Camila Pastor

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D.

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Such experiences inevitably leave traces on minds, emotions, and even on biology. Sadly, trauma sufferers frequently pass on their stress to their partners and children.
Renowned trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he transforms our understanding of traumatic stress, revealing how it literally rearranges the brain’s wiring—specifically areas dedicated to pleasure, engagement, control, and trust. He shows how these areas can be reactivated through innovative treatments including neurofeedback, mindfulness techniques, play, yoga, and other therapies. The Body Keeps the Score offers proven alternatives to drugs and talk therapy—and a way to reclaim lives.

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith L. Herman

Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war.

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine and Ann Frederick

Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers the question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed. This book holds out both great hope and practical assistance. It 
maintains that not only can trauma be healed but that it can be
 transformative.

Dr. Levine explains that traumatic symptoms stem from the frozen residue of
 energy that has not been discharged after the traumatic event. This residue
 remains trapped in the nervous system where it can wreak havoc on our bodies and spirits. This residual energy persists in the body often causing a 
wide variety of symptoms e.g. anxiety, depression and psychosomatic and
 behavioural problems. These symptoms are the organism’s way of 
containing the undischarged residual energy. We need to learn how to 
complete the process of moving in, through and out of the immobility or
 freezing state. This book gives us tools to do that.