Healing the Heart Through the Creative Arts, Education & Advocacy Hope, Healing & Help for Trauma, Abuse & Mental Health “ Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars”. Kahlil Gibran The latest edition of the Surviving Spirit Newsletter is posted at the website - http://newsletters.survivingspirit.com/index.php or here's the PDF -...
People who have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) will oftentimes struggle with low self-esteem . PTSD can directly impact your relationships , disrupt your daily life, and cause depression. PTSD also causes feelings of worthlessness and negative thought patterns that can directly impact how you navigate the world and how you feel about yourself. While PTSD can take months to years to overcome, there are some steps you can take to positively encourage a healthier self-esteem and a...
Have you ever struggled to get past a vague sense of hurt, or a gut-wrenching life experience? People sometimes feel stuck with the same old job, the same pain or fear, or the same daily grind. Maybe, deep down, you feel you’re not good enough, worthy, or capable of a better life. Such self-limiting behaviors may be after-effects of trauma. A therapeutic treatment to heal deep trauma is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, or EMDR . Learn more on Brickel & Associates -->
How often do we hug children or express our love? How to improve relationships with children, to be not just a parent, but also a trusted friend, with whom they feel real closeness? Why relationships are deteriorating When children are very young, up to three years old, they very much feel the emotional state of their mother. If she is tired, irritated, or anxious, the child will be naughty too. Also, at this time, mothers are trying to wean the babies from their hands, and the children do...
By Noelle Marcus, Illustration by Gracia Lam, Stanford Social Innovation Review, March 22, 2021 The policies and resources devoted to housing security for Americans fall devastatingly short of meeting the need. Since 2017, nearly half of renters have spent 30 percent or more of their incomes on housing costs—an unsustainable portion, according to The US Department of Housing and Urban Development. And today, an unprecedented and long-term housing crisis looms, with an estimated 40 million...
Being a parent is hard work that moms and dads do, often without special skills and training. And if you successfully manage to cope with the problems of small children that arise in the family circle, then keep your sanity and respond correctly to the child's experiences, for example, due to the lack of friends in kindergarten, on the street, or at school, sometimes might be challenging. So, for most parents, the life of their child seems successful and happy when a son or daughter is in a...
April 14, 2021 Register for the Webinar The latest ACEs Aware webinar will discuss the physiology of toxic stress and how to apply the science of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress in pediatric care. After completing this webinar, the participant should be better able to: Describe the physiology of toxic stress and the biological changes that may be a pathway to clinical progression of chronic illness related to exposure to ACEs and toxic stress. Apply the physiology of...
NEW WEBINAR DATE TBD The final release of the ACEs Aware Trauma-Informed Network of Care Roadmap has been postponed until later this spring. Therefore, we are postponing our webinar scheduled for March 30, The Trauma-Informed Network of Care Roadmap: A Guide for Strengthening Community Relationships." We will notify you of the new webinar date. In the interim, the ACEs Aware team is working to incorporate all stakeholder feedback into the Network of Care Roadmap. We have also determined that...
All human beings have a tendency to relive trauma even decades after it has ended. Those living with the effects of complex post-traumatic stress disorder tend to ruminate and live their lives in a morass of flashbacks and pain. Mindfulness is an ability that is vital to helping a person heal from traumatic events of the past. It is the ability for a person to be fully present and not overly reactive to what’s going on around us. All Humans Possesses Mindfulness Mindfulness is a quality that...
In recent years, trauma-informed care has become the standard of care in behavioral health, residential treatment, healthcare and K-12 school systems. Now early childhood programs are increasingly becoming trauma-informed in their work with young children and families. As with trauma-informed care in general, there is so much information available on the internet that it can be difficult knowing where to start. Fortunately, The Administration for Children & Families (ACF) has developed...
By David Leonhardt, The New York Times, March 24, 2021 Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, noticed something last year about the Covid-19 television coverage that he was watching on CNN and PBS. It almost always seemed negative, regardless of what was he seeing in the data or hearing from scientists he knew. When Covid cases were rising in the U.S., the news coverage emphasized the increase. When cases were falling, the coverage instead focused on those places where...
By April Dembosky, California Healthline, March 24, 2021 For months, journalists, politicians and health officials — including New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Dr. Anthony Fauci — have invoked the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study to explain why Black Americans are more hesitant than white Americans to get the coronavirus vaccine. “It’s ‘Oh, Tuskegee, Tuskegee, Tuskegee,’ and it’s mentioned every single time,” said Karen Lincoln , a professor of social work at the University of Southern...
By Terry Gross, National Public Radio, March 24, 2021 For people serving time in jail or prison, it may seem like punishment ends on the day of release. But in fact, thousands of restrictions dictate the terms of life after incarceration, too. University of Chicago professor Reuben Jonathan Miller estimates that there are 45,000 "laws, policies and administrative sanctions" in the U.S. that target people with criminal records. Some ban the formerly incarcerated from serving on juries. Others...
By Alyson Sulaski Wyckoff, American Academy of Pediatrics News, March 22, 2021 American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) children and adolescents are a unique and diverse population with multiple health inequities, and pediatricians are in a special position to improve their health and well-being with culturally sensitive care. A new AAP policy statement examines health inequities and barriers to treatment for this population, with recommendations for care and opportunities for advocacy. When...