Curious, Healing

Books about healing, business, and fun

illustrated

“Explain Pain” by David Butler and Lorimer Moseley

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Recommended to me by: Kim Hillis, PT

If this book didn’t cost $70, I would be telling every client and practitioner to buy one right now. Both scientific and playful, it offers the latest research about understanding and healing chronic pain.

The sensation of pain is the brain’s response to perceived threat. Until it is interpreted by the brain, pain is (just) an electrical and chemical signal.

Pain is initially associated with tissue damage and inflammation (acute pain). Sometimes the pain response continues after the tissue has gone through the healing process (chronic pain).

Pain does not always correlate with tissue damage, especially with chronic pain. As pain continues, the nervous system adapts by making the pain signal easier to trigger. Emotional stress and beliefs about pain can contribute to triggering pain in a frustrating negative cycle.

The body’s representation in the brain (the homonculus) becomes “smudged” in areas of chronic pain. This can be corrected with gentle movement, retraining the brain to represent the body more accurately.

“Hurt does not always equal harm.” A sensitized nervous system can be retrained and calmed through gradual increases in activity. Having fun and varying the context of a painful movement can help retrain the nervous system.

Explain Pain blog: explainpain.blogspot.com

Available from NOIGroup in Australia or OPTP in the US

“Finding Life Beyond Trauma” by Victoria Follette, Ph.D. and Jacqueline Pistorello, Ph.D.

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Subtitle: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Heal from Post-Traumatic Stress and Trauma-Related Problems

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (abbreviated ACT, and pronounced as a whole word) invites clients to observe their own behaviors and let go of strategies which might be keeping them from living their most valued life. It includes a strong emphasis on mindfulness and compassion.

ACT assumes that trying to suppress or escape pain can generate more suffering. Paradoxically, facing pain and accepting it can be the best strategy to ease the pain.

This substantial workbook offers theory, illustrations, stories, metaphors, and exercises to help the reader observe existing strategies around pain, establish values, and choose strategies that move toward those values.

The book assumes that the reader is highly avoidant. Since we all use avoidance in overt or covert ways, it can be helpful for many of us.

My favorite metaphor from the book: You’re blindfolded, and one day you fall in a deep hole. All you have is a shovel, so you start digging. You dig to the right, to the left, and even under your feet, but you’re still in the (enlarged) hole. Eventually, even if someone brought you a ladder, you would think it was a different sort of shovel. Suggestion: put down the shovel and just stop digging.

Putting down the shovel looks different for each person. We all have our favorite strategies that work up to a point, but then we keep depending on them long after they’re just making things worse. The shovel contains all our current working assumptions. Putting down the shovel is a leap of faith into new assumptions.

One of my shovels is wondering what I’m doing wrong in any given situation. Before I put it down, it feels like a radical, risky act. After I put it down, it’s a huge relief.

Another useful metaphor: willingness is like jumping. We can say we’re jumping, we can think about jumping, we can try to jump, but either we’re jumping or we’re not. We can’t half-jump.

Willingness to change is similar. It is important to check whether we’re actually willing to make a change, and choose changes that are small enough that we are willing to risk them.

The book describes unwillingness in willingness’s clothing. One of many examples: “After experiencing a loss, I tried to accept it so that I could stop feeling so sad.”

There are many more useful metaphors and exercises in this book. I highly recommend it for anyone healing from trauma, or helping others heal.

Available at bookshop.org.

“National Velvet” by Enid Bagnold

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I received this book, originally published in 1935, with a childhood gift of six classic Young Adult novels. I’ve carried the set from home to home ever since, but hadn’t reread any of the books in many years.

Before I send the set off to my niece and nephew, I decided to reread “National Velvet,” since the image of Velvet struggling with her unruly stomach had been coming to mind.

I remembered the essence of the book – horse-mad young Velvet rides and wins a steeplechase race – but had forgotten most of the details, including that the story takes place in England.

The writing is gorgeously evocative. Here is the opening paragraph:

Unearthly humps of land curved into the darkening sky like the backs of browsing pigs, like the rumps of elephants. At night when the stars rose over them they looked like a starlit herd of divine pigs. The villagers called them Hullocks.

I paused there in my reading to imagine the Hullocks, reminded of a village I visited in southern England, ensconced in a narrow valley dropping to the sea.

It turns out that Velvet grows up in just such a village with her three older sisters, much younger brother, solid parents, and butcher’s assistant Mi Taylor. Their cramped living quarters are attached to her father’s slaughterhouse. Mi lives in an outbuilding, and their old horse has a rickety barn.

The girls seem young for their ages by modern standards. At fourteen, Velvet prances about pretending to ride paper horses. Her seventeen year old sister has her first beau. The girls can ride alone for miles among the Hullocks, but their mother tells them what to wear to the village fair. The family shares few words but much love.

I recommend reading this book for the layered details of village life and relationships. I was less interested in the wish-come-true plot, although to be fair I’m considerably older than the target audience of the book. There are sub-themes about news and fame and innocence which provide food for thought.

Available at bookshop.org.

“We Are All in Shock” by Stephanie Mines, Ph.D.

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Subtitle: How Overwhelming Experience Shatter You… And What You Can Do About It

Recommended to me by: Larisa Koehn

In this book, Stephanie Mines introduces and advocates for her approach to healing named Jin Shin Tara. It is derived from Jin Shin Jyutso, a gentle form of acupressure.

She defines shock as severe trauma, and then claims that from conception onward, we are all exposed to shocks (severe traumas). She separates sympathetic shock (stuck in activity) from parasympathetic shock (stuck in passivity).

Anecdotes from her own life and from clients demonstrate dramatic, immediate results from Jin Shin Tara.

Detailed instructions are given for applying Jin Shin Tara to oneself and others. There are correspondences between points on the body and emotional states, chakras, and seasons of the year. Specific points are also recommended for each month of gestation during a pregnancy.

Stephanie Mines’ mission is to increase awareness of the vulnerable time before, during, and just after birth, and minimize shock (severe trauma) at those times in order to reduce the amount of violence in the world.

There is a lot of useful information in this book, and I enthusiastically support the mission of reducing shock and trauma in the world.

At the same time, I am wary of simplified approaches to complex experiences. Jin Shin Tara is presented as being universally applicable with guaranteed results. I prefer a more balanced, nuanced approach. I think it is useful to differentiate between severe trauma and the more daily bumps and shocks we all experience.

Read more about Stephanie Mines’ approach to healing at her website.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Relax your Neck, Liberate your Shoulders” by Eric Franklin

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Recommended to me by: a friend who spends a lot of time at the computer.

The book begins, “[M]y head was balancing on a completely loose neck. It actually felt as if it was free of gravity and it was a pleasure to turn my head since my neck felt so supple, my shoulders were light as flufffed feathers, and my breathing was free and deep.”

I would love to feel that way!

The book offers playful exercises and imagery, as well as detailed anatomical drawings to help reach that desired state. The core approach of the Franklin Method is to regain awareness, balance, and relaxation from the inside, rather than impose it externally or forcefully.

One of the exercises: Imagine a tiny balloon at the back of your neck, supporting your skull, and at the same time let your jaw hang down. To me, the feeling of support is palpable, and my shoulders drop away from my ears.

The anatomical information is helpful as well. For example, when a muscle contracts, the long chains of proteins do not curl or bunch up – they slide past each other like the teeth of two intertwined combs. It is much easier for me to envision muscle fibers sliding apart than it is to “relax” or “let go.”

I will continue to use the exercises in my quest for a completely loose neck, and I’ll incorporate the new knowledge into my bodywork practice as well.

Available at bookshop.org.

“How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk” by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish

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I read the occasional parenting book to find out how I should have been treated as a child, and to learn how to treat myself and others better now.

This book advocates treating children as lovable, capable beings deserving of respect. This shouldn’t sound radical, right?

The examples and exercises teach many concrete, immediately applicable skills, including

  • Respect their feelings
  • Listen receptively
  • Jointly look for solutions to recurring issues
  • Praise descriptively
  • Expect positive results

The lessons are illustrated with both Do and Don’t cartoons of children and parents interacting.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who interacts with children, or who wishes their parents had been more skilled.

Available at bookshop.org.