Download or read book The Trauma of Everyday Life written by Dr. Epstein and published by Hay House, Inc. This book was released on 2014-07-07 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Trauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic. In The Trauma of Everyday Life renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker Mark Epstein uncovers the transformational potential of trauma, revealing how it can be used for the mind's own development. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesn't destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds' own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us. Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a tool for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. Guided by the Buddha's life as a profound example of the power of trauma, Epstein's also closely examines his own experience and that of his psychiatric patients to help us all understand that the way out of pain is through it.
Download or read book Thoughts Without A Thinker written by Mark Epstein and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blending the lessons of psychotherapy with Buddhist teachings, Mark Epstein offers a revolutionary understanding of what constitutes a healthy emotional life The line between psychology and spirituality has blurred, as clinicians, their patients, and religious seekers explore new perspectives on the self. A landmark contribution to the field of psychoanalysis, Thoughts Without a Thinker describes the unique psychological contributions offered by the teachings of Buddhism. Drawing upon his own experiences as a psychotherapist and meditator, New York-based psychiatrist Mark Epstein lays out the path to meditation-inspired healing, and offers a revolutionary new understanding of what constitutes a healthy emotional life.
Download or read book Everyday Trauma written by Tracey Shors, PhD and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 135 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A neuroscientist explores how trauma impacts the brain, especially for women—and how we can learn to heal ourselves Everyone experiences trauma. Whether a specific harrowing event or a series of stressful moments that culminate over time, trauma can echo and etch itself into our brain as we remember it again and again throughout our lives. In Everyday Trauma, neuroscientist Dr. Tracey Shors examines trauma with a focus on its pervasive nature—how it can happen at any time, through big or small events, and how it often reappears in the form of encoded memory. Her research reveals that when we are reminded of our trauma, reliving that tragic moment copies yet another memory of it in our brain, making it that much more difficult to forget. Dr. Shors also explores the neuroscience behind why women in particular are more vulnerable to stress and traumatic events, setting them up to be three times more likely than men to suffer PTSD. With potential long-term consequences such as addiction, anxiety, depression, and PTSD, trauma can have a lasting impact on both the brain and body. Dr. Shors illuminates the effective tools that can reduce the repetitive thoughts that reinforce our traumas, including cognitive-based therapies and trauma-informed care such as her own groundbreaking program, a combination of mental and physical training called MAP Training. By understanding how our brain responds to trauma and practicing proven techniques that can train our brains and help us let go of our tragic memories—whatever they may be—we are better equipped to leave our traumatic pasts behind and live in a brighter present.
Download or read book Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart written by Mark Epstein, M.D. and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An intimate guide to self-acceptance and discovery that offers a Buddhist perspective on wholeness within the framework of a Western understanding of self. For decades, Western psychology has promised fulfillment through building and strengthening the ego. We are taught that the ideal is a strong, individuated self, constructed and reinforced over a lifetime. But Buddhist psychiatrist Mark Epstein has found a different way. Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart shows us that happiness doesn't come from any kind of acquisitiveness, be it material or psychological. Happiness comes from letting go. Weaving together the accumulated wisdom of his two worlds--Buddhism and Western psychotherapy—Epstein shows how "the happiness that we seek depends on our ability to balance the ego's need to do with our inherent capacity to be." He encourages us to relax the ever-vigilant mind in order to experience the freedom that comes only from relinquishing control. Drawing on events in his own life and stories from his patients, Going to Pieces Without Falling Apart teaches us that only by letting go can we start on the path to a more peaceful and spiritually satisfying life.
Download or read book The Myth of Normal written by Gabor Maté, MD and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-09-13 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The instant New York Times bestseller By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing. In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health? Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of “normal” as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society—and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.
Download or read book Trauma Stewardship written by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky and published by Berrett-Koehler Publishers. This book was released on 2009-05-08 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This beloved bestseller—over 180,000 copies sold—has helped caregivers worldwide keep themselves emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and physically healthy in the face of the sometimes overwhelming traumas they confront every day. A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll taken on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, or numb or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other living things, and the planet itself. In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way. Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices, drawn from modern psychology and a range of spiritual traditions, that enable us to look carefully at our reactions and motivations and discover new sources of energy and renewal. She includes interviews with successful trauma stewards from different walks of life and even uses New Yorker cartoons to illustrate her points. “We can do meaningful work in a way that works for us and for those we serve,” Lipsky writes. “Taking care of ourselves while taking care of others allows us to contribute to our societies with such impact that we will leave a legacy informed by our deepest wisdom and greatest gifts instead of burdened by our struggles and despair.”
Download or read book The Body Keeps the Score written by Bessel A. Van der Kolk and published by Penguin Books. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.
Download or read book The Zen of Therapy written by Mark Epstein, M.D. and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A warm, profound and cleareyed memoir. . . this wise and sympathetic book’s lingering effect is as a reminder that a deeper and more companionable way of life lurks behind our self-serious stories."—Oliver Burkeman, New York Times Book Review A remarkable exploration of the therapeutic relationship, Dr. Mark Epstein reflects on one year’s worth of therapy sessions with his patients to observe how his training in Western psychotherapy and his equally long investigation into Buddhism, in tandem, led to greater awareness—for his patients, and for himself For years, Dr. Mark Epstein kept his beliefs as a Buddhist separate from his work as a psychiatrist. Content to use his training in mindfulness as a private resource, he trusted that the Buddhist influence could, and should, remain invisible. But as he became more forthcoming with his patients about his personal spiritual leanings, he was surprised to learn how many were eager to learn more. The divisions between the psychological, emotional, and the spiritual, he soon realized, were not as distinct as one might think. In The Zen of Therapy, Dr. Epstein reflects on a year’s worth of selected sessions with his patients and observes how, in the incidental details of a given hour, his Buddhist background influences the way he works. Meditation and psychotherapy each encourage a willingness to face life's difficulties with courage that can be hard to otherwise muster, and in this cross-section of life in his office, he emphasizes how therapy, an element of Western medicine, can in fact be considered a two-person meditation. Mindfulness, too, much like a good therapist, can “hold” our awareness for us—and allow us to come to our senses and find inner peace. Throughout this deeply personal inquiry, one which weaves together the wisdom of two worlds, Dr. Epstein illuminates the therapy relationship as spiritual friendship, and reveals how a therapist can help patients cultivate the sense that there is something magical, something wonderful, and something to trust running through our lives, no matter how fraught they have been or might become. For when we realize how readily we have misinterpreted our selves, when we stop clinging to our falsely conceived constructs, when we touch the ground of being, we come home.
Download or read book Critical Trauma Studies written by Monica Casper and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2016-03-15 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 1. Within trauma : an introduction / Eric Wertheimer and Monica J. Casper -- I. Politics -- 2. Trauma is as trauma does : the politics of affect in catastrophic times / Maurice E. Stevens -- 3. "She was just a Chechen" : the female suicide bomber as a site of collective suffering in wartime Chechen Republic / Francine Banner -- 4. Naming sexual trauma : on the political necessity of nuance in rape and sex offender discourses / Breanne Fahs -- 5. Conceptualizing forgiveness in the face of historical trauma / Carmen Goman and Douglas Kelley -- II. Poetics -- 6. Bahareh : singing without words in an Iranian prison camp / Shahla Talebi -- 7. Voices of silence : on speaking from within the void (a response to Shahla Talebi) / Gabriele M. Schwab -- 8. Future's past : a conversation about the Holocaust with Gabriele M. Schwab / Martin Beck Matuštík -- 9. "No other tale to tell" : trauma and acts of forgetting in The road / Amanda Wicks -- 10. Body animations (or, Lullaby for Fallujah) : a performance / Jackie Orr -- III. Praxis -- 11. First responders : a pedagogy for writing and reading trauma / Amy Hodges Hamilton -- 12. Answering the call : crisis intervention and rape survivor advocacy as witnessing trauma / Debra Jackson -- 13. Documenting disaster : Hurricane Katrina and one family's saga / Rebecca Hankins and Akua Duku Anokye -- 14. A cure for bitterness / Dorothy Allison
Download or read book Everyday Life and the Unconscious Mind written by Hannah Curtis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-03-26 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An increasing number of people are seeking to develop an understanding of psychoanalytic concepts in order to apply them to the ordinary situations that they encounter as they go about their work, family and social lives. Some of these people are students just leaving college and going on to university, some are managers seeking to understand the dynamics of work place relationships and some are the friends or families of people who suffer with emotional distress or mental health issues. Everyday Life and the Unconscious Mind is written for students, for those who work in the care sector, or in management, and for those who love someone who is struggling emotionally. It explains and clarifies some of the concepts that address the way in which the unconscious mind works and how it seeks to manage its feelings. It includes chapters on trauma and defence mechanisms, which are to do with how we cope with events that act like a psychological blow to our self esteem or our identity.
Download or read book Advice Not Given written by Mark Epstein, M.D. and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-01-15 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Most people will never find a great psychiatrist or a great Buddhist teacher, but Mark Epstein is both, and the wisdom he imparts in Advice Not Given is an act of generosity and compassion. The book is a tonic for the ailments of our time.”—Ann Patchett, New York Times bestselling author of Commonwealth Our ego, and its accompanying sense of nagging self-doubt as we work to be bigger, better, smarter, and more in control, is one affliction we all share. But while our ego is at once our biggest obstacle, it can also be our greatest hope. We can be at its mercy or we can learn to work with it. With great insight, and in a deeply personal style, renowned psychiatrist and author Dr. Mark Epstein offers a how-to guide that refuses a quick fix. In Advice Not Given, he reveals how Buddhism and Western psychotherapy, two traditions that developed in entirely different times and places, both identify the ego as the limiting factor in our well-being, and both come to the same conclusion: When we give the ego free rein, we suffer; but when it learns to let go, we are free.
Download or read book Black Futures written by Kimberly Drew and published by One World. This book was released on 2021-10-26 with total page 545 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A literary experience unlike any I’ve had in recent memory . . . a blueprint for this moment and the next, for where Black folks have been and where they might be going.”—The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice) What does it mean to be Black and alive right now? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together this collection of work—images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more—to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today. The book presents a succession of startling and beautiful pieces that generate an entrancing rhythm: Readers will go from conversations with activists and academics to memes and Instagram posts, from powerful essays to dazzling paintings and insightful infographics. In answering the question of what it means to be Black and alive, Black Futures opens a prismatic vision of possibility for every reader.
Download or read book Real Life Heroes written by Richard Kagan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-06-11 with total page 124 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Help children overcome the pain of trauma and develop a healthy sense of self! Real Life Heroes: A Life Storybook for Children helps traumatized children move from painful or fractured memories to a more positive perspective, not by denying hardships, but by drawing strength from the supportive people in their lives. This innovative workbook uses a creative arts approach that encourages children to work with caring adults to develop autobiographies through a wide range of activities, including drawings, music, movies, and narrative. The results foster positive values and a sense of pride in children as they form a stronger bond with caring and committed adults as protection against the adversity and stressors that exist in everyday life. This unique book is designed to be used in tandem with Rebuilding Attachments with Traumatized Children: Healing from Losses, Violence, Abuse, and Neglect (Haworth), a guide to attachment and trauma therapy from the same author. Real Life Heroes: A Life Storybook for Children is a therapeutic resource that helps children overcome the difficulties they may face, including divorce, separation, placement, learning problems, serious illness, and hospitalization. The workbook highlights and preserves for children the moments in their lives when “important” people—family, friends, and community—showed kindness, caring, understanding, and courage, giving the child a sense of value that can inspire the transformation from victim to hero. The life storybook is especially useful for work with children in foster and adoptive families and group care programs. Real Life Heroes is divided into eight chapters: “A Little About Me” helps children recognize and express feelings (affect management) and introduces the child to the book’s format “Heroes and Heroines” invites the child to draw, act out, and write a brief story of someone in his or her life who has acted like a hero “People in My Life” helps a child recall memories of adults who provided care “Good Times” helps a child remember strengths, skills, and supportive relationships that helped him or her “Looking Back” encourages a child to chronicle his or her moves between different locations and homes “Making Things Better” helps a child build self-soothing skills with imagery and magic “Through the Tough Times” helps a child process difficult memories utilizing skills, support from caring adults, and cognitive processing techniques “Into the Future” helps a child to develop a successful self-image for the future Real Life Heroes: A Life Storybook for Children is a rich resource for counselors, psychotherapists, teachers, parents, adoptive parents, foster parents, grandparents, and mentors who are working to help troubled children to overcome traumas and to rebuild hope and a positive identity.
Download or read book Surviving Survival The Art and Science of Resilience written by Laurence Gonzales and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2012-09-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on cases across a range of life-threatening experiences, Laurence Gonzales makes a compelling argument about fear, courage and the adaptability of the human spirit.
Download or read book Real Life written by Brandon Taylor and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A FINALIST for the Booker Prize, the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, the VCU/Cabell First Novelist Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the NYPL Young Lions Award, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award “A blistering coming of age story” —O: The Oprah Magazine Named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, New York Public Library, Vanity Fair, Elle, NPR, The Guardian, The Paris Review, Harper's Bazaar, Financial Times, Huffington Post, BBC, Shondaland, Barnes & Noble, Vulture, Thrillist, Vice, Self, Electric Literature, and Shelf Awareness A novel of startling intimacy, violence, and mercy among friends in a Midwestern university town, from an electric new voice. Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even within his own circle of friends—some dating each other, some dating women, some feigning straightness. But over the course of a late-summer weekend, a series of confrontations with colleagues, and an unexpected encounter with an ostensibly straight, white classmate, conspire to fracture his defenses while exposing long-hidden currents of hostility and desire within their community. Real Life is a novel of profound and lacerating power, a story that asks if it’s ever really possible to overcome our private wounds, and at what cost.
Download or read book Trauma The Invisible Epidemic written by Paul Conti, MD and published by Sounds True. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Journey Toward Understanding, Active Treatment, and Societal Prevention of Trauma Imagine, if you will, a disease—one that has only subtle outward symptoms but can hijack your entire body without notice, one that transfers easily between parent and child, one that can last a lifetime if untreated. According to Dr. Paul Conti, this is exactly how society should conceptualize trauma: as an out-of-control epidemic with a potentially fatal prognosis. In Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, Dr. Conti examines the most recent research, clinical best practices, and dozens of real-life stories to present a deeper and more urgent view of trauma. Not only does Dr. Conti explain how trauma affects the body and mind, he also demonstrates that trauma is transmissible among close family and friends, as well as across generations and within vast demographic groups. With all this in mind, Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic proposes a course of treatment for the seemingly untreatable. Here, Dr. Conti traces a step-by-step series of concrete changes that we can make both as individuals and as a society to alleviate trauma’s effects and prevent further traumatization in the future. You will discover: The different post-trauma syndromes, how they are classified, and their common symptomsAn examination of how for-profit health care systems can inhibit diagnosis and treatment of traumaHow social crises and political turmoil encourage the spread of group traumaMethods for confronting and managing your fears as they arise in the momentHow trauma disrupts mental processes such as memory, emotional regulation, and logical decision-makingThe argument for a renewed humanist social commitment to mental health and wellness It’s only when we understand how a disease spreads and is sustained that we are able to create its ultimate cure. With Trauma: The Invisible Epidemic, Dr. Conti reveals that what we once considered a lifelong, unbeatable mental illness is both treatable and preventable.
Download or read book Psychological Defenses in Everyday Life written by Robert Firestone and published by . This book was released on 1989-01-01 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a rich resource that broadens personalunderstanding by examining the origins of childhood misery, subsequent defense formation, and the pervasiveness and destructiveness of the resulting maladaptive, addictive behaviors in adults. Numerous casehistories show people rejecting love and companionship for imagined connections and illusions. The authors point a way toward reversing the damaging process that keeps individuals from experiencing genuine satisfaction.
