- John Weeks, Writer, Speaker, Change Agent. Click below to subscribe to the Integrator
- johnweeks@theintegratorblog.com
PTSD
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.
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?