At Your Library: New books look at effects of childhood trauma

The Cordova Public Library recently acquired two new books for our permanent collection that deal with the long-term effects of childhood trauma.  Here’s a brief description of both, look for them on the shelves now.

Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal  by Donna Jackson Nakazawa.

Your biography becomes your biology: Surviving childhood trauma can make you stronger, but too often it also leads to health problems. So reveals the largest, most important study you never heard of – the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study (ACE), which shows an irrefutable scientific link between many types of childhood adversities and the adult onset of physical and mental health disorders.

Scientists now know, on a biochemical level, how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent “fingerprints” on our brains. These traumas can lead to life-altering illnesses such as heart, disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, and depression.  They also lay the groundwork for how you relate to others, including your love relationships, and how well you nurture your own children,

In this groundbreaking work, the author shows why some children are more immune to stress than others and explains why women are at particular risk. She lays out a path for recovery, explaining how you can reset your biology and help your loved ones find ways to heal as she shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their experiences.

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.

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This profoundly humane book offers a sweeping new understanding of the causes and consequences of trauma, offering hope and clarity to everyone touched by it devastation, Trauma has emerged as one of the great public health challenges of our time, not only because of its well-documented effects on combat veterans and on victims of accidents and crimes, but because of the hidden toll of sexual and family violence and of communities and schools devastated by abuse, neglect, and addiction.

The Body Keeps the Score is the inspiring story of how a group of therapists ad scientists – together with their courageous and memorable patients has struggled to integrate recent advances in brain science, attachment research, and body awareness into treatments that can free trauma survivors from the tyranny of the past.

The Cordova Public Library is open:

  • 10 a.m.-8 p.m. Tuesday – Thursday
  • 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Friday
  • Noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday

Join us for activities for young and old at your library

Pokemon Club

4:30-5:30 p.m. Tuesdays

Board Game Palooza

3:30-5:30 p.m. Wednesdays

After School Art 

3-4 p.m. Fridays for ages Pre-K to 3rd grade

Seniors, Books and Coffee

10-11 a.m. Tuesday, April 25

New books and Brain Games – Must be over 50 to attend!

Webinar: Understanding Social Security Disability 

Noon-2 p.m. Wednesday, April 26, Free

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