Trauma Goes Mainstream
No longer a cultural taboo, there have been a number of celebrity mental health advocates who have opened up about their struggles so that others can feel less alone. Read More
childhood trauma
When Hidden Grief Gets Triggered During COVID-19 Confinement
How to Use These Days to Heal Old Wounds Rather than Reenact Them Our sense of loss during the current COVID-19 crisis can trigger hidden emotions from when we experienced a sense of loss before. Whatever early losses you have had in your life — whether they be your… Read More
Why Loving What You Have Can Feel Scary for Those Who’ve Had Adverse Childhood Experiences
To ring in the New Year, I could quote statistics of how certain feelings benefit your cholesterol levels and pump up your immune system and extend your life by 2.3 years. We could discuss that science has proven that appreciation begets happiness and happiness is healthy. But you’ve already heard… Read More
Trauma’s Rising Public Profile
By Wesley Gallagher Trauma—it’s a big word with many connotations. Terms like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have entered the American lexicon, tied to news of terrorist attacks or stories of combat soldiers. But trauma is something that is experienced in big and small ways by people in all… Read More
How Psychodrama Heals Trauma
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study, touted by Oprah Winfrey as one of the most important studies of our time, has successfully made the connection between emotional and psychological childhood trauma and physical health problems later in life. In other words, what begins in the mind alters the body’s… Read More
The Anxiety of Living with Unresolved Grief
By Tian Dayton, Ph.D., Psychologist, Author, Psychodramatist, Senior Fellow at The Meadows Grief that’s out in the open, part of the natural cycle of life, or part of one of life’s tragic circumstances has a dignity to it. The person experiencing a loss feels that they have a right to… Read More
ACoA’s and Children of Trauma: 7 Things to Be Grateful For
By Tian Dayton Ph.D. How many times have I heard people share that they “do not regret the past”? “Whatever brought me into recovery,” says Sharon M., “has helped me to make such positive life changes that I truly feel appreciated more than resentful, much more in fact. I even… Read More
The Hollower: Childhood Emotional Neglect and Its Effects
Here’s an irony for you: neglect is neglected. In discussions of childhood maltreatment, neglect hovers in the background, included categorically (“abuse and neglect”) but rarely the main focus despite being more prevalent than abuse and just as damaging.[1] The reasons aren’t hard to spot. First, abuse and neglect often occur together,… Read More
Growing Up in the Shadow of Addiction
Children of addicted parents who experience relational trauma can carry the imprint of that pain for the rest of their lives. As adult children of alcoholics (ACoA), we can be perplexed about what we’re healing from and how we should heal it. Many of us think that we can… Read More
Childhood Abuse, Complex Trauma, and Epigenetics
By Fabiana Franco, Ph.D. Epigenetics refers to the study of a natural phenomenon and to the phenomenon itself. Epigenetics is the study of the mechanisms that turn on and… Read More