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Books! Educational Videos! Documentaries!

Here's a place where you can review books, educational dvds and documentaries that relate to ACE concepts or trauma-informed practices. "Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world." ~ Nelson Mandela

Tagged With "Abuse Mental Health"

Blog Post

Wheeling to Healing.....Broken Heart On A Bicycle

James Encinas ·
To ride a bicycle across the United States—Los Angeles to New Jersey—takes courage, a mission, and stamina. I did it twice. The first trip, during my mid-twenties, was done in hurt and fueled by anger. The second, at age 56, was done in the pursuit of healing self and others by collecting stories of other experiences of trauma and healing, dispensing information about human resilience, and sharing a deep belief in the power all people have to engage with and be enlightened by the process of...
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When Silence Reigns Help Yourself Through Expressive/Therapeutic Writing

Janie Lancaster ·
The pain and darkness of adverse childhood experience gave birth to this book as well as my research and empathy for others with similar experience. We ACEs are often told what to do but not how to do it. This book shows my arduous journey of...
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Why I believe Gregory Williams, and his book, Shattered By The Darkness, will help save lives and revolutionize healthcare.

Carey Sipp ·
When you first hear about it, it sounds unlikely, fact that something that happened to someone in utero, at the age of two months, or four years, or any time in childhood, is what is killing them as an adult, or making them want to die, or making them want to hurt themselves or others. Yet the connection between childhood trauma and adult disease, mental illness, addiction, suicide, violence – most all of society’s ills – is as irrefutable as the myriad truths revealed about it in the...
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Why Intentionally Building Empathy Is More Important Now Than Ever (kqed.org)

Those in helping professions like teaching, social work, or medicine can buffer themselves from burnout and “compassion fatigue” with self-care strategies, including meditation and social support . A study of nurses in acute mental health settings found staff support groups helped buffer the nurses, but only if they were structured to minimize negative communication and focused on talking about challenges in constructive ways. English Professor Cris Beam also studies empathy and wrote a book...
Blog Post

Your Survival Instinct Is Killing You: Retrain Your Brain to Conquer Fear and Build Resilience

Jill Karson ·
Jane Stevens posted a descriptive blurb about this title, How Your Survival Instinct Is Killing You , back in January, and I thought, “Why the heck not?” After all, I read everything I can get my hands on, searching for that magic elixir that will fix the feeling that I’ve called by many names over the years: Despair. Fear. Hole in the soul. Nameless dread. Whatever you want to call it, some of you with a high ACE score might know what I’m talking about. (I also experienced a very traumatic...
Ask the Community

A Life Course Approach to Mental Disorders by Koenen, et al. (2013)

Chris Engel ·
Available as e-book. A Life Course Approach to Mental Disorders examines the interplay of social and biological factors in the production of a wide range of mental disorders throughout life, from the peri-natal period through to old age. The aging...
Ask the Community

Becoming Trauma Informed - edited by Nancy Poole and Lorraine Graves

Jane Stevens ·
Becoming Trauma Informed  describes trauma-informed practice at the individual, organizational and systemic levels. The editors and authors bring unique perspectives from various settings and from the diverse groups with which they work, sharing...
Ask the Community

Can Trauma-Informed Mermaids Help Children & Families? (New Kids Book Series)

Sarah E Clark ·
Dear ACEs Books Community, We just launched a new trauma-informed children's book series called Venus and Her Fly Trip . The series has been developed in collaboration with therapists, educators, parents and healers and is designed to promote mental/social/emotional health, body positivity and imaginative play in kids 4-10 , with the ultimate goal of preventing self-hatred. I would greatly value hearing the feedback of the ACEs community on this endeavor, and welcome your ideas for how to...
Ask the Community

Collaborating with Kinship Caregivers

Chris Engel ·
CWLA is delighted to announce the publication of its most recent kinship care resource, Collaborating with Kinship Caregivers: A Research-to-Practice, Competency-Based Training Program for Child Welfare Workers and Their Supervisors. More than 20...
Ask the Community

Cracked : why psychiatry is doing more harm than good by Davies (2013)

Chris Engel ·
"Why is psychiatry such big business? Why are so many psychiatric drugs prescribed - 47 million antidepressant prescriptions in the UK alone last year - and why, without solid scientific justification, has the number of mental disorders risen from 106...
Ask the Community

Creating Sanctuary: Toward the Evolution of Sane Societies, Revised Edition - Sandra L. Bloom (2013)

Chris Engel ·
Creating Sanctuary is a description of a hospital-based program to treat adults who had been abused as children and the revolutionary knowledge about trauma and adversity that the program was based upon. This book focuses on the biological,...
Ask the Community

Destroying sanctuary : the crisis in human service delivery systems by SL Bloom, BJ Farragher (2011)

Chris Engel ·
"For the last thirty years, the nation's mental health and social service systems have been under relentless assault, with dramatically rising costs and the fragmentation of service delivery rendering them incapable of ensuring the safety, security,...
Ask the Community

Disaster, Disease and Distress: Resources to Promote Psychological Health and Resilience in Military and Civilian Communities by CSTS (2013)

Chris Engel ·
The Center for the Study of Traumatic Stress at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences here has just published a new book titled, “ Disaster, Disease and Distress: Resources to Promote Psychological Health and Resilience in...
Ask the Community

Encyclopedia of Trauma: An Interdisciplinary Guide by Charles Figley (2012)

Chris Engel ·
"Trauma is defined as a sudden, potentially deadly experience, often leaving lasting, troubling memories. Traumatology (the study of trauma, its effects, and methods to modify effects) is exploding in terms of published works and expanding in terms of...
Ask the Community

Essentials of Correctional Nursing by Schoenly & Knox, 2013

Chris Engel ·
" Nurses have been described as the backbone of correctional health care. Yet the complex challenges of caring for this disenfranchised population are many. Ethical dilemmas around issues of patient privacy and self-determination abound, and the...
Ask the Community

Greening in the Red Zone by Tidball & Krasny (Eds) (Aug. 2013)

Chris Engel ·
Makes a first foray into the intriguing and potentially important field of "greening" Paints a comprehensive picture of how greening might be useful after major disasters Gathers renowned experts and practitioners from around the world Creation and...
Blog Post

Mistreated: Why we think we're getting good health care and why we usually are wrong. The connection to Adverse Childhood Events

robert pearl ·
Mistreated: Why we think we are getting good health care and why we usually are wrong and the connection to Adverse Childhood Events   Over the past two years, I have written a column for Forbes. On several occasions, I have highlighted the medical consequences of Adverse Childhood Events (ACE's) and Intimate Partner Violence (IPV). The data is clear. Both if not recognized and treated produce negative health care outcomes. Both are very prevalent and asking about each should be standard for...
Blog Post

My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Sylvia Paull ·
I’ve just finished reading the third volume of My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard, a Norwegian whose six-volume memoir recounts in minute detail his traumatic experiences as a child and later as a husband and father of four. The fourth volume...
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Nadine Burke Harris debuts "The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity" in Philadelphia

Jane Stevens ·
Dr. Nadine Burke Harris debuted her book, The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity , at the Philadelphia Free Library this evening in a talk and book signing. This first stop in an ambitious book tour that crisscrosses the country reflects a mission that Burke Harris has pursued for nearly a decade: to spread the knowledge about the science of adverse childhood experiences, and about how people can use this knowledge to help solve our most intractable problems.
Blog Post

New Book: Crazy Was All I Ever Knew By Alice M. Kenny (pseudonym)

Alice Kenny ·
To this day, I still think of my childhood home as "the crazy house." Like me, millions of adult Americans are living with the effects of the precarious childhoods they experienced as offspring of mentally ill parents. If you are one of them, you can no doubt relate to my book. As a child, you most likely lived in a crazy house of your own. As an adult, you’ve probably retained and may even relive memories of your tumultuous upbringing. Crazy Was All I Ever Knew combines memoir with...
Blog Post

New book explores storytelling and resilience.

Laura King ·
“Run,” he would shout. On two legs, I couldn’t match the speed of a terrified calf or steer, but I was plenty fast, especially in a sprint, so I’d launch myself across the gravel in front of our trailer while my father stood about ten yards behind me twirling his rope.
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New book release “The Trauma Banquet”: The truth about how to overcome adversity

Kenneth Pakenham ·
I am a Professor of Clinical Psychology at The University of Queensland, Australia. I recently released my memoir “The Trauma Banquet”. In this book I share about my ACEs and how I learnt to be resilient in the context of their enduring pervasive echoes. I have been practicing psychology for almost 40 years and I have engaged thousands of clients in psychotherapy. As a full professor I have also been teaching psychology and conducting research, which has focused on building resilience in the...
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New documentary focuses on trauma faced by first-responders (sandiegouniontribune.com)

“Keeping the Peace,” a new documentary that recently premiered at the University of San Diego, brings to light the trauma often faced by first responders and encourages police officers, firefighters and others in the field to seek counseling when dealing with emotional issues. They’ve lost colleagues to suicide, had people die in their arms, seen horrifying injuries and had to tell family members about a loved one’s death. It takes a toll on law enforcement officers, firefighters and other...
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New film rethinking incarceration for women in Canada

Elizabeth Perry ·
A new documentary film has recently been released called Conviction. It is self-described as A COLLABORATIVE DOCUMENTARY FILM THAT ENVISIONS ALTERNATIVES TO PRISON THROUGH THE EYES OF WOMEN BEHIND BARS I've recently seen the film and highly recommend it. The content is Canadian, but no doubt the issues the women deal with are universal.
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New Intervention Fact Sheet: Parent-Child Care [nctsn.org]

Gail Kennedy ·
A 7-page fact sheet describing Parent-Child Care (PC-CARE) is now available. A dyadic psychotherapeutic intervention for enhancing the caregiver-child relationship and making behavior management more effective, PC-CARE combines teaching and coaching on how trauma exposure affects children’s mental health. Caregivers can be biological parents, relative caregivers, resource parents, grandparents, nannies, or anyone caring for a child. While caregivers play with the child, therapists coach...
Blog Post

NEW MEMOIR BY A PSYCHOLOGIST WHO IS A SEXUAL ABUSE SURVIVOR

Carolee Tran PhD ·
Hello Friends, My name is Carolee Tran and I'm a psychologist who is a survivor of sexual abuse. I teach at UC Davis and also have a private practice in mid-town Sacramento. I specialize in the treatment of trauma. I am writing to announce the publication of my book “The Gifts of Adversity: Reflections of a Psychologist, Refugee, and Survivor of Sexual Abuse. ” I felt compelled to write this book to help others- refugees, sexual abuse, and trauma survivors. I also felt a deep sense of...
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Nurturing Resilience: Helping Clients Move Forward from Developmental Trauma--An Integrative Somatic Approach

Jill Karson ·
From Amazon: A practical, integrated approach for therapists working with people (both adults and children) who have been impacted by developmental trauma and attachment difficulties Kathy L. Kain and Stephen J. Terrell draw on fifty years of their combined clinical and teaching experience to provide this clear road map for understanding the complexities of early trauma and its related symptoms. Experts in the physiology of trauma, the authors present an introduction to their innovative...
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Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain, by James W. Pennebaker, PhD and Joshua M. Smyth, PhD

Jill Karson ·
In my last post, I highlighted a book Vincent Felitti mentioned at the CAMFT conference in Orange County. In the same talk, Dr. Felitti also recommended a form of therapeutic writing developed by James Pennebaker to help individuals uncover painful emotions and heal trauma. Pennebaker's book Opening Up by Writing It Down: How Expressive Writing Improves Health and Eases Emotional Pain details the why and how. The Pennebaker method has been referenced elsewhere on ACEs Connection; I thought...
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Overcoming Educational Racism in Community Colleges (indiancountrymedianetwork.com)

Dr. Cynthia Lindquist, Ta'Sunka Wicahipi Win (Star Horse Woman), president of Cankdeska Cikana Community College on the Spirit Lake Reservation in North Dakota, is a contributing author to Overcoming Educational Racism in the Community College: Creating Pathways to Success for Minority and Impoverished Student Populations , edited by Angela Long. Written by several contributing educators, the book answers why students of color end their time at community colleges twice as often as middle to...
Blog Post

Parent Handouts updated and available In Dari, English & Spanish

Christine Cissy White ·
The updated parent handouts are now available in Spanish as well as English and Dari. Here's the blog post with links to all three versions of each flyer. All versions of the Understanding ACEs and Parenting to Prevent & Heal ACEs parent handouts can be downloaded, distributed, and used freely. Both flyers were made with generous support from Family Hui, a Program of Lead for Tomorrow, who is responsible for making the Spanish and Dari translations available. These are updates of the...
Blog Post

Parenting through the Storm Book Review

Christine Cissy White ·
Parenting Through the Storm: Find Help, Hope, and Strength When Your Child Has Psychological Problems , is written by Ann Douglas. The author, a member of this group and network , has a warm, open and honest tone. She's a parent and gets that parents and kids are sometimes or even often scared, struggling and in crisis. She knows. She writes about the time she almost lost her daughter, thirteen at the time, to death by suicide. Her daughter was vomiting and sleeping, restlessly, all night...
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Playing for Their Lives: The Global El Sistema Movement for Social Change Through Music (ssir.org)

In the world’s happiest country, we encountered one of the world’s most challenging Sistema environments. The United Nations World Happiness Report has ranked Denmark the happiest nation on earth, using internationally agreed-upon measures—of wealth, health, social welfare, generosity, and freedom—to rate happiness in 150 countries . Just outside of Aarhus, the Gellerup district is the largest housing project and the poorest neighborhood in Denmark. Fully 88 percent of its population is...
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Prevention Diaries by Larry Cohen [PreventionDiaries.org]

Samantha Sangenito ·
Prevention Diaries reveals the unexpected (yet foreseeable) parts of daily life that shape our health. Health happens in our communities and homes, not just at a doctor’s office, and many illnesses and injuries are preventable through commonsense solutions – saving lives and reducing burden on families, communities, and taxpayers. Prevention Diaries outlines why prevention is the solution to many social challenges, and what we can do to advance prevention. Topics include violence, the food...
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Prince Harry and Oprah’s New TV Series Could Change the Way We View Mental Health at Work (thriveglobal.com)

A couple of years ago, Prince Harry joined the ever-growing list of high-profile public figures who are opening up about their mental health struggles. “I can safely say that losing my mum at the age of 12, and therefore shutting down all of my emotions for the last 20 years, has had a quite serious effect on not only my personal life, but my work as well,” Harry said on a podcast for The Daily Telegraph . Now Harry and Oprah Winfrey are teaming up on a series for Apple TV+ that will debut...
Blog Post

QUEST Movie: A Benefit for the Coalition on Homelessness

Rona Renner ·
Quest-The Truth Always Rises" is an important film about trauma, love, and resilience. I know the film maker of Quest, and I know how passionate he is to help people understand about Adverse Childhood Experiences and what can happen when one person believes in you. Santiago Rizzo tells a compelling story of his childhood that all should see. His passion is contagious, and his willingness to speak about trauma, the power of love, and the need for honesty is powerful. I suggest folks go and...
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Recovering Your Sacredness

Building on culturally-based teachings, through the use of traditional stories and personal reflections, Jerry Tello shares the “medicine” and process to detox from, and break the cycles of painful, generational patterns, and harmful relationships; guiding the reader through a journey to recover one's sacredness . Recovering Your Sacredness re-introduces values and generational wisdom that are found in virtually every cultural tradition and spiritual school of thought. Tello lifts up these...
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Review of Carol Craig's book on ACEs in Scottish culture - Hiding in Plain Sight

Carol Craig ·
An interesting article in Scottish Review by Andrew Hook who clearly had no prior knowledge of ACEs or the extent of Scotland's ill health. http://www.scottishreview.net/AndrewHook410a.html More information on the book can be found at http://www.postcardsfromscotland.co.uk/book13.html
Blog Post

Season's Greetings!

Jesus Gaeta ·
Hello everyone! My name is Jesus and I am a new Community Manager here ACEs Connection. It just so happens that this is one of the groups that I get to work closest with and I wanted to say HAPPY HOLIDAYS before I go on winter break until early...
Blog Post

Self Care Via Nutrition - An Anti-Antidepressant Approach

Mem Lang ·
Whilst I'm not promoting this book, I am trusting Chris Kresser, a 'functional nutritionist', in his 'endorsement' of Dr Kelly Brogan, to a degree at least. It was Chris Kresser who really started a conversation years ago about gut health, way before the mainstream medical cohort were embracing it. As to a Paleo diet, it's fraught with contentious toing and froing of its benefits, or lack thereof. Depends who you listen to! Chris Kresser seems to have a more nuanced approach to Paleo...
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Self-Compassion for Teens

Dr. Lee-Anne Gray ·
With teens today facing unprecedented levels of toxic stress, self-compassion is one way to nurture inner wisdom, promote self-kindness, and self-heal. Christopher Germer, author of the Mindful Path to Self-Compassion says my forthcoming book, Self-Compassion for Teens: 129 Activities & Practices to Cultivate Kindness is "just the ticket for parents, teachers, and counselors who know the burdens of modern teens and want to help." Tara Brach, author of True Refuge and Radical Acceptance...
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Struggling With Chronic Illness? HEAL is the One Documentary to Watch (wakeup-world.com)

The innate wisdom of the body can heal any disease, any disorder — if we would only get out of the way. This is the premise behind the documentary HEAL, which takes the mind-body connection to a whole new level with interviews from leading scientists, holistic practitioners, energy workers and medical doctors — including Kelly Brogan, M.D., Bruce Lipton, Ph.D., Dr. Deepak Chopra, Anthony Williams, among many others. While extremely valuable for situations of trauma and acute crisis like...
Blog Post

Supernormal: The Untold Story of Adversity and Resilience by Meg Jay

Jane Stevens ·
From description on Amazon page for book: Clinical psychologist and author of The Defining Decade, Meg Jay takes us into the world of the supernormal: those who soar to unexpected heights after childhood adversity. Whether it is the loss of a parent to death or divorce; bullying; alcoholism or drug abuse in the home; mental illness in a parent or a sibling; neglect; emotional, physical or sexual abuse; having a parent in jail; or growing up alongside domestic violence, nearly 75% of us...
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The Beautiful Darkness: A Handbook for Orphans

Joshunda Sanders ·
I became a professional reader long before I was a writer when I was living in homeless shelters, subsidized housing, and welfare hotels with my mother in New York City. Most of the middle class and affluent black folks I would come to know in the future would wince and give me a look I couldn’t read when I would tell the story that I outline in my new memoir, The Beautiful Darkness: A Handbook for Orphans . All some intolerant, ignorant bigots need is to continue to hear about the...
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The Body Keeps The Score (Bessel van der Kolk, MD)

Former Member ·
    FINALLY IT IS HERE!!!!!!   Got mine by Amazon yesterday and on my Nook after midnight on the 25th.  Been reading it straight through!!! This is an awesome book to cut through all the stuff that will likely not work and it tells...
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The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity (Dr. Nadine Burke Harris)

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris was already known as a crusading physician delivering targeted care to vulnerable children. But it was Diego - a boy who had stopped growing after a sexual trauma - who galvanized her to dig deeper into the connections between toxic stress and the lifelong illnesses she was tracking among so many of her patients and their families. A survey of more than 17,000 adult patients' "adverse childhood experiences", or ACEs, like divorce, substance abuse, or neglect, had...
Blog Post

The Healing Place Podcast - Lorna Minewiser, PhD: Transformational Coaching

Teri Wellbrock ·
Lorna Minewiser has taught high school, college, and teacher continuing education classes. Her PhD dissertation “Eliciting Mental Models: Images of teaching and learning” has been published and she has had several articles published as well. In the spring of 2008 she conducted a research project on using EFT to reduce Test Anxiety. She was chair of the ACEP research subcommittee on EFT for Research. Recently she participated in the Veteran Stress Research Project.
Blog Post

The Impact of Early Life Trauma with Bessel A. van der Kolk, M.D., and Judith Herman, M.D. (dvd video) 1 hour, 10 minutes

Judith Herman helps to identify shame in all of its forms and how it affects the one afflicted with it. With this complete picture of shame, mental health professionals can provide direction for their clients and show a positive life outlook. Bessel van der Kolk gets to the heart of what clients suffering from trauma experience: a loss of joy in the here and now due to being unable to focus on it and instead continue to focus on the past trauma. He then goes on to show how you can help them...
Comment

Re: New book explores storytelling and resilience.

Teri Wellbrock ·
Wow. Powerful. As someone who is finishing up my book manuscript, I applaud you (Donna) for sharing your truth and pain in such a beautifully written rawness. Thank you. I look forward to reading it. And, yes, I am interested in a review copy. If you ever want to join me on The Healing Place Podcast to discuss your journey, your book, your work . . . the invitation is open. Peace, Teri
Reply

Re: Resilience and Mental Health: Challenges Across the Lifespan by Southwick, et al. (2011)

Maxine Browne ·
I offer my survivor story to this particular conversation. The book is called Years of Tears by Maxine Browne. After 10 years of debilitating verbal and psychological abuse, I was able to break the cycle of domestic violence. Two of my children tell of being abused by their controlling step-father. One suffered a mental breakdown. We are all still suffering residual effects of those years of abuse. We have been "safe" for 8 plus years now. Domestic violence and child abuse are "gifts" that...
Reply

Re: Mad Matters: A Critical Reader in Canadian Mad Studies by LeFrançois, et al. (2013)

Steve Stone ·
Thank you, Chris for initiating a discussion about this very important topic. I have pre-ordered the book from Amazon and it should be released soon. The very system that was established to help people heal from trauma often times re-traumatizes consumers and becomes part of the problem rather than a solution. We have much to talk about here! Another book that we may want to add to our discussion group is Saving Normal by Allen Frances. Many important conversations about the nature of mental...
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