxiety and depression to unexplained physical pain, fatigue, illness, and harmful acting out behaviors reflecting these painful events. Today, millions in both the bodywork and the psychotherapeutic fields are turning to Peter A. Levine's breakthrough Somatic Experiencing(tm) methods to effectively overcome these challenges.Now available in paperback for the first time, Healing Trauma offers readers the personal how-to guide for using the theory Dr. Levine first introduced in his highly acclaimed work Waking the Tiger (North Atlantic Books, 1997), including:How to develop body awareness to re-negotiate and heal traumas rather than relive them * emergency first-aid measures for emotional distress * A 60-minute CD of guided Somatic Experiencing techniques Trauma is a fact of life, teaches Peter Levine, but it doesn't have to be a life sentence. Now, with one fully integrated self-healing tool, he shares his essential methods to address unexplained symptoms of trauma at their source the body to return us to the natural state we are meant to live in. |
| life after trauma: Restarting the World H. Norman Wright, Bryn Edwards, 2021-08-17 The results are positive. The plane crashes. The pandemic hits. Your world—maybe even the whole world comes to an abrupt halt. How do you keep going? How do you process the emotions? And more than that, how do you find a new normal in the world you emerge into? The world may be restarting and opening its doors, but the effects of the grief, isolation, anxiety, and anger are anything but over. In this brief but powerful book, Dr. H Norman Wright, Christian grief and trauma therapist and author of Experiencing Grief, along with co-author, Bryn Edwards, help readers to process through the emotional toll that the pandemic shut-down has taken, and gives readers practical tips, tools, and exercises to not only re-enter the world stronger, but better prepared to handle the unexpected. Even in the midst of chaos, we can still find hope and find peace. “Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” (Romans 15:13, CSB). |
| life after trauma: Transforming Trauma James Gordon, 2021 The definitive new guide on healing trauma and taming our triggers, by Harvard-trained-Psychiatrist and pioneer of mind-body medicine, Doctor James Gordon. Trauma comes to all of us, through grief or from a painful experience; even if our symptoms do not reach that of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, the consequences can be devastating. The good news is that there are self-care tools to help us face the storm, heal our traumas and become healthier and more whole than ever before because of them. In Transforming Trauma, Doctor Gordon equips readers with the first evidence-based program to reverse the effects of trauma on our bodies and minds that he has used to support thousands of people across the world who have suffered - from Syrian refugees and 9/11 survivors to everyday people with emotional or physical illness. Doctor Gordon believes that any challenge can be overcome once you have the right techniques - he will show us how to recognise our triggers step-by-step - those words, actions, perceptions that in some way resemble a past trauma - and let them become our teachers, so we can finally realise that that is then and this is now and in turn, open the door for freedom from our past and a fresh route for hope, purpose and love. 'This is the book on trauma treatment I've been waiting for' - Dr Andrew Weil, New York Times bestselling author + Professor of Medicine 'This book could give you back your life in unimaginable ways, it will inspire you to say 'yes' to the seemingly inconceivable and impossible' - Jon Kabat-Zinn |
| life after trauma: Upside Jim Rendon, 2016-08-23 Through cutting-edge research and thoughtful personal stories comes a “compassionate, friendly, and empathetic” (Kirkus Reviews) exploration of post-traumatic growth—the emerging idea that psychological trauma doesn’t destroy a person, but can instead spark future growth, self-improvement, and success. What if there’s an upside to experiencing trauma? Most survivors of trauma—whether they live through life-threatening illnesses or accidents, horror on the battlefield, or the loss of a loved one—can suffer for months, even years. But recently, psychologists have discovered that PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is only a piece of the whole experience. With the right circumstances and proper support, many trauma survivors also benefit after a terrible experience. They emerge stronger, more focused, and with a new perspective on their future. In the tradition of Po Bronson and Paul Tough, journalist Jim Rendon delivers a deeply reported and unique look at the life-changing implications of post-traumatic growth. The pain and anguish caused by traumatic events can become a force for dramatic life change. It can move people to find deeper meaning in their lives and drive them to help others. But how can terrible experiences lead to remarkable, positive breakthroughs? Upside seeks to answer just that by taking a penetrating look at this burgeoning new field of study. Comprised of interviews with leading researchers and dozens of inspiring stories, Rendon paints a vivid and comprehensive portrait of this groundbreaking field and offers a roadmap for anyone trying to understand how personal tragedy can lead to a more hopeful and positive future. |
| life after trauma: Heal Your PTSD Michele Rosenthal, 2015-09-01 As a teenager, Michele Rosenthal was diagnosed with an illness so rare none of her doctor’s had actually seen a case. She recovered, but found as an adult that she was suffering from a storehouse of nightmarish memories from her near-fatal illness. For years she experienced PTSD, until she developed tools that worked to heal her symptoms. In Heal Your PTSD, Rosenthal applies the tools and ideas she developed from reclaiming her own life after trauma. As she says, “We’re all individual in our traumas, but completely universal in our post-trauma experience. Every trauma survivor needs education, compassion, creativity, ideas, hope, and belief, to name a few.” She tackles post trauma identity, the science of the brain and body (as it relates to trauma), common problems and how to resolve them, how to gain (and maintain) momentum, and so much more. She provides readers not only with healing thoughts on each topic, but actionable steps for moving forward with their lives. |
| life after trauma: Unclaimed Experience Cathy Caruth, 2010-03-24 If Freud turns to literature to describe traumatic experience, it is because literature, like psychoanalysis, is interested in the complex relation between knowing and not knowing, and it is at this specific point at which knowing and not knowing intersect that the psychoanalytic theory of traumatic experience and the language of literature meet.—from the Introduction In Unclaimed Experience, Cathy Caruth proposes that in the widespread and bewildering experience of trauma in our century—both in its occurrence and in our attempt to understand it—we can recognize the possibility of a history no longer based on simple models of straightforward experience and reference. Through the notion of trauma, she contends, we come to a new understanding that permits history to arise where immediate understanding is impossible. In her wide-ranging discussion, Caruth engages Freud's theory of trauma as outlined in Moses and Monotheism and Beyond the Pleasure Principle; the notion of reference and the figure of the falling body in de Man, Kleist, and Kant; the narratives of personal catastrophe in Hiroshima mon amour; and the traumatic address in Lecompte's reinterpretation of Freud's narrative of the dream of the burning child. -- Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., author of Hiroshima in America and The Protean Self |
| life after trauma: Rise: Surviving and Thriving After Trauma Sian Williams, 2016-06-02 'A week after my 50th birthday and just as our family was about to move home, something happened that changed the way I looked at life. I spoke to others about how they rebuilt their shattered worlds after very different personal traumas, emerging stronger than before. I hope our experiences, together with the latest science on resilience, will help guide all those going through tough times. This book says that it's possible not just to survive them, but to thrive. To rise.' Renowned as a much-loved and highly respected journalist and broadcaster with thirty years' experience, Sian Williams has studied the impact of acute stress for many years and is also a trained trauma assessor. In RISE, she explores the science of resilience and growth after trauma, offers advice from the experts, and learns from those who have emerged from horrific experiences, feeling changed yet stronger, with a new perspective on their life, their relationships and their work. She also documents her own path through breast cancer, with candid and unflinching honesty. Her story provides a narrative thread through a book designed to help others deal with all manner of adversity, including physical or mental ill health; loss of a loved one; abuse and post-traumatic stress. RISE is a deeply researched exploration of trauma, grief and illness, and most importantly resilience in the darkest of days. It is an inspiring and powerful piece of work, full of honesty, warmth and wisdom. |
| life after trauma: Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing Elena Welsh, 2018-10-23 Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing offers the latest, recovery-oriented strategies to manage symptoms and take your life back from trauma. The decision to begin working on your trauma is not an easy one, but it is an essential step on your journey into healing. In Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing, clinical psychologist Dr. Elena Welsh delivers an actionable workbook with new strategies to rebuild from trauma and start living the life you want to lead. Based on scientifically-backed therapeutic strategies, Dr. Welsh will teach you practical, proven effective skills for working through trauma and healing your mind, body, and spirit. The exercises in Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing have helped thousands of trauma survivors cope and find relief from trauma-related symptoms in daily life. Whether the source of your trauma was one experience or a series of ongoing events, with Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing you will: Understand trauma with an in-depth introduction that addresses the wide range of symptoms associated with trauma as well as physical symptoms and illnesses. Discover the root of your trauma with self-diagnostic quizzes and reflective assessments to help you identify personal triggers and the specific symptoms you are experiencing. Take your life back with actionable strategies that deepen your mind-body connection and incorporate wellness habits into your everyday life. Trauma Survivors' Strategies for Healing arms you with the tools you need to heal, thrive, and enjoy life beyond trauma. |
| life after trauma: Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma Janina Fisher, 2021-02 Traumatic experiences leave a living legacy of effects that often persist for years and decades after the events are over. Historically, it has always been assumed that re-telling the story of what happened would resolve these effects. However, survivors report a different experience: Telling and re-telling the story of what happened to them often reactivates their trauma responses, overwhelming them rather than resolving the trauma. To transform traumatic experiences, survivors need to understand their symptoms and reactions as normal responses to abnormal events. They need ways to work with the symptoms that intrude on their daily activities, preventing a life beyond trauma. Dr. Janina Fisher, international expert on trauma, has spent over 40 years working with survivors, helping them to navigate the healing journey. In Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma, she shows how the legacy of symptoms helped them survive and offers: - Step-by-step strategies that can be used on their own or in collaboration with a therapist - Simple diagrams that make sense of the confusing feelings and physical reactions survivors experience - Worksheets to practice the skills that bring relief and ultimately healing |
| life after trauma: Partner Betrayal Trauma Step Guide Douglas Weiss, 2019-04-15 |
| life after trauma: Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) American Psychiatric Association, 2021-09-24 |
| life after trauma: Transforming Trauma James S. Gordon, 2021-01-05 All of us have been living in the chaotic time and place of trauma an endangered borderland between the world we once knew and an uncertain future ... transforming trauma shows us how to recognize and resolve the difficulties and disturbances we're facing. As we follow its healing path, we will also discover that meeting these challenges opens the way to new, life-affirming ways of thinking, being, and acting ... The lessons that trauma teaches can make us more healthy, whole, wiser and stronger than we've ever been, kinder and more committed to creating a world in which we care for ourselves and love one another--Back cover, adapted from preface |
| life after trauma: The End of Trauma George A. Bonanno, 2021-09-07 With “groundbreaking research on the psychology of resilience” (Adam Grant), a top expert on human trauma argues that we vastly overestimate how common PTSD is in and fail to recognize how resilient people really are. After 9/11, mental health professionals flocked to New York to handle what everyone assumed would be a flood of trauma cases. Oddly, the flood never came. In The End of Trauma, pioneering psychologist George A. Bonanno argues that we failed to predict the psychological response to 9/11 because most of what we understand about trauma is wrong. For starters, it’s not nearly as common as we think. In fact, people are overwhelmingly resilient to adversity. What we often interpret as PTSD are signs of a natural process of learning how to deal with a specific situation. We can cope far more effectively if we understand how this process works. Drawing on four decades of research, Bonanno explains what makes us resilient, why we sometimes aren’t, and how we can better handle traumatic stress. Hopeful and humane, The End of Trauma overturns everything we thought we knew about how people respond to hardship. |
| life after trauma: Guidebook on Vicarious Trauma Jan I. Richardson, 2001 This guidebook outlines personal strategies and organisational policies to prevent vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue for counsellors and social workers working with abused women and children. It is aimed at counsellors and administrators, and includes information on staff training and hiring, the organisational culture, and the client-counsellor relationship. |
| life after trauma: Your Life After Trauma: Powerful Practices to Reclaim Your Identity Michele Rosenthal, 2015-05-16 Restoring your sense of self after trauma. “In 1981 as a thirteen-year-old child I was given a routine antibiotic for a routine infection and suffered anything but a routine reaction. An undiscovered allergy to the medication turned me into a full-body burn victim almost overnight. By the time I was released from the hospital I had lost 100% of my epidermis. Even more importantly, I had completely lost myself.” Now a professional coach who specializes in helping trauma victims rebuild their lives, Michele Rosenthal struggled with the effects of medically-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for over 25 years before reaching a full recovery. Today, she is 100% free of symptoms of PTSD. In this book, she applies her personal experience and professional wisdom to offer readers an invaluable roadmap to overcoming their own trauma, in particular the loss of sense of self that often accompanies it. If you suffer from the effects of trauma or PTSD, whether it was caused by a single-incident like a car accident, or from chronic childhood abuse, domestic violence, illness, or war trauma, you are well aware of how disconnected you feel from the person you most deeply wish to be. Trauma interrupts—even hijacks—your identity. To cope, you may rely on mechanisms to keep your emotions, triggers, and responses in check, but these very habits can often prevent the true restoration of safety, stability, and inner connection. How can you rediscover your sense of self so that you honor who you were before the trauma (even if that trauma began at birth), understand who you are at this very moment, and determine who you want to be going forward? Like a therapist in your back pocket, Your Life After Trauma guides you in finding answers to these tough questions. Expertly written by a helping professional who keenly understands the post-trauma identity crisis that is so common among trauma and PTSD sufferers, it is a simple, practical, hands-on recovery workbook. Filled with self-assessment questionnaires, exercises, tips, and tools—not to mention insightful personal and professional vignettes—it takes readers through a step-by-step process of healing the identity crisis, from understanding some of the basic brain science behind trauma and why you feel the way you do, to recognizing who you were (or had the potential to be) before the trauma, who you are today, after the trauma, and who you want to become. With this book by your side, it is possible to regain a sense of calm, confidence, and control on your road to recovery. |
| life after trauma: Facilitating Resilience and Recovery Following Trauma Lori A. Zoellner, Norah C. Feeny, 2013-12-30 This volume synthesizes cutting-edge research on natural processes of resilience and recovery, highlighting implications for trauma treatment and prevention. Prominent experts examine what enables many trauma survivors to heal over time without intervention, as well what causes others to develop long-term psychiatric problems. Identifying key, modifiable risk and resilience factors--such as cognitions and beliefs, avoidance, pain, and social support--the book provides recommendations for when (and when not) to intervene to promote recovery. Illustrative case examples are included. A section on specific populations discusses children, military personnel, and low socioeconomic status or marginalized communities. |
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What 20th Century Life Was Like - LIFE
See how fashion, family life, sports, holiday celebrations, media, and other elements of pop culture have changed through the decades.
The Most Iconic Photographs of All Time - LIFE
Experience LIFE's visual record of the 20th century by exploring the most iconic photographs from one of the most famous private photo collections in the world.
1960s Photo Archives - LIFE
Explore 1960s within the LIFE photography vault, one of the most prestigious & privately held archives from the US & around the World.
The 100 Most Important Photos Ever - LIFE
Here are a few selections from LIFE’s new special issue 100 Photographs: The Most Important Pictures Ever and the Stories Behind Them
History Photo Archives - LIFE
Explore History within the LIFE photography vault, one of the most prestigious & privately held archives from the US & around the World.
What Fun Looked Like in Brussels, 1945. - LIFE
Sometimes LIFE’s photographers took its readers to a places they would never have thought to go—for example, a nightclub in Brussels during the waning days of World War II, and months …
Photographing American History - LIFE
Subscribe to the LIFE Newsletter. Travel back in time with treasured photos and stories, sent right to your inbox. Join Today
The Bohemian Life in Big Sur, 1959
When LIFE magazine visited Big Sur in 1959, the Esalen Institute was three years from opening, but the coastal community had long been attracting free-thinking types. LIFE’s story was …
Albert Camus: Intellectual Titan - LIFE
LIFE’s 1957 story about Camus carried the headline “Action-Packed Intellectual” and began with the note that he “jealously guards his privacy.” But the author relented enough to allow LIFE …
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See photographs and read stories about global icons - the actors, athletes, politicians, and community members that make our world come to life.
