TraumaInformedMD.com, a New Website for Professionals and Parents

Thank you, Dr. Shamblin, for starting traumainformedmed.com.

In an effort to promote positive parenting and prevent adverse childhood experiences consider making use of Advancing Parenting’s fifty-three parenting norms bumper stickers.   Parenting messages on vehicles will be read thousands of times by thousands of people of all ages for years to come...a unique and powerful way to get quality parenting information out to the community.  Sets of the stickers can be put in holders and placed on counters and tables in doctors’ offices, agencies, schools, and businesses so patients, parents, customers, and clients can choose one or more for their cars. 

They can also be made available to attendees at events and meetings. The best strategy is to have them laid out on three tables... and it does take three tables!  Tell the attendees that they may choose one or two for their car(s). Handing them out doesn't work as well. Some folks don't put stickers on their cars and everyone who wants one will appreciate the opportunity to make their own choice.

Visit advancingparenting.org for more information. 

I’m really happy to see all the positives out of this work on getting doctors to be “trauma-informed” (though I’m still not sure exactly what a trauma informed doctor is)  like folks affected by trauma no longer having their experiences dismissed as unimportant and unrelated to current symptomatology as readily as in the past.... 

It would be really helpful if doctors got together to push for advancement into research on  better means of prevention - such as supporting the parent-infant dyad in WCC’s, maybe in obstetrics and much better and available treatments for common things like post-pardem depression  as just one example and if there is going to be universal screening, well —— 

What are the positives and the negatives of doing this when we don’t yet have the resources to treat adequately in many places? I think David Finkelhor has some concerns and he is an important figure in child abuse and neglect circles.  

It is also going to be really important to advocate for methods of diagnosis and treatment that really work and are much more widely available. 

I had access to NMT evaluation, but then didn’t have access to the recommended therapies for at least one of my complexly traumatized kids - the only one I could get NMT for.    I know this problem is an issue for many kids. They have such ingrained complex trauma that they need complex individual and family interventions and therapies.   If we are going to make the move to screen all kids and parents, we take on the responsibility for advocating for the extensive resources that are going to be needed to treat the kids and parents. We take on the responsibility to offer treatments that help and don’t harm... Right? 

It would seem to me then that everything we know should be on the table... looking at Neurofeedback, Biofeedback, Meditation, Mindfulness, Yoga, Exercise, Sports Teams, Expressive Arts, Marching Band...mentalization, Schema, Somatosensory, Transference-Based...All the concepts of structural and other complex dissociation phenomenon (and many negative ACE screens will appropriately come from dissociated parents who could never answer an ACE screen honestly w/o experiencing more trauma),  different developmental models - I really like the DMM - strategies to manage danger through the lifespan, NMT, the personality disorders... how do these begin their development in infancy....how does the self actually develop; what keeps the self from developing in a healthy manner after exposure to severe polyvictimazation and attachment trauma and even the validity of the DSM itself and medication management.  What are we actually treating with all those meds?  

It should all be on the table.  

Doc education needs to be revamped to learn how brain structures are affected by maltreatment and how this affects behaviors including behaviors associated with what may have been considered genetic brain-based conditions in the past like ADHD... but now that we know more about how early childhood trauma causes the same symptoms.. maybe many cases aren’t really ADHD... that would mean evaluating whether the way we prescribe stimulants (and all psychotropic medications) to the developing brain needs to be changed... does what we do now harm children’s developing brain even more?  Do we even know? ..Do we even have the right diagnosis available to offer to symptomatic traumatized kids that truly encapsulates their experiences; we all know that diagnosis drives treatment development.... and certainly medical education - we need to be taught about infant and child development from an infant mental health and truly developmental perspective from the experts across the world; they do exist.   That does not happen now. 

If childhood trauma gets subsumed into the medical model as it currently functions in most places across the US, how well will that work out for kids and families and the greater society?  Will pediatricians be able to strongly and confidently say,  I Know I Did No Harm? 

Where is the ACEs in obstetrics and psychiatry communities on ACEsConnection?   If they are here... I apologize for my ignorance in advance... Will other fields relinquish some of their power if that means developing different treatments that are actually effective and not harmful?  Will other disciplines let go of treatments and models that make traumatized kids and families worse? 

Just a few thoughts. I would love to hear doctors have an out in the open conversation about these concerns and so many more that ultimately affect us all as everyone has an interest in improving outcomes for traumatized children.   I ask all these questions because I know my responsibility is to put kids first always. 

Thank you