ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is the fruit of thir­ty years of try­ing to under­stand how peo­ple deal with, sur­vive, and heal from trau­mat­ic expe­ri­ences. Thir­ty years of clin­i­cal work with trau­ma­tized men, women and chil­dren; innu­mer­able dis­cus­sions with col­leagues and stu­dents, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the evolv­ing sci­ence about how mind, brain, and body deal with, and recov­er from, over­whelm­ing expe­ri­ences.

Let me start with the peo­ple who helped me orga­nize, and even­tu­al­ly pub­lish, this book. Toni Bur­bank, my edi­tor, with whom I com­mu­ni­cat­ed many times each week over a two-year peri­od about the scope, orga­ni­za­tion, and spe­cif­ic con­tents of the book. Toni tru­ly under­stood what this book is about, and that under­stand­ing has been crit­i­cal in defin­ing its form and sub­stance. My agent, Bret­tne Bloom, under­stood the impor­tance of this work, found a home for it with Viking, and pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal sup­port at crit­i­cal moments. Rick Kot, my edi­tor at Viking, sup­plied invalu­able feed­back and edi­to­r­i­al guid­ance.

My col­leagues and stu­dents at the Trau­ma Cen­ter have pro­vid­ed the feed­ing ground, lab­o­ra­to­ry, and sup­port sys­tem for this work. They also have been con­stant reminders of the sober real­i­ty of our work for these three decades. I can­not name them all, but Joseph Spinaz­zo­la, Mar­garet Blaustein, Roslin Moore, Richard Jacobs, Liz Warn­er, Wendy D’Andrea, Jim Hop­per, Fran Gross­man, Alex Cook, Mar­la Zuck­er, Kevin Beck­er, David Emer­son, Steve Gross, Dana Moore, Robert Macy, Liz Rice-Smith, Pat­ty Levin, Nina Mur­ray, Mark Gapen, Car­rie Pekor, Deb­bie Korn, and Bet­ta de Boer van der Kolk all have been crit­i­cal col­lab­o­ra­tors. And of course Andy Pond and Susan Wayne of the Jus­tice Resource Insti­tute.

My most impor­tant com­pan­ions and guides in under­stand­ing and research­ing trau­mat­ic stress have been Alexan­der McFar­lane, Onno van der Hart, Ruth Lanius and Paul Frewen, Rachel Yehu­da, Stephen Porges, Glenn Saxe, Jaak Panksepp, Janet Oster­man, Julian Ford, Brad Stol­back, Frank Put­nam, Bruce Per­ry, Judith Her­man, Robert Pynoos, Berthold Ger­sons, Ellert Nijen­huis, Annette Streeck-Fish­er, Mary­lene Cloitre, Dan Siegel, Eli New­berg­er, Vin­cent Felit­ti, Robert Anda, and Mar­tin Teich­er; as well as my col­leagues who taught me about attach­ment: Edward Tron­ick, Karlen Lyons-Ruth, and Beat­rice Beebe.

Peter Levine, Pat Ogden, and Al Pes­so read my paper on the impor­tance of the body in trau­mat­ic stress back in 1994 and then offered to teach me about the body. I am still learn­ing from them, and that learn­ing has since then been expand­ed by yoga and med­i­ta­tion teach­ers Stephen Cope, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Jack Korn­field.

Sebern Fish­er first taught me about neu­ro­feed­back. Ed Ham­lin and Lar­ry Hir­sh­berg lat­er expand­ed that under­stand­ing. Richard Schwartz taught me inter­nal fam­i­ly sys­tems (IFS) ther­a­py and assist­ed in help­ing to write the chap­ter on IFS. Kip­py Dewey and Cis­sa Cam­pi­on intro­duced me to the­ater, Tina Pack­er tried to teach me how to do it, and Andrew Borth­wick-Leslie pro­vid­ed crit­i­cal details.

Adam Cum­mings, Amy Sul­li­van, and Susan Miller pro­vid­ed indis­pens­able sup­port, with­out which many projects in this book could nev­er have been accom­plished.

Licia Sky cre­at­ed the envi­ron­ment that allowed me to con­cen­trate on writ­ing this book; she pro­vid­ed invalu­able feed­back on each one of the chap­ters; she donat­ed her artis­tic gifts to many illus­tra­tions; and she con­tributed to sec­tions on body aware­ness and clin­i­cal case mate­r­i­al. My trusty sec­re­tary, Angela Lin, took care of mul­ti­ple crises and kept the ship run­ning at full speed. Ed and Edith Schon­berg often pro­vid­ed a shel­ter from the storm; Bar­ry and Lor­rie Gold­en­sohn served as lit­er­ary crit­ics and inspi­ra­tion; and my chil­dren, Hana and Nicholas, showed me that every new gen­er­a­tion lives in a world that is rad­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent from the pre­vi­ous one, and that each life is unique—a cre­ative act by its own­er that defies expla­na­tion by genet­ics, envi­ron­ment, or cul­ture alone.

Final­ly, my patients, to whom I ded­i­cate this book—I wish I could men­tion you all by name—who taught me almost every­thing I know—