Posttraumatic Stress / Trauma

Editor’s note: This article represents the first of two parts. The second part, which appears here, moves from awareness to attuned self-compassion, then from compassion to integration. “Do ... Read More

We’ve all had moments where we felt completely spaced out. What is normal, and when do instances of mental escape become a cause for concern? Dissociation, or the feeling of being disconnected ... Read More

Research on mindfulness shows that it can be beneficial for improving a person’s attention, mood, pain tolerance, and immune function. It can also be used to reduce stress and increase ... Read More

The expression, “If it bleeds, it leads,” has been used to characterize media coverage of lurid stories since the early days of newspapers, and today’s around-the-clock news cycle ... Read More

The key to having freedom and joy in our lives stems directly from managing our emotions rationally and effectively. Practicing emotional intelligence keeps us intimately connected with ... Read More

As Roger—not his real name—sensed his body, he began to notice a deep contraction in his heart that pained him deeply. He had been hearing from his meditation teachers that he had to ... Read More

Trauma can be defined as an event that falls outside the range of usual human experience that causes distress. Trauma can be either human-made or from natural causes. Examples of human-made ... Read More

His name was Zack. Zack was a 150-pound, 2-year-old Newfoundland dog—my buddy. Wild at heart—at best only ever semi-domesticated—he loved nothing more than to escape from our three-quarters-of-an-acre ... Read More

Editor’s note: This is the first article in a two-part series that explores how the Pixar movie Inside Out offers a compelling and accessible way to look the impact of trauma and dissociation. ... Read More

Nope, this isn’t a strange riddle where someone is found in the desert in a scuba suit. The answer to the question posed above is actually pretty simple: brain integration. What is that? ... Read More

I was recently reading a blog post and noticed that someone in the comment section asked the question: “What does it mean when we refer to someone as a survivor?” We hear about “survivors” ... Read More

In recent years, health care researchers in the West have looked to medicine and technology for fast solutions to mental health issues. Interestingly, researchers in interpersonal psychology ... Read More