Blog

In the regular patterns of Brooklyn’s street grid, there’s a slight deformity near Prospect Park that makes one block slightly larger than the ones around it. On this block of brownstones in Park Slope, the streets give the houses a little more breathing room for their backyards. And for more than three decades, the community here has gone one step further, turning that space into a sprawling private park of their own creation. The result is a communal yard, divided only by unlocked fence...

Your boundaries are trying to take care of you, and if you couldn’t protect yourself during the trauma, you may have lost trust in your boundaries. Restoring your connection to your yes and no (your boundaries) is an important part of the healing process.

Time and again, I hear from husbands, wives, children, siblings, parents, and grandparents who cannot understand how their loved one could possibly relapse after a period of recovery. And for many, their voice cracks with utter despair as they explain the multiple treatment programs their loved one has gone through, only to relapse every time. They tell me their loved one seems to want to get and stay sober but can't seem to make it long term. "Why?" they ask. As we continue our...

In the fall, Echo will be rolling out the new Training & Certification Course (TCC) for selected candidates who want to become certified in the Echo trauma-informed, nonviolent parenting curriculum. This is the first time Echo will be offering the certification course since 2016. We've been spending the intervening time systematically revising the old parenting curriculum, bringing it up-to-date with the trauma and resilience information that we are already teaching in the parenting...

For many boys, fathers, and grandfathers, a first step towards healing trauma can be found in the wilderness, “Where there are no deadlines, cell phones, or committee meetings. Where there is room for the soul and a quiet place to restore lost nurturance”, ( Wild at Heart , Eldridge, 2011). Glen and his father Darren are a great example of how this healing can take place. Dr. Sells uses the Wild at Heart Wound Playbook from Treating the Traumatized Child: A Step-by-Step Family Systems...

Trauma, the result of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), can only be prevented if we have an understanding of the root causes of childhood adversity. We know that a quarter of our children will endure at least three ACEs, which means living in households where adults misuse substances, are threatening or violent, have untreated mental health challenges, are abusive and neglectful, are dissolving marriages or are incarcerated. (We are not even talking about the one in eight children in the...

Deaths from treatable conditions may cost the world trillions of dollars each year, according to a newly published analysis led by Harvard Medical School researchers believed to be the first to quantify the economic impact of insufficient access to high-quality medical care. The results, published in the June issue of Health Affairs, showed that eight million such "amenable deaths" occurred worldwide in 2015, costing $6 trillion in lost economic welfare. This measure, broader than GDP...

In the wake of the Parkland high school massacre, there's been renewed interest in "red flag" laws, which allow courts and police to temporarily remove guns from people perceived to pose a threat. The new research offers insight into the laws' effect — and it may not be what you think. "Although these laws tended to be enacted after mass shooting events, in practice, they tend to be enforced primarily for suicide prevention," says Aaron Kivisto, a clinical psychologist with the University of...

When Hurricane Dolly hit Brownsville, Texas, in 2008, Esperanza Avalos was at the home she shared with her daughter, three grandchildren, and her dying husband. Like most homeowners in the rural Luz del Cielo colonia, less than a half-mile from the U.S.-Mexico border, the Avaloses had built the house themselves, adding new bedrooms to accommodate their multigenerational family as money allowed. Dolly’s 85 mile-per-hour winds shattered windows, shifted the floor precipitously and cracked the...

If you're up there in age and feel like you can coast as a couch potato, you may want to reconsider. A new study suggests, for the first time in women over age 70, that working up a sweat can reduce the influence one's genes have on obesity. "Our sample, which included older women, is the first to show that in the 70- to 79-year-old age group, exercise can mitigate the genetic effects of obesity," said the study's lead author Heather Ochs-Balcom, associate professor of epidemiology and...

Where’s the best place in America to live if you want to maximize your chances of living longer? Based on an authoritative new state-by-state study of the American burden of disease, disability and premature death, and how it has changed from 1990 to 2016, you might consider setting down roots in Hawaii, where residents have the longest life expectancy, 81.3 years. But if your goal is to live long and stay healthy as long as you can, call Minnesota your home, which outranks every state and...

Before dawn, the quiet coastal community of Live Oak, California, exploded with noise. Sandy Beck, a teacher who has lived in the neighborhood for nearly 20 years, awoke to the thrum of helicopter blades. Outside, searchlights from the air swept the streets. Then the percussive blasts of flash-bang grenades echoed off the small ranch houses and low-slung apartments. “It honestly felt like a war zone,” Beck said. While she and her 16-year-old daughter huddled upstairs, other neighbors, silent...