"This complete therapist guide presents an evidence-based program developed over two decades to support resilience and recovery in people who have experienced trauma. Grounded in cognitive-behavioral conceptualizations of trauma, Inner Resources for Stress (IR) weaves mindfulness, mantra repetition, and other meditative practices into nine group sessions. In a convenient large-size format, the book includes assessment guidelines, session agendas, scripts for meditation practices, and a reproducible session-by-session Participant Guide for clients, which purchasers can download and print from the companion website. The website also features audio tracks of the guided practices"--
Post-traumatic stress isn’t your fault. Many people suffer traumatic events, which can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and debilitating symptoms. This evidence-based book delivers easy-to-use mindfulness skills that can be used as needed to alleviate symptoms and promote healing. Some people heal naturally after they experience a traumatic event, but some trauma lasts and can develop into PTSD, with symptoms like depression, anxiety, panic, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping, or losing interest in life. You may find yourself on the sidelines, disengaged from your own life, with little sense of who you are and how to relate to others. The body, heart, and mind are all profoundly affected by trauma; in this way it can live on, causing a serious disconnect and a state of imbalance in which you’re always in survival mode. How do you move on? This book is designed to target the most common symptoms of post-traumatic stress and PTSD, providing mindfulness-based practices to help relieve your symptoms and increase self-compassion. Offering meditations for reconnection with your body, heart, mind, and life, this guide presents a unique, evidence-based way to heal the disconnects and help you re-engage. Instead of getting stuck reliving your trauma or worrying about it happening again, these mindful meditations will ground you in the present moment and enable you to better cope with unpleasant thoughts and feelings as they arise—and then let them go. With Meditations for Healing Trauma, you’ll explore your experience of post-traumatic stress and learn how the healing power of mindfulness can free you from suffering and bring back connection and balance to your life every day. This book will help you cultivate a wise mind and heart for regaining peace and well-being in the present moment—anytime, anyplace.
"[A] rare combination of solid scholarship, clinically useful methods, and passionate advocacy for those who have suffered trauma." —Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom From elementary schools to psychotherapy offices, mindfulness meditation is an increasingly mainstream practice. At the same time, trauma remains a fact of life: the majority of us will experience a traumatic event in our lifetime, and up to 20% of us will develop posttraumatic stress. This means that anywhere mindfulness is being practiced, someone in the room is likely to be struggling with trauma. At first glance, this appears to be a good thing: trauma creates stress, and mindfulness is a proven tool for reducing it. But the reality is not so simple. Drawing on a decade of research and clinical experience, psychotherapist and educator David Treleaven shows that mindfulness meditation—practiced without an awareness of trauma—can exacerbate symptoms of traumatic stress. Instructed to pay close, sustained attention to their inner world, survivors can experience flashbacks, dissociation, and even retraumatization. This raises a crucial question for mindfulness teachers, trauma professionals, and survivors everywhere: How can we minimize the potential dangers of mindfulness for survivors while leveraging its powerful benefits? Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness offers answers to this question. Part I provides an insightful and concise review of the histories of mindfulness and trauma, including the way modern neuroscience is shaping our understanding of both. Through grounded scholarship and wide-ranging case examples, Treleaven illustrates the ways mindfulness can help—or hinder—trauma recovery. Part II distills these insights into five key principles for trauma-sensitive mindfulness. Covering the role of attention, arousal, relationship, dissociation, and social context within trauma-informed practice, Treleaven offers 36 specific modifications designed to support survivors’ safety and stability. The result is a groundbreaking and practical approach that empowers those looking to practice mindfulness in a safe, transformative way.
Grounded in research and accumulated clinical wisdom, this book describes a range of ways to integrate mindfulness and other contemplative practices into clinical work with trauma survivors. The volume showcases treatment approaches that can be tailored to this population's needs, such as mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), and mindful self-compassion (MSC), among others. Featuring vivid case material, the book explores which elements of contemplative traditions support recovery and how to apply them safely. Neurobiological foundations of mindfulness-oriented work are examined. Treatment applications are illustrated for specific trauma populations, such as clients with chronic pain, military veterans, and children and adolescents.
Dissociation, Mindfulness, and Creative Meditations explores the potential of mindfulness and explains why this level of developmental human achievement is so precarious within traumatic stress, especially traumatic dissociation. Chapters discuss the connection and disconnection between mindfulness and dissociative disorders and highlight the importance of gently creating a mindfulness practice for traumatized individuals. Readers will learn how to exercise the part of the brain that is responsible for mindfulness and how to regulate the part that is responsible for dissociation, and they’ll come away from the book with tips that will help even the most dissociative client to reap the benefits of mindfulness practices.
Why mindfulness-based interventions for PTSD? -- Mindfulness-based interventions for selected consequences of trauma -- Practical considerations for offering MBIs to people with trauma histories -- Reflections on teaching specific mindfulness practices -- Moving forward.
Many of us have experienced a traumatic event in our lives, whether in childhood or adulthood. This trauma may be emotional, or it may cause intense physical pain. In some cases, it can cause both. Studies have shown that compassion and mindfulness based interventions can help people suffering from trauma to experience less physical and emotional pain in their daily lives. What’s more, many long-time yoga and meditation teachers have a history of teaching these practices to their clients with successful outcomes. In Yoga for Emotional Trauma, a psychotherapist and a meditation teacher present a yogic approach to emotional trauma by instructing you to apply mindful awareness, breathing, yoga postures, and mantras to their emotional and physical pain. In the book, you’ll learn why yoga is so effective for dealing with emotional trauma. Yoga and mindfulness can transform trauma into joy. It has done so for countless millions. The practices outlined in this book will teach you how to use and adapt the ancient practices and meditations of yoga for your own healing. Drawing upon practices and philosophy from eastern wisdom traditions, and texts such as the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the Bagavad Gita, and the Buddhist Sutras, this book will take you on a journey into wholeness, one that embraces body, mind and spirit. Inside, you will discover the lasting effect that trauma has on physiology and how yoga resets the nervous system. Combining yogic principles, gentle yoga postures, and mindfulness practices, this book filled with sustenance and practical support that will move you along your own healing path.
For the clinician who wishes to share the transformational practice of mindfulness with youth who’ve been adversely impacted by trauma. Mindfulness has grown in popularity exponentially over the past two decades, and many educators, therapists, and other youth professionals are asked to teach mindfulness in a variety of public settings: schools, detention centers, and other systems of care. Many of these youths are impacted by trauma. Through practical methods and real- world examples, Sam Himelstein offers a clear conceptual understanding for why mindfulness may help youth impacted by trauma, explanation about when and how to adapt mindfulness meditations, and practical “mini- modules” for presenting and teaching mindfulness via a trauma- informed lens. This book presents specific guidelines about teaching mindfulness within a relationship- based framework for building the therapeutic alliance and aiding other psychotherapy interventions. Case examples illuminate common experiences that arise with trauma-impacted youth, and detailed descriptions of exercises and curricula are provided. This book is a must for therapists who wish to share mindfulness with trauma-impacted youth.
An indispensable resource for mental health professionals, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for the Treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Trauma-Related Problems offers a practical and accessible yet theoretically complete approach to using the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and acute trauma-related symptoms.
The life-changing guide to finding freedom from our self-doubt through the revolutionary practice of Radical Acceptance from the renowned meditation teacher, psychologist, and author—now revised and updated with a new introduction and an in-depth guide to the author’s signature mindfulness techniques. “Radical Acceptance offers us an invitation to embrace ourselves with all our pain, fear, and anxieties, and to step lightly yet firmly on the path of understanding and compassion.”—Thich Nhat Hanh “Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,” says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, in addictions and perfectionism, in loneliness and overwork—all the forces that keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled. Radical Acceptance offers a path to freedom, including the day-to-day practical guidance developed over Dr. Brach’s forty years of work with therapy clients and Buddhist students. Writing with great warmth and clarity, Tara Brach brings her teachings alive through personal stories and case histories, fresh interpretations of Buddhist tales, and guided meditations. Step by step, she shows us how we can stop being at war with ourselves and begin to live fully every precious moment of our lives.
