Whew! Spring semester has been quite the whirlwind, with Sexual Assault Awareness Month and year end activities. I’ve barely blogged at all. With the slower summer pace I hope to rectify that. I miss writing about trauma. And you, Treating Trauma readers!
Until then, I share with you this roundup of things I’ve been reading, watching, thinking about and wanting to share with you.
1. The University of Arizona and the Tucson community came together and created a moving and powerful Take back the Night! Read the coverage here and here and check out our video.
2. I love this article about a new, compassionate approach to school discipline. How about a move towards teachers and administrators really getting the impact of trauma? This quote blew me away:
Severe and chronic trauma (such as living with an alcoholic parent, or watching in terror as your mom gets beat up) causes toxic stress in kids. Toxic stress damages kid’s brains. When trauma launches kids into flight, fight or fright mode, they cannot learn. It is physiologically impossible.
Yes!!!
3. Sometimes people are surprised to learn that there are indeed seasons in the desert. Spring in Tucson has been all about flowers (and cacti) blooming
and desert critters giving birth.
Though this red tail hawk webcam is not local to Tucson, the hawks are. I cannot get enough of watching this hawk family grow at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
4. It seems that everyone I know was touched by Maurice Sendak and grieved the news of his passing. This interview captures what I love about him. His empathic understanding of children moves me.
Thank you for the wild rumpus, Maurice.
5. And then there is this:
Obama: ‘I Think Same-Sex Couples Should Be Able to Get Married’
6. Remember the every body affirming “I STAND…” campaign? Check out this update!
Body affirming billboards!
So that’s what’s been on my mind. Let me know what you think. Or share a link of your own!
Dr. Kathleen Young: Treating Trauma in Tucson 
Re 2: “Toxic stress damages kids brains.” Can they ever recover? And how do you explain those kids who “hide” in their school work to avoid what’s going on around them?
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Hi Kerro!
Definitely, in my opinion. That is the work of healing from complex PTSD. There are things other than therapy that help with that, but first kids need to be out of the abusive situation.
The second is a really good question. There are so many things we don’t know about response to trauma and why some people seem more resilient, more able to maintain coping in some areas of their life, even excelling. Sometimes I believe there is some level of dissociation as coping involved; the ability to wall of the at-home stress to function well at school.
What do you think?
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I think, based on my sample of one 😉 , that there’s definitely some avoidant coping going on, possibly some dissociation, anything that provided an escape. What puzzles me is why that strategy of burying oneself in work stopped working one day. Any ideas?
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This format won’t let me reply to your latest comment, but I hope this makes sense any way! In my experience, that strategy of being able to block out everything while focusing on school/work only works just so long. And then it doesn’t. Sometimes in profound ways.
I like to think it is our drive towards wholeness and healing that pushes us toward facing what needs to be faced at some point.
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Yea, apparently you’re right, Dr K. Even when those strategies worked for 30+ years. Then one day they don’t work anymore. What the…???
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I have been very busy, tooand not writing hardlyat all on my bog either, so I totally understand! For me, I have been continuing my MSW degree and doing internship. It’s a lot. As a for,er educator, I totally agree about the truama info and also that most teachers and even many guidance counselors don’t get enough information on this. There needs to be much more training. LOVED Obama’s support for same sex marriages! And Maurice Sendak….what more can you say…..Where the Wild Tings Are is an amazing story. I also like In the Night Kitchen, “contraversial” as it is.
Kelly
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Thanks for stopping by 🙂
Congrats on your internship and progress toward your MSW…that is a busy time indeed!
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