This book enables caregivers working with victims of abuse and violence to add to their knowledge base an understanding of evil and how it works to destroy. Arguing that Rthe worst forms of trauma are the human intentional type", or trauma perpetrated consciously and intentionally by one human being on another, the authors define radical evil, symbolized by Satan, as trauma-inducing acts that are engaged in consciously, for its own sake, in an unapologetic way.
“An essential book” on PTSD, an all-too-common condition in both military veterans and civilians (The New York Times Book Review). Post-traumatic stress disorder afflicts as many as 30 percent of those who have experienced twenty-first-century combat—but it is not confined to soldiers. Countless ordinary Americans also suffer from PTSD, following incidences of abuse, crime, natural disasters, accidents, or other trauma—yet in many cases their symptoms are still shrouded in mystery, secrecy, and shame. This “compulsively readable” study takes an in-depth look at the subject (Los Angeles Times). Written by a war correspondent and former Marine with firsthand experience of this disorder, and drawing on interviews with individuals living with PTSD, it forays into the scientific, literary, and cultural history of the illness. Using a rich blend of reporting and memoir, The Evil Hours is a moving work that will speak not only to those with the condition and to their loved ones, but also to all of us struggling to make sense of an anxious and uncertain time.
If the world seems more violent these days, it's not your imagination—there's far too much aggression, coercion and deceit. And powerful institutions such as corporations and governments are getting better at hiding and rationalizing the harm they do. But it doesn't have to be that way: Trauma Bond: An Inquiry into the Nature of Evil shows how breaking free of the cycle of aggression and violence starts with you, and can start today. When aggression becomes evil, it turns into an extraordinarily dangerous and malignant force that threatens to destroy the planet. This fascinating book demonstrates at length how aggression and evil replicate themselves in the world, and how we can break free from the toxic cycle of psychological and physical violence. We can begin this process today, in order to make this world safer, both for ourselves and for our children. ,
In this groundbreaking book, a leading clinical psychiatrist redefines how we think about and treat victims of trauma. A "stunning achievement" that remains a "classic for our generation." (Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., author of The Body Keeps the Score). Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war. Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most important psychiatry works to be published since Freud," Trauma and Recovery is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand how we heal and are healed.
Combining years of research, teaching, and experience treating trauma survivors, Dr. Jon G. Allen offers compassionate and practical guidance to understanding trauma and its effects on the self and relationships. Coping With Trauma is based on more than a decade of Dr. Allen's experience conducting educational groups for persons struggling with psychiatric disorders stemming from trauma. Written for a general audience, this book does not require a background in psychology. Readers will gain essential knowledge to embark on the process of healing from the complex wounds of trauma, along with a guide to current treatment approaches. In this supportive and informative work, readers will be introduced to and encouraged in the process of healing by an author who is both witness and guide. This clearly written, insightful book not only teaches clinicians about trauma but also, equally important, teaches clinicians how to educate their patients about trauma. Reshaped by recent developments in attachment theory, including the importance of cumulative stress over a lifetime, this compelling work retains the author's initial focus on attachment as he looks at trauma from two perspectives. From the psychological perspective, the author discusses the impact of trauma on emotion, memory, the self, and relationships, incorporating research from neuroscience to argue that trauma is a physical illness. From the psychiatric perspective, the author discusses various trauma-related disorders and symptoms: depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, and dissociative disorders, along with a range of self-destructive behaviors to which trauma can make a contribution. Important updates include substantive and practical information on Emotion and emotion regulation, prompted by extensive contemporary research on emotion -- which is becoming a science unto itself. Illness, based on current developments in the neurobiological understanding of trauma. Depression, a pervasive trauma-related problem that poses a number of catch-22s for recovery. Various forms of self-destructiveness -- substance abuse, eating disorders, and deliberate self-harm -- all construed as coping strategies that backfire. Suicidal states and self-defeating aspects of personality disorders. The author addresses the challenges of healing by reviewing strategies of emotion regulation as well as a wide range of sound treatment approaches. He concludes with a new chapter on the foundation of all healing: maintaining hope. This exceptionally comprehensive overview of a wide range of traumatic experiences, written in nontechnical language with extensive references to both classic and contemporary theoretical, clinical, and research literature, offers a uniquely useful guide for victims of trauma, their family members, and mental health care professionals alike.
Trauma theory has become a burgeoning site of research in recent decades, often demanding interdisciplinary reflections on trauma as a phenomenon that defies disciplinary ownership. While this research has always been challenged by the temporal, affective, and corporeal dimensions of trauma itself, trauma theory now faces theoretical and methodological obstacles given its growing interdisciplinarity. Trauma and Transcendence gathers scholars in philosophy, theology, psychoanalysis, and social theory to engage the limits and prospects of trauma’s transcendence. This volume draws attention to the increasing challenge of deciding whether trauma’s unassimilable quality can be wielded as a defense of traumatic experience against reductionism, or whether it succumbs to a form of obscurantism. Contributors: Eric Boynton, Peter Capretto, Tina Chanter, Vincenzo Di Nicola, Ronald Eyerman, Donna Orange, Shelly Rambo, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Eric Severson, Marcia Mount Shoop, Robert D. Stolorow, George Yancy.
In today's world, trauma and traumatic loss are increasingly common. This book surveys the important constructs, concepts, and dynamics of trauma, loss, grief, and growth, offering resources and strategies that ministers and other spiritual caregivers can use as they support and facilitate people in their journey from trauma recovery to grief work to spiritual growth. The book presents a framework for understanding the interrelationship between trauma recovery work, grief work, and spiritual growth. The author argues that each of these components is essential for a full and complete healing from trauma and traumatic losses and that they work together in the ongoing process of healing. Traumas and traumatic losses are times of "crisis" in the sense that they are turning points in people's lives; people can either grow through the experience or decline under the weight of their unbearable sorrow and anxiety. How people handle traumas and significant losses may be the most important variable in their psychological, relational, and spiritual health. The author gives special attention to describing ways in which God might draw close to the traumatized and bereaved in their process of recovery and healing.
In a time where violence is increasing at an abnormal rate, this book helps address the issues that unravel after traumatic events in order for a community of faith to recover as smoothly as possible.
The Trauma of Doctrine is a theological investigation into the effects of abuse trauma upon the experience of Christian faith, the psychological mechanics of these effects, their resonances with Christian Scripture, and neglected research-informed strategies for cultivating post-traumatic resilience. Paul Maxwell examines the effect that the Calvinist belief can have upon the traumatized Christian who negatively internalizes its superlative doctrines of divine control and human moral corruption, and charts a way toward meaningful spiritual recovery.
A Theology of Traumatic Affect offers theological tools, language, and framework to victims/survivors of trauma and their communities. Seen through the lens of affect theory, the social dimensions of trauma emerge even for individual trauma. Using an interdisciplinary approach, Alice Kim argues that due to interconnectedness of individuals, a communal effort is necessary for trauma work. Living in a different world as imagined by public imagination is possible now with collective planetary engagement of all creatures participating in co-creation.
