Description
“I don’t think I’ve ever read a book that paints such a complex and accurate landscape of what it is like to live with the legacy of trauma as this book does, while offering a comprehensive approach to healing.”
–from the foreword by Bessel van der Kolk
A pioneering researcher gives us a new understanding of stress and trauma, as well as the tools to heal and thrive
Stress is our internal response to an experience that our brain perceives as threatening or challenging. Trauma is our response to an experience in which we feel powerless or lacking agency. Until now, researchers have treated these conditions as different, but they actually lie along a continuum. Dr. Elizabeth Stanley explains the significance of this continuum, how it affects our resilience in the face of challenge, and why an event that’s stressful for one person can be traumatizing for another.
This groundbreaking book examines the cultural norms that impede resilience in America, especially our collective tendency to disconnect stress from its potentially extreme consequences and override our need to recover. It explains the science of how to direct our attention to perform under stress and recover from trauma.
With training, we can access agency, even in extreme-stress environments. In fact, any maladaptive behavior or response conditioned through stress or trauma can, with intentionality and understanding, be reconditioned and healed. The key is to use strategies that access not just the thinking brain but also the survival brain.
By directing our attention in particular ways, we can widen the window within which our thinking brain and survival brain work together cooperatively. When we use awareness to regulate our biology this way, we can access our best, uniquely human qualities: our compassion, courage, curiosity, creativity, and connection with others. By building our resilience, we can train ourselves to make wise decisions and access choice–even during times of incredible stress, uncertainty, and change.
With stories from men and women Dr. Stanley has trained in settings as varied as military bases, healthcare facilities, and Capitol Hill, as well as her own striking experiences with stress and trauma, she gives readers hands-on strategies they can use themselves, whether they want to perform under pressure or heal from traumatic experience, while at the same time pointing our understanding in a new direction.
It was truly a great experience reading this book. Delivery and material was also on point!
Self-regulation and emotional discharge can provide us with moments of inner self-repair and can help to widen our window of tolerance. This has an effect on our relationship with our own survival brain, other people‘s survival brains and collectively on the people around us. As a psychotherapist I really recommend Dr. Stanley‘s book and hope it will be translated into other languages soon.
Dr. Stanley does an absolutely masterful job of explaining how trauma impacts us and what we can do to recover. I truly believe the world could benefit immensely if each of us took care of ourselves and each other in the ways she details.
One of the best books on the topic of emotion regulation and recovering from trauma.
This is the best book I have ever read. As you go through the book you continue to question what the point is but as you progress and the deeper you get the book is comprehensive and simply comes full circle. There is not a word out of place. She characterizes the difficulties of living with stress and trauma and offers multiple tools or actions to address your dysregulation/trauma. I encourage anyone who is struggling or curious how others may be struggling to read this book. Even if you are a fully healthy individual this book provides you with tools to maintain a resilient mind throughout your lifetime. As other comments have suggested, there is no political assertions in this book. All of the information provided is factual and based in reality. I apologize to those who feel like it is not. I hope you all enjoy this book as much as I do. I actually plan to read it a second time to grasp all of the tools and information Dr. Stanley provides.