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In the week before the mid-term elections, a slick political flyer arrived in my mailbox from the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety . The front shows an image of a manila folder designed to look like a police file. In red and black letters it reads, "Before someone buys a gun, shouldn't we check their background?" The folder reads, "Criminal Record," and, under the tab, we can see the words "mental health evaluation" peeking out. On the inside, the document endorses the local...

A traumatic event or another crisis can act as the catalyst to cause or exacerbate an already upside down hierarchy. Over time, this inverted hierarchy will lead the problem symptoms in the child and/or other family members, a lack of boundaries, coalitions, or a lack of love or limits. On Tuesday, December 11 at 1 pm ET, the Family Trauma Institute presents a webinar that answers the question: "Why is theory so essential to helping the trauma therapist know where to tap to discover the root...

[Editor's note: Dr. Harise Stein at Stanford University edits a web site -- abuseresearch.info -- that focuses on the health effects of abuse, and includes research articles on ACEs. Every month, she's posting the summaries of the abstracts and links to research articles that address only ACEs. Thank you, Harise!! -- Jane Stevens] Harris HR, Wieser F, Vitonis AF, Rich-Edwards J, et. al. Early life abuse and risk of endometriosis. Hum Reprod. 2018 Sep 1;33(9):1657-1668. PMID: 30016439 Using...

Dr. Vincent Felitti studied the connection between ACEs and health. Unexpectedly, he uncovered for the courts and our community partners a path past our litigants’ “past.” By applying science to what we do every day and responding appropriately to ACEs, we have a chance to change the trajectory of each life we touch. We have an opportunity to change the world if we see it through a trauma lens.

A root cause of almost every major challenge New Mexico faces--from opioid crisis and violence to low school achievement and underemployment--is childhood trauma. The Mission of Resilience Leaders: Preventing the costly epidemic of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and family trauma by providing the city of Las Cruces and all of Doña Ana county with the frameworks, technology, and training to implement a data-driven prevention program with results that include: safe childhoods, successful...

When it comes to turning back the clocks on our devices, technology has us covered. Our smartphones automatically adjust. But our internal clocks aren't as easy to re-program. And this means that the time shift in the fall and again in the spring can influence our health in unexpected ways. "You might not think that a one hour change is a lot," says Fred Turek , who directs the Center for Sleep & Circadian Biology at Northwestern University. "But it turns out that the master clock in our...

Between 1960 and 2016, inflation-adjusted median rents in America increased by 61 percent and median home values increased by 112 percent, according to a recent report from Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies. Median incomes, meanwhile, increased by only 5 percent for renters, and 50 percent for homeowners. In a new report , Urban Institute researchers Corianne Scally and Dulce Gonzalez look at how Americans are managing these trends. This striking divergence in the growth...

Adolescents with a particular variant of an opioid receptor gene have less response in a part of prefrontal cortex that evaluates rewards, compared to those with the other version of the gene, say researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC). For the study, presented Monday at Neuroscience 2018, the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience (abstract #7517), the investigators scanned adolescents who have never used drugs or alcohol with functional magnetic resonance...

When I was ten years old, my dad called me into his bedroom (my parents slept in separate rooms). He sat me on his lap and told me the following: "Teri, I've been seeing a doctor. A counselor. And I now realize I never should have hit you. I'm sorry. I promise to never hit you again. From now on you get to decide your discipline." There was more, but that's all I can remember.

Announcement of Request for Proposal ( https://www.dibbleinstitute.org/research-opportunity-mind-matters/ ) The Dibble Institute is pleased to announce a competitive cooperative agreement opportunity to conduct an initial evaluation of Mind Matters – Overcoming Adversity and Building Resilience . ( https://www.dibbleinstitute.org/mind-matters/ ) We will fund up to $15,000 for an 18-month (from award to final report) evaluative study to understand what participants learn, what changes they...

I was 19 years old and had the world at my fingertips. I came from the picture perfect family… two cars in the garage, two successful working parents, nice house, a dog, and two children, a boy and a girl. I was the girl, my name is Crystal Hampton. I had no reason to be attracted to a “bad boy” or someone I knew would break my heart but I did it anyways. When I turned 18 I took my first drink and that is what started a long road of alcoholism for me. I hated the way it tasted but loved the...

“If we take victimization seriously, what’s the significance of histories of victimization and exposure to trauma for people who have harmed others?” asks sociologist Bruce Western . It is a thought-provoking question that is impossible to ignore if you read his latest book, Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison , which details findings from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS), which followed 122 formerly incarcerated men and women for one year following their release from the Massachusetts...