When you think of trauma, what comes to mind may be war veterans struggling to reintegrate into society after their horrific experiences. Perhaps you think of someone experiencing terrible flashbacks, or too anxious to even leave their house. But this is only part of the picture. In The Body Keeps the Score, author and psychiatrist Bessel Van der Kolk M.D. sets out to debunk the…
Just before the Christmas of 2003, Joan Didion’s daughter Quintana was admitted to the hospital for the flu. Her condition quickly worsened, leaving her in a temporary coma. Returning home from visiting her daughter, Didion and her husband John sat down to dinner, where her husband suddenly collapsed and died of a massive heart attack. This maelstrom of tragedy marks the beginning of Didion’s memoir…
Read More about 3 Things We Learned About Grief From The Year of Magical Thinking
Birds chirping. People talking. Sirens wailing. Whether we consciously acknowledge them or not, we are surrounded by sounds. Many of these sounds serve an important purpose. Babies cry, for example, to alert nearby adults that they need something. Church bells ring to alert parishioners of an upcoming service, or even just to tell us the time. But what if we could use sounds to heal…