ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
byACKNOWLEDGMENTS
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—