Images and sounds of war, natural disasters, and human-made devastation
explicitly surround us and implicitly leave their imprint in our
muscles, our belly and heart, our nervous systems, and the brains in our
skulls. We each experience more digital data than we are capable of
processing in a day, and this is leading to a loss of empathy and human
contact. This loss of leisurely, sustained, face-to-face connection is
making true presence a rare experience for many of us, and is neurally
ingraining fast pace and split attention as the norm.
Yet despite all of this, the ability to offer the safe sanctuary of
presence is central to effective clinical treatment of trauma and indeed
to all of therapeutic practice. It is our challenge to remain present
within our culture, Badenoch argues, no matter how difficult this might
be. She makes the case that we are built to seek out, enter, and sustain
warm relationships, all this connection will allow us to support the
emergence of a humane world.
In this book, Bonnie Badenoch, a gifted translator of neuroscientific
concepts into human terms, offers readers brain- and body-based insights
into how we can form deep relational encounters with our clients and our
selves and how relational neuroscience can teach us about the
astonishing ways we are interwoven with one another. How we walk about
in our daily lives will touch everyone, often below the level of
conscious awareness.
The first part of The Heart of Trauma provides readers with an
extended understanding of the ways in which our physical bodies are
implicated in our conscious and non-conscious experience. Badenoch then
delves even deeper into the clinical implications of moving through the
world. She presents a strong, scientifically grounded case for doing the
work of opening to hemispheric balance and relational deepening.
