This book deals with all aspects of severe trauma and stress recovery. It offers tools and techniques to manage triggers, flashbacks or intrusive thoughts, helping survivors of severe trauma and stress to regain control of their lives.The techniques and advice described here are organised into six sections: Triggers; Flashbacks; Unwelcome Thoughts; Dealing with the Lows; Disturbed Sleep; and Living Life to the Full: Meaning and Purpose in Life. Readers can refer to each section and experiment with methods that work best for them.This is a useful guide for survivors of severe trauma and stress, psychotherapists, social workers, counsellors, welfare workers and volunteers in the field.
This book deals with all aspects of severe trauma and stress recovery. It offers tools and techniques to manage triggers, flashbacks or intrusive thoughts, helping survivors of severe trauma and stress to regain control of their lives. The techniques and advice described here are organised into six sections: Triggers; Flashbacks; Unwelcome Thoughts; Dealing with the Lows; Disturbed Sleep; and Living Life to the Full: Meaning and Purpose in Life. Readers can refer to each section and experiment with methods that work best for them. This is a useful guide for survivors of severe trauma and stress, psychotherapists, social workers, counsellors, welfare workers and volunteers in the field.
This book presents the fundamentals of the evidence-based solution-focused brief therapy approach by examining how it was developed, the research that supports it, and the key techniques that enable its effective implementation. Developed originally as a psychotherapeutic approach, the solution-focused approach is now being applied across a wide variety of contexts including psychotherapy and counseling, schools, business, and organisations. This accessible and introductory guide provides a unified description and demonstration of the basic commonalities that characterise, inform, and support its implementation across all these contexts. Readers will acquire a clear understanding of the essentials of the solution-focused approach and how to apply it to everyday life. This book is essential for undergraduate students in courses such as psychotherapy, clinical psychology, and social work. As well as mental health professionals and caregivers seeking to quickly familiarise themselves with the solution-focused approach, and anyone interested in solution-focused and brief therapies.
As a social worker, jail chaplain, and justice advocate, Bethany Dearborn Hiser pushed herself to the brink of burnout—only to discover that she needed the very soul care she was providing to others. Tackling the effects of secondary trauma and burnout, this is a trauma-informed soul care guide for Christians working in high-stress, helping professions.
The Solution Focused Approach with Children and Young People: Current Thinking and Practice brings together leading figures and innovative practitioners from different professions, contexts and countries to provide a unique overview of Solution Focused work with children and young people. Presenting a range of applications in individual, group and community work, it puts the spotlight on diverse fields, exploring how the Solution Focused approach can work in real-world contexts. This book showcases a powerful, engaging approach which helps children and young people find the resources and strengths to manage difficulties and make the most of their lives. It contains interesting case studies, narrative descriptions of original practice, programmes of work developed using Solution Focused principles, and thought-provoking discussions of key elements of practice. With chapters presenting perspectives from coaching, therapy, consultancy and education, and applications including learning assessments, child protection, bereavement, edge of care, and youth offending, the book provides an overview of the current state of practice and provides pointers to potential new developments. The Solution Focused Approach with Children and Young People will help both experienced practitioners and those new to the approach to develop and update their knowledge and skills, as well as introducing them to creative and cutting-edge tools to inspire fresh ideas and thinking. It will be essential reading for Solution Focused practitioners and students, as well as coaches, social workers, school counsellors and mental health professionals working with children and young people.
"I don't think I've ever read a book that paints such a complex and accurate landscape of what it is like to live with the legacy of trauma as this book does, while offering a comprehensive approach to healing." --from the foreword by Bessel van der Kolk A pioneering researcher gives us a new understanding of stress and trauma, as well as the tools to heal and thrive Stress is our internal response to an experience that our brain perceives as threatening or challenging. Trauma is our response to an experience in which we feel powerless or lacking agency. Until now, researchers have treated these conditions as different, but they actually lie along a continuum. Dr. Elizabeth Stanley explains the significance of this continuum, how it affects our resilience in the face of challenge, and why an event that's stressful for one person can be traumatizing for another. This groundbreaking book examines the cultural norms that impede resilience in America, especially our collective tendency to disconnect stress from its potentially extreme consequences and override our need to recover. It explains the science of how to direct our attention to perform under stress and recover from trauma. With training, we can access agency, even in extreme-stress environments. In fact, any maladaptive behavior or response conditioned through stress or trauma can, with intentionality and understanding, be reconditioned and healed. The key is to use strategies that access not just the thinking brain but also the survival brain. By directing our attention in particular ways, we can widen the window within which our thinking brain and survival brain work together cooperatively. When we use awareness to regulate our biology this way, we can access our best, uniquely human qualities: our compassion, courage, curiosity, creativity, and connection with others. By building our resilience, we can train ourselves to make wise decisions and access choice--even during times of incredible stress, uncertainty, and change. With stories from men and women Dr. Stanley has trained in settings as varied as military bases, healthcare facilities, and Capitol Hill, as well as her own striking experiences with stress and trauma, she gives readers hands-on strategies they can use themselves, whether they want to perform under pressure or heal from traumatic experience, while at the same time pointing our understanding in a new direction.
40 simple, brain-changing neuroscience techniques for overcoming trauma. I can’t ever calm down. I am emotionally numb. I can’t stop thinking about what happened. I don’t want to go anywhere. I can’t sleep. If you’ve experienced trauma, you may feel emotionally numb. You may have moments where you can’t “calm down,” or get to sleep. You might replay the traumatic event over in your mind. And you may even isolate yourself from others. You should know that you are not alone. Many people will live through a potentially traumatic event at some point in their lives, and some will even develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If you’re struggling with symptoms, you need effective relief—right now. This workbook can help you find it. In The Traumatic Stress Recovery Workbook, trauma and neuroscience expert Jennifer Sweeton provides forty brain-changing techniques for overcoming PTSD that you can begin using right away to build resilience, boost self-confidence, and develop self-efficacy. You’ll learn what happens in your brain after experiencing trauma, and why it reacts in ways that cause even more distress. You’ll also discover evidence-based strategies grounded in cutting-edge neuroscience to manage psychological and physical—or somatic—symptoms—so you can get back to your life. Using the practical and integrative approach in this workbook, you can address symptoms at your own pace. And by making small lifestyle changes, you’ll carve new neural pathways in your brain and jump-start the healing process.
"The causes of Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder range from severe neglect to monstrous abuse. Many survivors grow up in houses that are not homes-- in families that are as loveless as orphanages and sometimes as dangerous. If you felt unwanted, unliked, rejected, hated and/or despised for a lengthy portion of your childhood, trauma may be deeply ingrained in your mind, soul and body. This book is a practical guide to recovering from lingering childhood trauma. It is copiously illustrated with examples of the author's and his clients' journeys of recovering. It is a comprehensive self-help guide for working through the toxic legacy of the past and for achieving a rich and fulfilling life."--Back cover.
Trauma survivors need to find ways to work through their experiences and get a sense of meaning and understanding is great. While the majority of those who have experienced direct trauma or who have witnessed trauma will heal, even persons who do not develop full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, will experience a number of the symp...