psychology

“The Wild Edge of Sorrow” by Francis Weller

July 21, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief

Recommended to me by: Kristin

This is a wise, kind, perceptive, affirming, healing book about grief. It warmly includes childhood triggering, shame, and shared grief for the planet among the burdens that we all carry. It emphasizes the importance of both a village to share our grief, and the capacity to turn toward our grief with compassion when we are alone.

“Turning toward the suffering and into the marrow of our grief with the attention and attunement of a caring adult helps to dilute and transmute the trauma and shame into the kind of sensitivity that can inform our compassion for others.”

The writing is lyrical, poetic, and includes well-chosen poems sprinkled through the book.

Francis Weller recommends group rituals, or perhaps solitary ones, as an anodyne for grief. One simple one is to put a small stone for each grief into a large bowl of water. When everyone is done, the water is given to a plant for nourishment, and the stones are returned to a river or lake or ocean, or buried in the earth, to be washed clean again.

A central part of grief work is to have a daily practice in meditation or something similar that allows us to hold space with ourselves rather than becoming overwhelmed.

Highly recommended.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Trauma and Memory” by Peter Levine

July 15, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 4 Comments

Subtitle: Brain and Body in a Search for the Living Past. A Practical Guide for Understanding & Working with Traumatic Memory

The first part of this book is a thorough introduction to different kinds of memories. There are explicit and implicit memories. Explicit (conscious) memories include declarative (like the times table) and episodic (stories with emotional content). Implicit (subconscious) memories include emotional and procedural memories. Implicit emotional memories are “flags.” Procedural memories are impulses, movements, and internal body sensations. Procedural memories can be further divided into skills like riding a bike, hardwired emergency responses, and basic approach/avoidance.

The writing is warm, engaging, informal, and filled with anecdotes.

The second part is an introduction to Levine’s trauma healing method of Somatic Experiencing, with several case studies, some including stills from videos of the sessions.

The third part is rants against more cathartic modalities of trauma healing, including support for the idea of false memories being induced by the “wrong” kind of trauma healing. I have only tentatively recommended Levine’s first book “Waking the Tiger” because it includes a section about false memories, and unfortunately I have to make the same caveat here.

Yes, false memories occur, just like false accusations of rape occur. Neither occur with enough frequency to deserve being addressed at length in a healing book, and both topics do a great deal of harm by undermining survivors’ already fragile hold on their truth.

Levine’s deeper point is to support trauma survivors to listen to their own bodies, and that is a message I can get behind.

Available at bookshop.org.

“The Deepest Well” by Nadine Burke Harris, MD

July 10, 2018 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity

Recommended to me by: listening to Nadine Burke Harris’s TED talk

This is a skillful blend of memoir and scientific information about the effects of trauma, presented for the layperson. Nadine Burke Harris shares how as a newly licensed doctor she founded a pediatric clinic in Bayview, the poorest section of San Francisco with the most at-risk patients, and how that clinic came to focus on trauma as the underlying cause of a lot of medical issues, especially for children. Later she founded the Center for Youth Wellness, also in San Francisco.

She does not dwell on the effects of being a Black woman, but she does not skip over them either. She notes the benefits of networking with other women and offering each other support. While marginalization and racism contribute to people’s load of trauma, trauma is not only a “poor, Black issue.” Privilege does not exempt people from trauma or its long-term effects.

There is a strong correlation between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and health issues caused by the body’s ongoing stress response. The stress response can be buffered by strong relationships with caring adults.

Nadine Burke Harris developed a screening tool that asks a parent about the number of a child’s ACEs, but does not ask them to disclose the stories involved. She advocates for this screening tool to be used everywhere, just as infants are now universally screened for hypothyroid and jaundice.

The treatments for a body dysregulated by trauma are sleep, mental health, healthy relationships, exercise, nutrition, and meditation. Schools that help children regulate their nervous systems rather than punishing them for “acting out” enjoy both a more peaceful atmosphere and higher success rates by every measure.

(While screening is catching on in medical offices, I hear from nurses that treatment is catching on less quickly, leaving them in the frustrating position of knowing that people’s issues are caused by trauma, but not having the time and resources to help them.)

Highly recommended both for the information about the effects on trauma, and the memoir of a groundbreaking scientist and doctor who is radically improving how we care for both children and adults affected by trauma.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Your Resonant Self” by Sarah Peyton

May 24, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 5 Comments

Subtitle: Guided Meditations and Exercises to Engage Your Brain’s Capacity for Healing

Recommended to me by: Amy Bennett

This book hooked me with, “The inner voice can be a constant flow of emotional warmth.” Yes please! Where do I sign up? It did take me a couple of months to get all the way through it, and would have taken longer if I hadn’t decided to finish reading it and write an article about it for May.

The book has a lot of detailed information about different parts of the brain, how they work together, and how trauma isolates them from each other. It’s not clear which parts of this are Interpersonal Neurobiology, but that’s in there. There are lots of TLAs (Three Letter Acronyms). Also lots of NVC (Non-Violent Communication), guessing about feelings and needs, which is one way to express empathy, but not the only way.

Emotional warmth is defined as being met or meeting others with affection and welcome, with a feeling of being cared for, nourished, and nurtured.

Resonance is defined as sensing that another being fully understands us and sees us with emotional warmth and generosity. Resonance is a two-person relational experience, being a “we.”

“We are social animals created to live in groups, like honey bees, ant colonies, or parades of elephants. Our brains are meant to be soothed by other human brains.”

The Default Mode Network (DMN) is the part of our brain that talks to us when we’re idle. It can be warmly kind, neutrally factual, or viciously negative.

We can choose to speak warmly to our attention as we watch it in meditation. We can begin to be warm toward parts of ourselves. We can find a part called Resonating Self Witness (RSW), and have that part resonate with other parts that need hearing and healing.

There are chapters on the inner critic, anxiety, editing old trauma narratives, anger, fears, dissociation, attachment, self-hate, depression, addiction, and community. There is a huge amount of material in the book, and I’m barely touching on what’s there and my responses to it.

The guided meditations that go with the chapters can be downloaded from yourresonantself.com. You get added to a marketing-heavy mailing list, but it’s easy to unsubscribe.

The way that criminality is associated with disorganized attachment sounds like the way some people say abusers abuse because they were abused themselves. No, plenty of us were abused and don’t go on to abuse anyone. Plenty of us had disorganized or disorganizing attachment and don’t end up in prison.

The Resonating Self Witness is similar to Self In Presence from Inner Relationship Focusing. That system’s way of listening and reflecting feels like a better fit for me than the questions about feelings and needs that this book suggests. Perhaps for people who do not yet have words for their emotions and needs, the NVC approach is more helpful.

I like the model that healing from trauma is about getting isolated parts of the brain back into connection. After working through all the guided meditations, I feel like I did learn more about how to be warm in relation to myself. I like the idea that resonance is available inside us rather than being dependent on finding it externally. I continue to be suspicious of the idea that internal resonance is just as good as interpersonal resonance, or even good enough, but I’m sure it’s better than nothing.

Recommended if you’re curious about interpersonal neurobiology and want to spend some quality time investigating and changing how you relate with yourself.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Not the Price of Admission” by Laura S. Brown PhD

May 8, 2018 by Sonia Connolly Leave a Comment

Subtitle: Healthy relationships after childhood trauma

Recommended to me by: a client

Relationships are hard for everyone. For people with less-than-adequate caregivers early in life, the difficulty feels personal, a cause for shame as well as sadness. Laura Brown, a feminist psychologist, kindly lays out the likely consequences of early attachment wounds and repeatedly advocates for self-compassion.

Feminist therapy looks at people’s experiences in the context of marginalized identities that often lead to disempowerment and maltreatment, rather than saying that all the problems are inside the individual. The first example in the book is about a same-sex couple. And they’re not the only ones. The book fairly bursts with same-sex couples, as well as emotionally important friendships and work relationships, not just heterosexual romantic partnerships, in a matter-of-fact, “you are all welcome here” way.

I also felt welcomed by seeing quotes from Jewish scholars and traditions. She translates Yom Kippur as “Day of Return,” day of mending connections. And, even though I never watched it, quotes from “Deep Space Nine,” a science-fiction TV show felt welcoming as well.

There is a lot of great material densely packed into this book. It does not skip disorganized attachment like many relationship books do. It shifts the focus to disorganizing caregivers, since the disorganization is not inherent to the child.

Frozen-in-time child states are called EPs, short for Emotional Parts. The book also emphasizes that emotions are positive and useful, so that didn’t seem like the most helpful terminology. EPs are in contrast to ANPs, Apparently Normal Parts that handle day-to-day adult tasks like going to work.

Relationships similar to what we experienced as babies will have limbic resonance and feel “right,” even when they hurt.

The goal is to mindfully notice when a pattern from childhood has taken over, and compassionately self-soothe and notice what is happening in the present, both positive and negative. It’s okay to be imperfect. We don’t have to be abused or used or ignored to be in relationship. We can tolerate conflict that has the goal of reaching better understanding, rather than causing more hurt.

Highly recommended. There is so much more useful material in the book than I can even begin to summarize.

Available at bookshop.org.

“Lost Connections” by Johann Hari

March 19, 2018 by Sonia Connolly 1 Comment

Subtitle: Uncovering the real causes of depression – and the unexpected solutions

Recommended to me by: Alice

This is a carefully researched, elegantly written book about depression and its causes. Hari interviewed people doing basic research on depression, its causes, and its solutions. He also shares about his own experiences with depression and meds that only worked temporarily.

Along the way, the idea that depression is caused by a lack of serotonin is thoroughly debunked. Apparently scientists never thought so, but it’s convenient for marketing anti-depressant drugs. Which, by the way, studies show only work for a minority of people to alleviate a small amount of depression. When they work long-term, it is largely through the placebo effect. Which is great as far as it goes, but there are serious “side-effects” (main effects) caused by these drugs.

Careful studies show that depression is not an internal malfunction. Depression is a sane response to external circumstances. Hari explores 9 causes. He notes that there are probably others, and that one of them (childhood trauma) covers a lot of ground.

Depression is caused by disconnection from:

meaningful work
other people
meaningful values (as opposed to pursuing material wealth)
[ourselves because of] childhood trauma
status and respect
the natural world
a hopeful or secure future

The last two causes are genes and changes in the brain. Genes can predispose us to depression, but external events trigger it. Changes in the brain happen in response to those external circumstances, and can change back when circumstances improve.

He explores solutions that have helped people reconnect. We can find anti-depressants that are social solutions rather than chemicals taken to “fix” individuals.

People coming together in community, extending their sense of home not just to four walls, but to the people around them.
Social prescribing: doctors who prescribe group projects when needed, as well as surgery and drugs when those are appropriate to the patient’s problem.
Co-ops and other ways to find meaning at work.
Exploring meaningful values and getting away from advertising that promotes feelings of inadequacy to make people buy things.
Sympathetic joy: shifting from envy and competition to sympathetic joy and cooperation. Also meditation and reconnecting with the self.
Overcoming trauma. This is a very short section for a very big topic. Hari mentions overcoming shame by speaking what happened and being heard non-judgmentally.
Restoring the future. This is another huge topic. Universal basic income is mentioned as a good start.

The only downside I noticed in this book is some concern-trolling about the “serious medical crisis” of obesity. It was jarring in a book where I didn’t notice other overtly oppressive language. He interviews enough women scientists that I didn’t feel the need to go back and count how many women and men there were. I don’t know how many were people of color.

Highly recommended for everyone who is experiencing our highly disconnected, advertising-saturated, chronically insecure society.

Available at bookshop.org.