Trauma Tragedy Therapy

Stephen K. Levine's new book explores the nature of traumatic experience and the therapeutic role of the arts and arts therapies in responding to it. It suggests that by re-imagining painful and tragic experiences through art-making, we may release their fixity and negative hold on our lives and resist the temptation to assume the role of the victim. Among the many concerns that the book addresses is the damage done by the tendency to adopt stock methods of understanding and superficial explanations for the depths, complexities, wonders, and exasperations of human experience. The book explores the chaos and fragmentation inherent in both art and human existence and the ways in which memory and imagination can find meaning by acknowledging this chaos and embodying it in appropriate forms. The book builds on the important theories of Stephen K. Levine's previous book, Poiesis: The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul, also published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. It challenges dominant psychological perspectives on trauma and provides a new framework for arts therapists, psychotherapists, psychologists and social scientists to understand the effectiveness of the arts therapies in responding to human suffering.

Stephen K. Levine's new book explores the nature of traumatic experience and the therapeutic role of the arts and arts therapies in responding to it. It suggests that by re-imagining painful and tragic experiences through art-making, we may release their fixity and negative hold on our lives and resist the temptation to assume the role of the victim. Among the many concerns that the book addresses is the damage done by the tendency to adopt stock methods of understanding and superficial explanations for the depths, complexities, wonders, and exasperations of human experience. The book explores the chaos and fragmentation inherent in both art and human existence and the ways in which memory and imagination can find meaning by acknowledging this chaos and embodying it in appropriate forms. The book builds on the important theories of Stephen K. Levine's previous book, Poiesis: The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul, also published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. It challenges dominant psychological perspectives on trauma and provides a new framework for arts therapists, psychotherapists, psychologists and social scientists to understand the effectiveness of the arts therapies in responding to human suffering.

The Trauma Story is at the heart of the medical and mental health care of persons who have survived violence. Over the past 30 years the Harvard Program in Refugee Trauma (HPRT) has cared for over 10,000 sufferers of extreme violence. HPRT through its scientific research has discovered the four major dimensions of the Trauma Story: 1) The "brutal" facts. 2) Cultural meaning of trauma. 3) Revelation. 4) Listener-Storyteller relationship that exist in all trauma narratives. The importance of the Trauma Story as an element of "self-healing" has also been revealed. The TSAT is a new journal approach for eliciting the trauma story and building on the survivor's resiliency. The TSAT allows the listener to enter into an empathic dialog and discover their implications of their story for healing. This approach emerged from the new book Healing Invisible Wounds: Path to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World. The TSAT can be used by all health care and mental health practitioners.

Post-traumatic stress disorder — aka PTSD or simply "trauma" — is a growing problem, with adults and children today affected by threats of terror; combat in the Middle East; and social, economic, and personal crises. It is a hidden disease affecting ten percent of the population — many whether they know it or not. This book explains how PTSD arises, how to recognize its effects, and how to stabilize and recover from it, focusing on three areas: how to cope, how to help children and other loved ones, and how to recover happiness. Based on 18 years of field experience and practice, the author provides specific suggestions for handling trauma reactions like anger, anxiety, and withdrawal; discusses how to work through long-term effects; and includes numerous case examples and guidelines for self-help. Accessible and timely, his book speaks to healthcare professionals, military families, and anyone seeking coping strategies in the current world climate.

Case studies show how various personal, social, and protective factors can override seemingly unbearable trauma. Rather than addressing what goes wrong when people are traumatized, Survivors: What We Can Learn from How They Cope with Horrific Tragedy takes a positivist approach. Filled with stories of people who overcame seemingly unbearable events, the book examines the details of their traumas to explain what combination of factors enabled them to thrive despite their experiences. Survivors studies men and women, adults and children, Americans and those from other lands. It encompasses victims of the Nazi Holocaust, survivors of spinal injury, victims of violent crime, adult victims of child abuse, and survivors of the Rwandan genocide. Author Gregory K. Moffatt, a psychologist and counselor, looks at all of these cases in the light of research regarding post-traumatic growth and clinical implications. He explains the combination of social context and protective and personal factors identified as prime agencies for resilience, drawing lessons that can prepare us, not only for extreme trauma, but to deal with the everyday traumas that affect us all.

To her surprise, dismay, and eventually relief, Mary Armstrong, a therapist with over thirty years of experience helping people heal from childhood trauma, uncovered her own history of child sexual abuse at the hands of her grandfather and father. As she tells her harrowing but heroic tale, she casts light as never before on the issue of repressed memories and the invisible wounds left by childhood trauma.

We live in the "New Age of Anxiety." Today we are all challenged by global warming, terrorism, job loss, and economic uncertainty. This stress lowers our resilience and we feel vulnerable. When personal crises and disasters get added to the mix the results can be traumatic. How do we cope? What actions can we take to best respond? How do we help our children, or the children in our care? How can we reestablish meaning in our lives? Using strategies learned and developed during 18 years on the frontlines, Dr. Johnson shows people how to manage their emotional reactions in an emergency, stabilize those around them, and gradually work through the lasting effects of crisis.

Victor Volkman has created a tool that takes the mystery out of one of the more remarkably effective clinical procedures in a way that can help millions of people revitalize and improve their lives. To those desperate people who have experienced trauma or tragedy, this process is a pathway to dealing with their feelings and getting on with their lives. In the new book Beyond Trauma, Conversations on Traumatic Incident Reduction Volkman presents a series of conversations with a wide range of people from many different backgrounds and experiences. Each provides his or her perspective on Traumatic Incident Reduction, or TIR for short. The book explains the techniques used by professionals and patients to help people sort out, resolve and overcome the negative effects of painful suffering. Untold countless people have to deal with trauma in a wide variety of situations: Soldiers who experience war or injury, families dealing with death, chemical or substance abuse, parental neglect, child or sexual abuse, terrorism, crime and punishment. Beyond Trauma: Conversations on Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR), is unique in that it addresses both people suffering from the effects of traumatic stress and the practitioners who help them. This method has been effective in dealing with many areas of trauma, including Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), in such diverse groups as veterans, children, 9/11 survivors, motor vehicle accident and sexual abuse survivors. TIR is a brief, one-on-one, non-hypnotic, person-centered, simple, and highly structured method for permanently eliminating the negative effects of past traumas. Contributors include world-renowned experts in traumatology including Windy Dryden, Ph.D., Joyce Carbonell, Ph.D., and TIR's developer Frank A. Gerbode, M.D. Beyond Trauma highlights stories of TIR helping survivors to regain control of their lives. This book will be life changing not only for survivors of traumatic incidents but also for the professionals committed to helping them. "Not in 30+ years of practice have I used a more remarkably effective clinical procedure." --Robert H. Moore, Ph.D. What people are saying about this book: . "Beyond Trauma: Conversations on Traumatic Incident Reduction is an excellent resource to begin one's mastery in this area of practice." --Michael G. Tancyus, LCSW, DCSW, Augusta Behavioral Health . "I have found Beyond Trauma to be EXCEPTIONALLY HELPFUL in understanding and practicing TIR in broad and diverse areas of practice, not just in traditional trauma work. The information from various points of view is really priceless." --Gerry Bock, Registered Clinical Counsellor, B.C. Canada . "Beyond Trauma offers PTSD sufferers a glimpse at a light at the end of the tunnel, while providing mental health workers with a revolutionary technique that could increase their success rate with traumatized clients" --Jeni Mayer, Body Mind Spirit Magazine . "Having read the book, I feel that I have already become better at working with distressed clients." -- Bob Rich, Ph.D.