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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

 

From the book's page on Amazon: This is a self-help book for teens and adults based on decades of social science research about how people bounce back from all types of trauma, crises, problems and adversity. It shows how building resiliency builds mental health. 
Use this book to learn how to:
* Unlock your innate capacity to overcome adversity right now.
* Identify and strengthen your unique resiliency builders.
* Use your resiliency builders that are already operating for you.
* Develop solid, transformative self-esteem.
* Identify your Achilles Heel and how to overcome it.
* Keep going when the going gets tough.
Written by a leading expert, this book makes the important findings from resiliency research accessible to everyone.
10 Chapters (plus Index):
1. You Were Born Resilient
2. A Research-Based Plan for Overcoming Life's Challenges
3. Unlock the Power of Your Personal Protective Factors
4. The Resiliency Wheel: Boosting Your Resiliency Every Day
5. Who and What is in Your Mirror? (and Other Life-Support Strategies)
6. The Resiliency Route to Authentic Self-Esteem
7. Listen Within: How to Find and Follow Your Accurate Gut Guidance
8. Identify Your Achilles Heel (and Stop It from Tripping You Up)
9. How to Keep Going When the Going Gets Tough
10.The Resiliency Quiz &Other Resiliency-Building Resources

 

About the Author

Nan Henderson, M.S.W., is a leading authority on resiliency and President of Resiliency In Action, a publishing and training company in Southern California. She has traveled the world for 20 years training thousands of people about the innate human capacity to bounce back from adversity--and how to do it. She authored/edited four other resiliency-related books, including Resiliency In Schools: Making It Happen for Students and Educators and Resiliency In Action: Pratical Ideas for Overcoming Risks and Building Strengths in Youth, Families, and Communities. Her articles on resiliency have appeared in numerous publications and her on-line newsletter is read by thousands worldwide.              

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I hope I don't seem annoying but, with the first chapter as "You were born Resilient." I don't agree. 

 

First: One of the Videos from the AVA (Academy on Violence and Abuse) ACEs DVD from Dr. Frank Putman, MD "ACEs Changed the Landscape" shows slides demonstrating that as ACEs increase "you overwhelm the child's capacity for resilience.".  http://vimeo.com/66692132  But he also points toward "Angels" or positive predictive factors (The way Strengthening Families works on the "Protective Factors"). 

 

Second: An important Resilience Researcher, Dr. Ann Masten, has stated that per her work, she does not believe that resilience is an inborn characteristic.   Her website is here : http://www.cehd.umn.edu/icd/pe...lty/cpsy/masten.html. She also has a coursera course that will be starting in March where you can learn more about resilience in trauma at https://www.coursera.org/course/resilienceinchildren. I highly recommend the course to all on ACEs.  

 

Third: However, I, and it is an opinion, believe that resilience is like a muscle. You can train a muscle very much like neuroplasticity.  There is a nice EdX course on increasing your resilience called "Becoming a Resilient Person" and I recommend this course to any one wishing to increase his or her resilience. It is from the University of Washington.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_q7K0m9fziM

 

Fourth: At last year's Boston Trauma Conference, Dr. Teicher stated that he had the work, not yet published on the resilience factors (some protect you, some rescue you etc). When he publishes this work, I hope soon, we can better judge this. 

 

The reason I put this here is that some of us with high ACEs and on the resilience score, score really low ( http://resiliencetrumpsaces.or...e_Questionnaire.pdf, http://connectionsconference.o...ary-Care-Setting.pdf). We may feel like we are really failing if we aren't doing as well as we hope especially if "You are born resilient".  However without those resilience building factors given to you early in life--- with the primary ones being early attachment to SOMEONE --- that individual really isn't failing but needs to use the muscle, the resilience muscle, and really exercise it building attachments… WHICH IS SOMETHING THAT I CAN ATTEST TO …. IS REALLY HARD TO DO!!!!

 

But I want those with high ACEs and low Resilience Scores to know: you are not a failure, not at all!!!!!!! Just get on the treadmill of resilience building and one of the best to do (if you don't have it, is to start building relationships)...

 

Thanks and Good Luck to everyone in becoming a "More Resilient Person"!!!!!

 

 

 

Last edited by Former Member

Great points Tina Marie.

I will check out the workbook, but this discussion helps validate why I've been struggling to find a resilience measure that I like to compliment the ACE screen.  All the measures are either over clients heads (too clinical) or somehow invalidating or not trauma-informed to some degree.

I love the concept of empowering ourselves with an awareness of our own protective factors and strengths, but I think the struggle in finding universal screens and tools is that our strengths and protective factors are as unique as each individual...many of us have also agreed that the original 10 ACE's are lump categories that do not capture the full spectrum of trauma, so perhaps that's a piece of the unrest in finding the right resilience tools. 

So, workbooks like this are one step in the right direction. It might be the perfect tool for one person out there, and for that it's priceless. Yes?

I haven't read it, Mem. I mostly agree with Tina, though, in that we're not born resilient, but are given resilience, or not, as the case may be. Having said that, though, epigenetics does play a part, and some kids are born with a higher threshold of tolerance to stress than other kids. But that's given to them by their parents, so, we're back to resilience being given to you.

I think one way to rate books is to indicate whether they're informed by ACEs science or not. This one doesn't look to be, but it may have some useful info in the protective factors chapter.

As author of this book, I relied on the research findings of Dr. Emmy Werner, called "the grandmother of resiliency."  She is the co-researcher on the Kauai study, the seminal resiliency research conducted for several decades on the island of Kauai.  Her best book about this research is "Overcoming the Odds: High Risk Children from Birth to Adulthood."  Dr. Werner states that everyone is born with "an innate self-righting tendency."  That is what I meant when I said in this book, "You were born resilient."  Every person alive *has overcome something.*  Certainly, this capacity can get overwhelmed by heaps of adversity, and we know the stronger the protective factors, the stronger the resiliency, but the capacity is in everyone.  If, as one person above argues, resiliency is like a muscle, then it exists and gets stronger depending on many factors.

I certainly understand the concern that glibly stating "everyone is resilient" can be used as an excuse to ignore or underestimate ACEs, or to underfund protective factor rich programs.  The metaphor I use in my training is that resiliency is in all a small pilot light, that can burn brightly (depending on the protective/resiliency building factors in someone's life) or can dim to near extinction.  But the flicker of the capacity is in all.

(I write this as someone with an ACEs score of 9 in my personal life.)

Thank all of the above for your interest in my book.

 

 

 

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