Tagged With "Brain Insights"
Blog Post
1000 TELLINGS!
I just had to cradle a bundle of books when my publisher showed me the first 1000 copies that arrived from the printer. A thousand copies! At this very moment the most important thing is they exist. Not if or when they’ll be purchased. Not who will get a copy or what they’ll think of it as they read it. What’s happening is I am telling. A thousand times over, I am telling. A lot of people already know that after every rape my father said, “You tell anyone and I’ll kill you.” And I’ve worked...
Blog Post
Best Selling Memoir “Hillbilly Elegy” tells an inspiring story of overcoming ACEs
In search of insight into the country’s stark cultural divides in preparation for a week of potentially difficult conversations in Kentucky where I’d be attending family reunion and 50-year high school reunion, I dove into “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis” by J.D. Vance . Throughout this mesmerizing, painful, and hilarious memoir, I kept wondering if the author might know about the ACE study. The answer was found on page 226 when “ACEs” jumps out at me and...
Blog Post
"Don't Try This Alone" on Amazon
Don't Try This Alone: The Silent Epidemic of Attachment Disorder" on Amazon 2-28-18; Kindle out soon... http://www.amazon.com/dp/1976120128 Thank you to my ACEsConnection community for all your support for the last five years during the daunting experience of documenting this story... Kathy was an overachiever—an economist, technical writer, and classical singer married 27 years to her college sweetheart. It looked like Kathy was fine. But deep within her hid a pain from infancy so severe...
Blog Post
Dr. Claudia Gold: Empathy & Listening as ACE-Informed Practice
"You are absolutely not doomed from having ACEs."
Blog Post
Dr. Dan Siegel: What Hearing “Yes” Does to Your Child’s Brain (mindful.org)
Yes is more than a word. It’s a state of being, of relating, and a gateway to curiosity, growth, and resilience, according to internationally recognized educator, neuropsychiatrist, and bestselling author Dr. Dan Siegel. He and co-author Tina Payne Bryson have written a new book that offers parents everywhere a roadmap for developing and growing their child’s inner spark and internal compass to guide them throughout their lives. It’s called, “ YES Brain: How to Cultivate Courage, Curiosity,...
Blog Post
Focusing, by Eugene T. Gendlin, PH.D.
I first heard about Eugene Gendlin while reading Peter Levine's Waking the Tiger . Gendlin, a psychologist, originated the term "felt sense," which refers to the awareness of our internal, bodily experiences. Like Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, and other somatic pioneers, Gendlin promotes emotional self healing by learning to listen to your body in an accepting way. As Gendlin writes: "You have a bodily orienting sense. You know who you are and how you came to be in this room, reading this...
Ask the Community
Parenting Without Borders by Gross-Loh (2013)
Research reveals American kids today lag well behind the rest of the world in terms of academic achievement, happiness, and wellness. Meanwhile the battle over whether parents are to blame for fostering a generation of helpless kids rages on....
Blog Post
The Insight Cure: Change Your Story, Transform Your Life, by John Sharp
John Sharp is a psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School. In his book Insight Cure , Sharp includes ACEs science in his exploration of how traumatic events from childhood may turn into what he calls a "false truth" (such as "I am unlovable") that then turns into a maladaptation that can plague an individual for life. His book outlines an 8-step program to help readers shine the light of awareness on these false truths that so many of us harbor based on early childhood...
Blog Post
The Relentless School Nurse: The Angel and the Assassin by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
Author, journalist, researcher, science detective are just a few of the descriptors I can use to depict Donna Jackson Nakazawa. You may recognize her name from prior books, notably, Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology And How You Can Heal . Donna is a gifted science storyteller. She translates complex biological processes seamlessly and describes them in relatable terms that are memorable. The Angel and the Assassin is the story of how neuroscience has been turned on...
Blog Post
The Resilience Workbook: Essential Skills to Recover from Stress, Trauma, and Adversity
What is resilience, and how can you build it? In The Resilience Workbook , Dr. Glenn Schiraldi—author of The Self-Esteem Workbook —offers invaluable insight and outlines essential skills to help you bounce back from setbacks and cultivate a growth mindset. Why do some people sail through life’s storms, while others are knocked down? Resilience is the key. Resilience is the ability to recover from difficult experiences, such as death of loved one, job loss, serious illness, terrorist attacks,...
Blog Post
The Road to Whatever
It is no longer possible to deny that there is widespread alienation, desperation, and violence among the youth that we have sometimes persuaded ourselves is a tranquil and unproblematic middle class. Yet, for the most part, that crisis has been either ignored or, when it explodes into public view, misunderstood. And this is a tragedy, because there are lives at stake.
Blog Post
The Surviving Spirit Newsletter May 2020
Hi Folks, The May edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php or PDF - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/pdfs/2020-05-The_Surviving_Spirit_Newsletter_May_2020.pdf To sign up for an e-mail copy, please write to me @ mikeskinner@comcast.net or sign up @ Website via Contact Us, Thanks! Michael . “ Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” - Helen Keller The Surviving Spirit Newsletter May 2020 – please...
Ask the Community
Blind to Betrayal : Why We Fool Ourselves We Aren't Being Fooled by J. Freyd & P. Birrell (2013)
"One of the world's top experts on betrayal looks at why we often can't see it right in front of our faces If the cover-up is worse than the crime, blindness to betrayal can be worse than the betrayal itself. Whether the betrayer is an unfaithful...
Ask the Community
Daddy's Disease- Helping Children Understand Alcoholism
‘Carolyn Hannan Bell has given a gift to thousands of children and their parents with her book: "Daddy's Disease". A wonderful book for children who have a parent who has alcoholism. With gentle insight and poignant stories, she introduces us to...
Ask the Community
Evolution, Early Experience and Human Development
This book offers powerful information and insight for primary prevention: Darcia Narváez, Jaak Panksepp, Allan N. Schore, Tracy R. Gleanson (2013). Evolution, early experience and human development : from research to practice and policy. Oxford ;...
Blog Post
My Tears in His Bottle: prayers from the heart of a special needs’ mom
Pat Hays has written a devotional book that gives wonderful insight into the joys and struggles that parenting a child with emotional special needs presents. Her book, My Tears in His Bottle: prayers from the heart of a special needs’ mom , contains excerpts from her personal prayer journal as she worked through the last fifteen years of balancing her calling to be an adoptive parent with the roadblocks she encountered in her neighborhood, friendships, school district, marriage, and church...
Blog Post
New book release “The Trauma Banquet”: The truth about how to overcome adversity
I am a Professor of Clinical Psychology at The University of Queensland, Australia. I recently released my memoir “The Trauma Banquet”. In this book I share about my ACEs and how I learnt to be resilient in the context of their enduring pervasive echoes. I have been practicing psychology for almost 40 years and I have engaged thousands of clients in psychotherapy. As a full professor I have also been teaching psychology and conducting research, which has focused on building resilience in the...
Blog Post
Self Help: More Than Just a Good Book
I have written before about how I was a self-help book addict. I read every book I could find, re-reading several of them and even going as far as getting them on audiobook so I could re-listen to them hundreds of times. I did this because I absolutely believed in their base principles, and, frankly, I needed a constant reminder. I would listen — and would feel good for 10 to 30 minutes afterwards. But, then life would happen; I would forget everything I learned and I would be right back to...
Blog Post
Shattered By The Darkness: Powerful book by a humble man on a mission to prevent what happened to him from happening to other children.
Gregory Williams, PhD, will help change the world by taking this book into medical schools and teaching physicians and nurses about the root cause of most adult illness: childhood trauma. I just read this book in one sitting, save one hot tea refill. I could not stop reading it. Even though there were some passages that evoked anxiety, I couldn’t stop reading it, as I so wanted to learn more about this remarkable man and how he earned a PhD, had a normal family life, and earned the respect...
Blog Post
Short Video to Explain Why Puberty Can Make "Just say 'No'" Difficult
Interestingly, it is brain developmental processes occurring during puberty that make "just say 'no'" difficult for tweens and teens. As I mention in the video, there is more on this in my upcoming book - 10th Anniversary Edition If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! - which is now available for pre-ordering on Amazon at https://tinyurl.com/yyg3lxgc .
Blog Post
Teachers’ Guide to Trauma: 20 Things Kids with Trauma Wish Their Teachers Knew
by Dr. Melissa Sadin and Nathan Levy with Theo Sadin “Teachers’ Guide to Trauma is full of insights and each insight is flawlessly aligned with good teaching practices. There’s a tenderness to the book which makes you keep returning to its pages-not unlike the tenderness a teacher feels each time she helps a student succeed.”- Susan E. Craig, Ph.D. Author of Reaching and Teaching Children Who Hurt , Trauma Sensitive Schools: Learning Communities Transforming Children’s Lives , and...
Blog Post
The Body Keeps The Score (Bessel van der Kolk, MD)
FINALLY IT IS HERE!!!!!! Got mine by Amazon yesterday and on my Nook after midnight on the 25th. Been reading it straight through!!! This is an awesome book to cut through all the stuff that will likely not work and it tells...
Blog Post
The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity (Dr. Nadine Burke Harris)
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris was already known as a crusading physician delivering targeted care to vulnerable children. But it was Diego - a boy who had stopped growing after a sexual trauma - who galvanized her to dig deeper into the connections between toxic stress and the lifelong illnesses she was tracking among so many of her patients and their families. A survey of more than 17,000 adult patients' "adverse childhood experiences", or ACEs, like divorce, substance abuse, or neglect, had...
Blog Post
The Healing Place Podcast - Sarah Peyton: Your Resonant Self
Sarah Peyton, Certified Trainer of Nonviolent Communication and neuroscience educator, integrates brain science and the use of resonant language to heal trauma. She brings together depth work and self-compassion that integrate relational neuroscience with the transformative potential of language. She teaches and lectures internationally, and is the author of the book 'Your Resonant Self: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing.
Blog Post
The Healing Place Podcast - Shenandoah Chefalo: Garbage Bag Suitcase
What a delightful conversation Teri Wellbrock engaged in with the passionate and compassionate Shenandoah Chefalo, author of "Garbage Bag Suitcase: A Memoir" and faculty member of The Center for Trauma Resilient Communities. They dove into the depths of: the healing work of Crossnore and The Center for Trauma Resilient Communities; growing up in the foster care system; trauma-brain; 3 proven resilience-building factors; compassion approaches; and why they dislike tomatoes!
Reply
Re: The Trauma of Everyday Life by Epstein (2013)
Hello Chris, Thank you so very much for posting this. And all of your many thoughtful findings posted everywhere! " The way out of pain is through it." You said it, and how. I had a similar experience to that which Epstein describes when I did the somatic exercises in Peter A. Levine's book "Healing Trauma." My whole body exploded and I spent the six months or so punching my way out of deep infant brain-stem level survival grief [ at the gym :) ]. Then as the anxiety embedded in my cells got...
Comment
Re: Thank You For Your Service (2 minutes - CreativeChaos)
War trauma may be the trigger and not the primary cause. Some years ago I was on a government committee to look into why there was so much PTSD in Gulf War 1 when there were only 170 hours of ground combat, GW1 being all aerial bombardment. I remembered from my days as an Army doctor how the Army was a wonderful metaphor for a supportive family, especially if you didn't have one. GW1 was also the first time an all-volunteer Army was put in the field, the Draft having been discontinued. There...
Comment
Re: Thank You For Your Service (2 minutes - CreativeChaos)
I completely agree with this important point and think it's unfortunate that you didn't have the opportunity to finish the study at that time.
Blog Post
Paperback Release of The Angel and the Assassin: The Tiny Brain Cell that Changed the Course of Medicine
When I sat down in my attic to write THE ANGEL AND THE ASSASSIN: The Tiny Brain Cell that Changed the Course of Medicine , I never imagined that it would be so needed in our world! 2020 has been chock-full of adversity, uncertainty and distress on so many levels: the worst pandemic in a hundred years, millions facing economic uncertainty, global climate change, and mounting political discord. The past decade has been a golden era in brain research, one in which scientists have offered...
Reply
Re: Early Reader Chapter Book To Teach Kids Resilience: Milo and the Wisdom of the Sea
@Gail Kennedy thanks so much for your insight! Will do!
Blog Post
Healing the Hidden Wounds from Childhood: The Promise of Healing, Part II (Glenn R. Schiraldi, Ph.D., Lt. Col., USAR, Ret.)
So many people are struggling with unhealed, hidden wounds from toxic childhood stress. For some the pain is obvious. Others might look outwardly strong, capable, and in control. However, unhealed inner wounds cause needless suffering and can lead to a dizzying array of psychological, medical, and functional problems. This three-part blog discusses the road to recovery. Part I explained “The Principles of Healing.” This part explains why traditional treatments are not usually the best...
Blog Post
PUB DAY: Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows Released Today
December 31, 2021 – Rohan Bullkin and the Shadows , a provocative new picture book by Jamaican poet and Chevening Scholar Juleus Ghunta, has been released today by CaribbeanReads, a St. Kitts-based publishing company. The book follows the title character, Rohan Bullkin on his journey from reluctant to enthusiastic reader. Rohan’s reluctance to read is fuelled by Shadows – manifestations of his adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress. He improves his literacy with the guidance...
Blog Post
Drop Everything and Pick Up this New Trauma Book Immediately—It's That Good
Yesterday I logged onto Goodreads, the website that tracks the books you and your friends are reading, and I noticed that an old college classmate had marked a book "to-read": What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing From Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo. "Ooh a new trauma book?" I thought, my interest piqued. Turns out this book was very new—the newest. It was released on the auspicious 2/2/22, mere days ago. I wondered if her story and insights would be boring since I've been spending at...
Blog Post
Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race (socialjusticebooks.org)
Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race is the book we’ve been waiting for! The team (Megan Madison, Jessica Ralli, and Isabel Roxas) did an incredible thing: they explained race and racism to young children. Not only did they do it in a few pages of a board book, but they also provided guidance to the adults who will read it to children. As soon as you open the book, the reader is greeted with colorful representations of the authors and illustrator, as well as a note on the purpose and...
Blog Post
The Brave and Unbroken Podcast & Mental Health and National Trauma Awareness Month
The month of May recognizes Mental Health Awareness and National Trauma Awareness. On that note, I'd like to share a few resources that I had the honor of participating with that address trauma, abuse and mental health. The Brave and Unbroken Podcast is brand new – recorded in March and aired in April. The other two resources are video clips shared at my You Tube Channel. Please note, I am currently working on my You Tube Channel to share more resources, music and conversation – I have...
Blog Post
An Interesting new book
I thoroughly enjoyed reading "DAMAGED: Childhood Trauma, Adult Illness, and the Need for a Health Care Revolution," (UTP, University of Toronto Press, 2021) a new book by two traditional academic psychiatrists from Canada, Dr. Robert Maunder and Jonathan Hunter. I found the book to be a good read on many levels: It has a clear introduction to ACEs, child maltreatment, child abuse trauma and its lifelong impact and what trauma informed care is. It is a relaxed insight into good, dedicated,...
Blog Post
Survivor Stories with guest Michael Skinner - YouTube
Survivor Stories with guest Michael Skinner - YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIcufSmFCXo&t=33s A thought provoking discussion and insight on healing from trauma and sexual abuse. Presented by Ask A Sex Abuse Survivor - Amplifying survivor voices worldwide "I attended this event, and Michael has a gentle approach to making sexual and physical trauma stories become meaningful and a source of hope." - Jacek_Jack Haciak
Blog Post
The Surviving Spirit Newsletter June 2023
Healing the Mind, Body & Spirit 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 2023 Hi folks, Welcome to the the June issue of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter. It can be read online via this & you can also subscribe -...
Blog Post
Review of “First 60 Days” booklet: Leveraging author’s work and movement could spark revolution to prevent and heal trauma, one precious baby, child, and caregiver at a time.
(This is a review of what I believe is an important new resource for the PACEs [for positive and adverse childhood experiences] science movement. Opinions expressed are my own, and are shared as a parent, advocate, author, and longtime student of trauma, healing, and prevention. Thoughts are also shared through my lens as someone who believes, deeply, in the incredible importance of and value in building healthier, more compassionate communities to support and nurture pregnant and new...
Blog Post
Walk With Me - a song addressing the stigma & discrimination for those labeled, "mentally ill."
“Never judge another man until you have walked a mile in his moccasins.” – Native American Proverb Walk With Me by Michael Skinner - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I5WMypXDn8 [Lyrics posted below] Michael Skinner Music - https://www.mskinnermusic.com/ https://www.mskinnermusic.com/music/album-train-tears/ - scroll down to Track # 7 All of my songs are on Amazon, Spotify, etc...& two minute clips are posted at my website. “Everyone has untold stories of pain and sadness that make them...
