Understanding Trauma
Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives

Analysis of the individual and collective experience of and response to trauma from a wide range of perspectives.

Laurence J. Kirmayer (Edited by), Robert Lemelson (Edited by), Mark Barad (Edited by)

9780521726993, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 14 April 2008

548 pages, 6 tables
22.8 x 15.1 x 2.5 cm, 0.73 kg

This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in the predisposition, cause, course, treatment, and outcome prognosis for people experiencing trauma and post trauma consequences... The authors have created a state-of-the-art review that is fascinating, informative, and extremely useful to all concerned with understanding trauma and its effect on all of our lives.
- Murray A. Brown, MD

This book analyzes the individual and collective experience of and response to trauma from a wide range of perspectives including basic neuroscience, clinical science, and cultural anthropology. Each perspective presents critical and creative challenges to the other. The first section reviews the effects of early life stress on the development of neural systems and vulnerability to persistent effects of trauma. The second section of the book reviews a wide range of clinical approaches to the treatment of the effects of trauma. The final section of the book presents cultural analyses of personal, social, and political responses to massive trauma and genocidal events in a variety of societies. This work goes well beyond the neurobiological models of conditioned fear and clinical syndrome of post-traumatic stress disorder to examine how massive traumatic events affect the whole fabric of a society, calling forth collective responses of resilience and moral transformation.

Foreword Robert Jay Lifton
1. Introduction: inscribing trauma in culture, brain and body Laurence J. Kirmayer, Robert Lemelson and Mark Barad
Part I. Biological Perspectives on Trauma: Introduction Mark Barad
2. Neurobiological and neuroethological perspectives on fear and anxiety Vinuta Rau and Michael S. Fanselow
3. Some biobehavioral insights into persistent effects of emotional trauma Mark E. Bouton and Jaylyn Waddell
4. Learning not to fear: a neural systems approach Gregory Quirk, Mohammed R. Milad, Edwin Santini, and Kelimer Lebrón
5. Mechanisms of fear extinction: towards improved treatments for anxiety Mark Barad and Chris K. Cain
6. Developmental origins of neurobiological vulnerability for PTSD Rose Bagot, Carine Parent, Timothy W. Bredy, Tie Yuan Zhang, Alain Gratton and Michael J. Meaney
7. Somatic manifestations of traumatic stress Emeran A. Mayer
8. Does stress damage the brain? J. Douglas Bremner
Part II. Clinical Perspectives on Trauma: Introduction Laurence J. Kirmayer
9. Cognitive behavioral treatments for PTSD Elna Yadin and Edna B. Foa
10. PTSD among traumatized refugees J. D. Kinzie
11. PTSD: a disorder of recovery? Arieh Y. Shalev
12. The developmental impact of childhood trauma Bessel A. van der Kolk
13. Adaptation, ecosocial safety signals and the trajectory of PTSD Derrick Silove
14. Religion and spirituality after trauma James K. Boehnlein
15. Post-traumatic suffering as a source of transformation: a clinical perspective Cécile Rousseau and Toby Measham
Part III. Cultural Perspectives on Trauma: Introduction Robert Lemelson
16. Trauma, adaptation, and resilience: a cross-cultural and evolutionary perspective Melvin Konner
17. Bruno and the holy fool: myth, mimesis, and the transmission of traumatic memories Allan Young
18. Failures of imagination: the refugee's predicament Laurence J. Kirmayer
19. Trauma, culture and myth: narratives of the Ethiopian Jewish exodus Gadi BenEzer
20. Post-traumatic politics: violence, memory and biomedical discourse in Bali Leslie Dwyer and Degung Santikarma
21. Terror and trauma in the Cambodian genocide Alexander Hinton
22. Trauma in context: integrating biological, clinical and cultural perspectives Robert Lemelson, Laurence J. Kirmayer and Mark Barad
Epilogue: trauma and the vicissitudes of interdisciplinary integration Laurence J. Kirmayer, Robert Lemelson and Mark Barad
Index.

Subject Areas: Medical anthropology [PSXM], Clinical psychology [MMJ], Psychiatry [MMH]