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Can stress or trauma cause chronic illness? Or trigger onset? Answers are still hard to find despite links between stress, trauma and chronic illness that have been observed for millenia. For example, people have been sharing their stories for almost 2000 years about how type 1 diabetes (T1D), the less common autoimmune form of the disease, started after a serious life event. Research from the past 40 years has also suggested that severe life events can induce the disease and is not just a...

Are LGBT people regular victims of discrimination, or are they a well-funded political force bent on persecuting Christians? Those are the competing ideas at work in a host of briefs filed in a blockbuster case the Supreme Court will hear Tuesday that has huge implications for the future of civil rights protections. The case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission , pits a Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, against Charlie Craig and David Mullins, a gay couple who asked...

In a small back room at Victory in Praise, a predominantly African American church in this Central Valley city, community organizer Arturo Palato assessed his troops. The gathering included a teacher, a social worker, a salesman and a student -- about a dozen in all. Palato's mission: Convince this disparate crew that they have a crucial role to play when immigration authorities come to round up their neighbors. Take notes. Take photos. And provide key eyewitness accounts if something goes...

Is your organization facing increased community, school, and domestic violence? Does your team feel challenged by the complex needs of the people they serve? Is the impact of the opioid epidemic overwhelming? Is diminished funding compromising your workforce? If you want to rise above these forces and develop skills to address trauma and nurture resilience, join the National Council’s 8 th annual Trauma-Informed, Resilience-Oriented Approaches Learning Community . Over the course of this...

Consider two American children, one rich and one poor, both brilliant. The rich one is much more likely to become an inventor, creating products that help improve America’s quality of life. The poor child probably will not. That’s the conclusion of a new study by the Equality of Opportunity project, a team of researchers led by the Stanford economist Raj Chetty. Chetty and his team look at who becomes inventors in the United States, a career path that can contribute to vast improvements in...

This is part one of a two-part series. The number of delinquent youth remanded to the Arkansas Division of Youth Services during the fiscal year that ended in July was the lowest in at least two decades, according to figures recently released by the DYS. Juvenile judges committed 451 youth to state custody in fiscal year 2017 — a 14 percent decrease from 2015, when commitments to the DYS reached 526. The commitment rate does not reflect every youth confined in a facility in Arkansas. It...

A new study reveals that the daughters of women exposed to childhood trauma are at increased risk for psychiatric disorders, as compared to their sons who experience no effect. The study also found that there was no effect on children born to men exposed to childhood trauma, The New York Times reports. “The most important takeaway is that childhood trauma can be passed on to offspring,” The lead author, Torsten Santavirta, an associate professor of economics at Uppsala University told The...

I believe strongly that to stay in recovery we have to deal with underlying issues like past trauma. We have to talk about it to an enlightened witness. We have to write about it and then feel the pain that we usually try to self-medicate. Then we need to accept what happened to us and move on to our new life in recovery. I have gone through this process myself and it has changed my life. The trauma of my past began with my childhood. It consisted of neglect, abandonment, peer rejection,...

JANESVILLE – Traffic on Main St. is lazy as Kyle Pucek strolls past tidy homes with wide front porches. “I lost a lot of friends in the last couple years,” Pucek, 41, says matter of factly. He counts 10. A car rolls past and a woman waves at Pucek. The two shout greetings. "That’s Kirsten," Pucek volunteers almost offhandedly, "an ex-heroin addict who’s also in recovery." Pucek grew up with her, and with her fiance, who died of a heroin overdose in 2009. Contacted later, Kirsten Moore added...

To become a police officer in the United States, one almost always has to enroll in an academy for some basic training. The typical academy session lasts 25 weeks, but state governments—which oversee police academies for local and state law enforcement officers—have wide latitude when it comes to choosing the subjects that will be taught in the classrooms. How to properly identify and investigate hate crimes does not seem terribly high on the list of priorities, according to a ProPublica...

Bad moods are no fun; but we all get them from time to time. I sometimes feel down reading the news or forgetting to exercise; others may become moody after a setback at work or a fight with their partner. Now, a new study published in Psychophysiology suggests that bad moods seem to impact the neural underpinnings of empathy, as well, with important implications for our relationships. Past research has shown that our neural wiring allows us to experience what another person is...

I am a Rosen Method Movement Teacher and Bodywork Intern. I have been living a Rosen Method Wellness Plan for 12 years. It has taught me Embodied Self-Awareness and allowed me to heal from trauma. Yesterday I was sitting with a group of my friends connecting after a long time. We began by updating each other about our families and work and then moved to the state of our country. My friends were very emotional and one said that she was so disturbed by the state of our country that she was...