First, let's consider how our brain functions:
Now, let's look at how our brain functions with trauma and reflect on how a pandemic might impact this:
Having this in mind, we can easily see how students may have a hard time focusing, let alone learning content. Each person experiences trauma in their own way, along a spectrum/range. Something one person is comfortable with, may be a trigger for another. This is why we want to reframe our classrooms to include Trauma-Informed Care.
“Trauma-informed care is a strengths-based framework that is grounded in an understanding of a responsiveness to the impact of trauma, that emphasizes physical, psychological, and emotional safety for both providers and survivors, and that creates opportunities for survivors to rebuild a sense of control and empowerment.” - Hopper, Bassuk, & Olivet, 2010
Further Reading:
Crisis Prevention Institutes' "Trauma-Informed Care Resources Guide" PDF
Exposure to childhood abuse is associated with human sperm DNA methylation, by Andrea L. Roberts, Nicole Gladish, Evan Gatev, et al.
A conversation on Trauma wouldn't be complete without a discussion of ACEs, or Adverse Childhood Experiences. While trauma can occur at any age, ACEs are an early indicator of how we will fair as adults. Watch the video below for a brief background on ACEs from Dr. Nadine Burke Harris.
Curious about your own score? Try out NPR's What's Your ACE Score? interactive.
You can find out more information about ACEs as well as PCEs, or Positive Childhood Experiences, at the links below.
PACEs Connection, formerly ACEs Connection
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's ACE Strategic Plan PDF
Centers for Disease Control and Preventions "We Can Prevent Childhood Adversity" Infographic
The Age of Overwhelm by
Available in library or online.
Whether we are overwhelmed by work or school; our families or communities; caretaking for others or ourselves; or engagement in social justice, environmental advocacy, or civil service, just a few subtle shifts can help sustain us. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, bestselling author of Trauma Stewardship, shows us how by offering concrete strategies to help us mitigate harm, cultivate our ability to be decent and equitable, and act with integrity. The Age of Overwhelm aims to help ease our burden of overwhelm, restore our perspective, and give us strength to navigate what is yet to come.
The Body Keeps the Score by
A pioneering researcher and one of the world's foremost experts on traumatic stress offers a bold new paradigm for healing Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children. Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain's wiring--specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. Based on Dr. van der Kolk's own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy--and a way to reclaim lives.
The Deepest Well by
"An extraordinary, eye-opening book." --People "A rousing wake-up call . . . this highly engaging, provocative book prove[s] beyond a reasonable doubt that millions of lives depend on us finally coming to terms with the long-term consequences of childhood adversity and toxic stress." -- Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow 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 assault -- who galvanized her journey to uncover the connections between toxic stress and lifelong illnesses. The stunning news of Burke Harris's research is just how deeply our bodies can be imprinted by ACEs--adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, and divorce. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems, and lasts a lifetime. For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do, the fascinating scientific insight and innovative, acclaimed health interventions in The Deepest Well represent vitally important hope for preventing lifelong illness for those we love and for generations to come​. "Nadine Burke Harris . . . offers a new set of tools, based in science, that can help each of us heal ourselves, our children, and our world." -- Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed
Equity-Centered Trauma-Informed Education by
Trauma-informed initiatives tend to focus on the challenging behaviors of students and ascribe them to circumstances that students are facing outside of school. This approach ignores the reality that inequity itself causes trauma, and that schools often heighten inequities when implementing trauma-informed practices that are not based in educational equity.In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development. Using a framework of six principles for equity-centered trauma-informed education, Venet offers practical action steps that teachers and school leaders can take from any starting point, using the resources and influence at their disposal to make shifts in practice, pedagogy, and policy. Overthrowing inequitable systems is a process, not an overnight change. But transformation is possible when educators work together, and teachers can do more than they realize from within their own classrooms.
Fostering Resilient Learners by
Grounded in research and the authors' experience working with trauma-affected students and their teachers, Fostering Resilient Learners will help you cultivate a trauma-sensitive learning environment for students across all content areas, grade levels, and educational settings. The authors are --a mental health therapist and a veteran principal--provide proven, reliable strategies.
Heal the Body, Heal the Mind by
Traumatic events can leave mental and physical scars--but these scars don't have to define you. Heal the Body, Heal the Mind takes trauma survivors on a supportive and healing journey toward well-being. By practicing the somatic exercises and mind-body interventions in this compassionate guide, you'll learn to move past difficult experiences, restore relationships, and cultivate spiritual awareness. When trauma occurs, the logical mind is hijacked and physiology takes over in an effort to protect you. This leaves an imprint--your body wants to ensure that nothing like that will ever happen again. Being reminded of a traumatic event can trigger these automatic responses, leaving you feeling paralyzed or unable to take action. This book will help you understand why and how unresolved trauma can infiltrate all aspects of your life, including your mind and body--even when you're not aware of its influence. With Heal the Body, Heal the Mind as a gentle guide, you'll learn about different types of trauma, find helpful assessments, and discover how traumatic experiences--even childhood and incidental traumas--can affect all aspects of your life: your relationship choices, the roles you play in them, your sense of pleasure and desire, and how you approach your career, spirituality, and interactions with others. Using the combination of mind-body interventions, cognitive behavioral theories, research, case studies, and exercises woven into each chapter of this warm-hearted, relatable book, you'll begin to address the unresolved trauma held in your body and advance your healing process. So, if you're ready to move beyond the trauma that's been holding you back in your relationships, at work, and in your spiritual practice, this guide will show you how.
It Didn't Start with You by
It Didn't Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch. Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling- the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains-but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited-that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn't Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author ofThe Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood. As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn't Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn't Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch. Praise for It Didn't Start with You
My Grandmother's Hands by
The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze. My Grandmother’s Hands is a call to action for Americans to recognize that racism is not about the head, but about the body. Author Resmaa Menakem introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide.
Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students by
Traumatic or adverse experiences are pervasive among school-aged children and youth. Trauma undermines students' ability to learn and manage their feelings, behavior, and relationships. Meanwhile, school-based professionals often struggle with responding to the complex needs of traumatized students within the typical school day. The second edition of Supporting and Educating Traumatized Students is designed for professionals in mental health and education settings, and combines content and expertise from experts in the fields of education, school psychology, school administration, resilience, and trauma into one comprehensive guide. The book provides a thorough background on current research in trauma and its impact on school functioning; administrative and policy considerations; and a broad set of practical and implementable strategies for adapting instruction, modifying the classroom environments, and building competency for students and staff. New chapters address topics such as post-traumatic growth, interpersonal violence, and trauma screening and assessment among others. Educators can continue to use this updated edition as an ongoing resource, with the ability to quickly and easily access a variety of school-based strategies to help improve educational and social outcomes for traumatized students.
Trauma-Informed Drama Therapy by
This book examines how drama therapists conceptualize and respond to relational and systemic trauma across systems of care including mental health clinics, schools, and communities burdened by historical and current wounds. The chapters in this book offer drama therapists compelling examples of emerging models of trauma-informed drama therapy, as well as offering experienced practitioners the opportunity to question the assumptions made by prevailing paradigms that underlie our practice. The introductory chapters review the influence and history of trauma theory and treatment on drama therapy, followed by two sections: The first presents readers with seven emerging approaches and the second section offers detailed applications to specific populations, ending with a meta-analysis of drama therapy in the treatment of trauma. This ground-breaking book will also be useful for creative arts therapists, mental health professionals, educators, students and for many others interested in the role of the drama and performance in the treatment of trauma.
Trauma Treatment Toolbox by
The latest research from neuroscience and psychotherapy has shown we can rewire the brain to facilitate trauma recovery. Trauma Treatment Toolbox teaches clinicians how to take that brain-based approach to trauma therapy, showing how to effectively heal clients' brains with straightforward, easy-to-implement treatment techniques. Each tool includes a short list of post trauma symptoms, relevant research, application, and clinician tips on how to complete the exercise. Trauma treatment roadmap, based on neuroscience Poses and movement-based techniques Breathing and body-based scripts Cognitive tools Inspiring new strategies Psychoeducational handouts for clients
What Happened to You? by
#1NEW YORK TIMESBESTSELLER Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, andWhat Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand. "Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives."--Oprah Winfrey This book is going to change the way you see your life. Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't Ijust control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question. Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking "What's wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?" Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It's a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it's one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future--opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.
Unbroken: the Trauma Response Is Never Wrong by
A profound new approach to healing trauma, grounded in a radical reframing of how we understand this nearly universal experience For centuries, we've been taught that being traumatized means we are somehow broken--and that trauma only happens to people who are too fragile or flawed to deal with hardship. But as a researcher, teacher, and survivor, Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald has learned that the only thing broken is our society's understanding of trauma. "The body's trauma response is designed to save our lives--and it does," she says. "It's not a sign of weakness, but of our function, strength, and amazing resilience." With Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong, Dr. McDonald overturns the misconceptions about trauma with the latest evidence from neuroscience and psychology--and shares tested practices and tools to help you work with your body's coping mechanisms to accelerate healing. Here, you'll explore: * What is trauma? The latest science that undoes the stigmas of shame, blame, and humiliation * Moral injury--having our basic sense of how the world should work overturned * The truth about triggers--what they really are and how they can guide the healing journey * Traumatic patterns--new findings to help break free from recurring habits and toxic dynamics * Why we can always rewrite our inner narratives, no matter how much time has passed * Finding a "relational home" for trauma--how we can help each other return to wholeness Dr. McDonald's case studies reveal the many ways trauma can manifest and persist in our lives, yet there's one factor every case has in common: the trauma response itself reveals the path to healing. "Our traumatic experiences reveal that we can be bent, dented, or bruised," she says, "but we cannot be broken." For anyone who has gone through trauma or wants to help others who are struggling, here is an empowering resource for finding our way home to our bodies, rebuilding our relationships, and returning to full engagement with life.
The Myth of Normal by
The instant New York Times bestseller By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing. In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really "normal" when it comes to health? Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of "normal" as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today's culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society--and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté's most ambitious and urgent book yet.