TI Practices/Practitioners

When Dr Bessel van der Kolk published The Body Keeps the Score in 2014, it was a huge hit with yoga people. That is not a euphemism for “rich, underoccupied people”, it is just people who do yoga. Certain physical activities do something weird to your brain: ancient memories resurface, often with new feelings or perspectives attached; you start treating yourself with more compassion. It doesn’t make sense until you read Van der Kolk. After that, nothing has ever made more sense. His thesis...

We all know what stress feels like physically — though the symptoms vary by person. Some people experience shakiness or a racing heart, while others develop muscle tension, headaches or stomach aches. But what we might not realize is that our physiological responses to life’s stresses and strains can have deeper, less obvious, repercussions for just about every organ and system in the body. “I think people really underestimate just how big the effects are,” said Janice Kiecolt-Glaser,...

Takeaways: Racism is trauma and should be treated as such in any comprehensive trauma-informed care framework. Trauma-informed care requires a nuanced understanding of not only how trauma impacts the lives and care of patients, but the root causes behind that trauma. This brief offers practical considerations to help health systems and provider practices incorporate a focus on racial equity to enhance trauma-informed care efforts. It draws from the experiences of two federally qualified...