- John Weeks, Writer, Speaker, Change Agent. Click below to subscribe to the Integrator
- johnweeks@theintegratorblog.com
trauma
November 29, 2020
The project began as 15 minute DVD that was to be an in-office tool to help explain developmental movement and the work of dance movement therapists (DMTs). Perhaps because the need for resources about this part of the ascending interest in creative arts therapy was so great, the short film mushroomed into 30 taped interviews. This wealth of demonstrations, case studies and dialogues were then shaped by the project director/producer, Hana Kamea Kemble, RCC, BC-DMT into the 3-part The Moving Child documentary. With both trauma and creative arts gaining higher profile, at the NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and elsewhere, the timing appears to be particularly strong for this well-produced documentary to launch DMTs and therapeutic movement as a presence in multiple healthcare contexts.
September 12, 2020
Many years ago, an integrative colleague and adviser – my spouse! – explained something to me about an important part of her lengthy integrative intake process. The time is needed to build trust to have the patient divulge what is going on at the time a chronic condition set its hooks so that the freeing might commence. The past half-century was witnessed a slow, cultural recognition of the power of trauma in micro and macro ways. The “shell-shocked” of WWI became, post Vietnam, a potentially actionable PTSD. The women’s movement opened the lid on pervasive sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and rape. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) emerged as powerful determinants of life chances and choices. George Floyd’s murder ripped open reckoning on police battery, slavery, Jim Crow, red-lining, and mass incarceration.
September 3, 2019
Two decades ago, James Gordon, MD was the chair of the top US government effort to examine integrative medicine policy. In an August 20, 2019 blogpost, the integrative psychiatrist shared how 50 years ago he traveled with crisis intervention nurse Sharon Curtin and singer Joan Baez to Woodstock where he treated hundreds of hallucinating attendees through a co-caring model. His August 9, 2019 letter to the New York Times challenged the Trumpian portrayal of mass-shootings motivated only by mental illness. Gordon described himself this way: “Though my professional work is devoted largely to trauma healing for survivors of such mass murders — and of wars, state-sponsored torture and climate-related disasters — I have known and treated a number of violent extremists, including mass murderers.” Trauma is us. On September 10, 2019, trauma hot-spots healer Gordon has a new book coming out on the transformation needed. I reached him for a brief interview.
December 15, 2018
In 2015, the legislature in the state of Wyoming made a significant investment in the idea that its people and communities could benefit if the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA) 5-point ear acupuncture protocol was put in the hands of the people. They created a law that allowed any adult U.S. citizen with an interest, who took and completed the appropriate NADA training, to provide the services. And unlike other states that might limit services to a few conditions or locations, this piece of Wild West legislation allowed the practice for stress relief, for pain, for loneliness, grief and whatever else may be tearing at one’s vital force, at fire stations or churches, community centers or malls, and whereever else “ADSes” – as they call themselves – might gather one of more interested recipients. The experiment is most under way in Laramie, Wyoming, population 30,000. Can the Laramie experience be a healing tool for the nation?