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In the current polarized political environment, it is no small feat for a bill to be introduced with bipartisan support in both chambers—a fact that bodes well for the future of the “Resilience Investment, Support, and Expansion (RISE) from Trauma Act of 2019.” Identical bills titled “The RISE from Trauma Act of 2019” were introduced in the Senate and the House on June 10, with bipartisan support from members of Congress representing diverse states, districts, and constituencies. While...

In this interview, we spoke about a wide variety of topics, ranging from how he believes that most mental health conditions originate from unresolved childhood trauma, to why he describes current Western culture as ‘insane’ because of its failure to meet basic human needs. He went into detail about what he sees as the root causes of conditions such as anxiety, panic attacks and fibromyalgia. We also spoke about the process of reconnecting with your authentic self. The origin of the word...

By Sarah Holder, Pacific Standard, June 26, 2019. Each year, about 40,000 people in Essex County, New Jersey, get evicted. Almost half of them are in the city of Newark, where more than three-quarters of the population are renters. As housing in Newark, spiked by a surge in interest from priced-out Manhattanites , grows more expensive, evictions keep getting filed—"sometimes arbitrarily; sometimes because of poor management," said Newark's mayor, Ras Baraka, who's trying to balance his...

Domestic violence survivors commonly suffer repeated blows to the head and strangulation, trauma that has lasting effects that should be widely recognized by advocates, health care providers, law enforcement and others who are in a position to help, according to the authors of a new study. In the first community-based study of its kind, researchers from The Ohio State University and the Ohio Domestic Violence Network found that 81 percent of women who have been abused at the hands of their...

By K. Hecht & A. Hosack & P. Berman I have worked hard to help myself and Davy. I can feel good about that, despite my mistakes. Claire has been thinking a lot about her decisions. The good ones like accepting help from people like the Carsons. The bad ones, like allowing Larry to dominate her thinking- despite his lack of good judgment. Dr. Berman had talked to her a lot about paying more attention to what she was doing right and forgiving herself for what she hadn’t. It was hard.

As threats of deportation continue to rattle immigrant communities, advocates and attorneys in the Washington area say they have seen a marked increase in undocumented victims of domestic violence choosing not to pursue legal recourse against their abusers. Many victims are reluctant to even start the legal process, experts say, concerned that police will turn them over to federal immigration authorities or that their partners will retaliate by revealing their immigration status. In a 2018...

By Amy Reid, Santiago Nariño, Hema Magge & Angelina Sassi, Standford Social Innovation Review, June 25, 2019. For more than 25 years, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) has used improvement science to advance quality and safety and to sustain better outcomes in health and health systems globally. In particular, IHI understands that quality healthcare is impossible without equity and that racism and white supremacy persist around the world. To illustrate our approach to these...

By Lauren Smith, FSG, June 26, 2019. Everything I have learned in my almost three decades as a pediatrician and public health advocate caring for children and families tells me that what we are doing to migrant children at the border is morally and medically wrong. It goes against all that we know about how children should be treated. It is also not who we aspire to be as a nation. We are and must be better than this. Recent detailed reports of the appalling conditions in the detention...

By Jill Suttie, Greater Good Magazine, June 26, 2019. The World Happiness Report comes out every year, providing some data about how well-being varies from country to country and how it shifts within a country from one year to the next . But what makes some countries happier than others? Dóra Guðmundsdóttir is one of many researchers around the world studying happiness and well-being at the population level. By analyzing large data sets, she has helped to uncover the “epidemiology of...

When I first learned about Adverse Childhood Experiences during my intern year of Family Medicine residency training, it was like a switch had been turned on. My ACE score was high. 9. I poured through the literature, hoping for a way to “heal myself.” I was a healer, after all. And I hadn’t done much intentional work around healing from my incredibly traumatic childhood. As I progressed in my training, the evidence mounted that my background made me different, at the same time that pioneers...

Hi Folks, The latest edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php Here's the scoop on what's shared: Healing the Heart Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health “ Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars”. Kahlil Gibran The Surviving Spirit Newsletter June 2019 Newsletter Contents : Some...

What to do when a six year old climbs out the window of your kindergarten classroom threatening to jump three stories to the concrete below? What do you say to a seven year old girl … with scarred arms that is obviously cutting herself? Kendrea (6) and Gabriel (7) successfully hung themselves a few years ago. They came from different states but suffered the same afflictions . Only one out a hundred very young children are successful in their suicide attempts as it is not easy to do.