Publishers Weekly reviews John Bradshaw’s book, “Reclaiming Virtue”

Friday, February 27th, 2009 | Meadows in the Media | No Comments

John Bradshaw is a Fellow of the Meadows Addiction Treatment Center. His newest book, Reclaiming Virtue: How We Can Develop the Moral Intelligence to Do the Right Thing at the Right Time for the Right Reason, recently had a positive review from Publishers Weekly:

Reclaiming Virtue: How We Can Develop the Moral Intelligence to Do the Right Thing at the Right Time for the Right Reason John Bradshaw. Bantam, $26 (528p) ISBN 978-0-553-09592-0

Bestselling recovery expert and motivational speaker Bradshaw (Family Secrets), presents an in-depth survey of human behavior from many angles in a probing exploration of our inner guidance system. Beginning with “magnificent moral moments” (a black girl integrating a school smiles at a woman who spat at her), he interweaves his own tangled life experiences: he obtained advanced degrees in theology and philosophy, yet lost jobs after alcoholic binges even after a 12-step recovery program; he still felt like he was “on the outside of life looking in” and set out to change the direction of his life. Inviting the reader to join him on his “personal journey to make sense out of the complexities and ambiguities of the moral/ethical order,” Bradshaw divides his book into three potent and compelling sections: part one defines the nature of moral intelligence; the second section examines how to develop that intelligence. In the final pages, he outlines family goals and offers ways for readers to develop their children’s moral intelligence. Bradshaw followers and many first-time readers will find this an extremely effective and valuable guide. (Apr. 28)

Reclaiming Virtue is available to purchase from www.johnbradshaw.com.

Understanding Sexual Recovery

Thursday, February 26th, 2009 | Best of The Cutting Edge | No Comments

Note: This article was originally published in the Spring 2007 edition of Cutting Edge, the online newsletter of The Meadows.

Understanding Sexual Recovery
By Maureen Canning, MA, LMFT

Sexuality is yoked with one’s being – the body, mind and spirit. It is connected with one’s identity, or essence. But as a culture, we have conditioned ourselves to experience and express our sexuality with a laser focus on physical gratification, the seeking of pleasure and release.

This is only a small part of what our sexual selves encompass. The totality of sexual expression is experienced through one’s passion, creativity and life force energy. When we hear a moving  piece of music; create art; connect with nature; lust after our favorite food, engrossed in its  consumption; grow passionate about learning a new language or dance step, this is the expression of our sexuality.

This energy taps into the core of who we are. That’s what makes sex addiction so powerful –
and what sets it apart from other addictions. Our sexuality comes from the depths of our being, as does recovery. Examining and integrating healthy sexuality from this perspective becomes much more than just “mind-blowing sex.” It becomes a spectrum of possibilities, a transformation of the whole self.

For several years, Anna has been working on her recovery from alcohol and sex addiction. Like most addicts, Anna had given up her most treasured hobby; it had been sidelined by the tumultuous life of her addiction. Anna had given up riding horses. Once an avid polo player, she had dropped out of the game and sold her animals. After several years of recovery, she was able to reconnect with her passion. Anna recently bought a new horse and is training several others. She rides almost every day.

“Maureen,” Anna says in a somber tone, “I was riding my horse the other day, and I think I had a spiritual moment.”

“What happened?” I ask.

“I had been rushing around yesterday morning, and, by the time I got to the stable, I was in a bad mood. When I got on my horse, she fought me, wouldn’t do anything. She threw her head up and tried to buck me off. A friend watching me suggested that I stand up in the saddle and get myself centered, take a few breaths and feel her rhythm. I did what he suggested, let go of my stress and got in tune with her. When I sat down, she became calm. I rode in that ring and felt so connected to her. It was amazing.”

What Anna is creating is connection, first with herself and then with life at large. She has come a long way in her recovery, and she is now reaping its rewards. Of course, it has taken time and a concentrated effort. For sex addicts, recovery can be a long and arduous but rewarding process.

Treatment planning for sexual addiction needs to realistically address the healing of one’s personhood. In early treatment, the goals are focused and concrete: breaking through denial, surrendering to the addiction, acknowledging losses, making disclosures to loved ones, working the 12 Steps, getting a sponsor, going to meetings, etc. In this phase of treatment, the client is typically in crisis, emotionally overwhelmed, disoriented and experiencing withdrawal. Inpatient treatment is an intense process that can leave the client feeling inundated and emotionally fragile upon discharge. Patients often feel splintered, their ego state disoriented, their affect-management tenuous and their communication skills poor. The stress of re-entering life is, at best, a challenge and, more realistically, a trigger for relapse.

Extended-care treatment involves giving patients time to identify and integrate ego states, stabilize their emotions, grieve losses, begin trauma resolution, and implement treatment tools for relational development with self and others.

The profound shame that patients feel, and the slow but constant erosion of their personhoods, are the results of sexual addiction. The trauma and subsequent addiction result from a lifetime of ritualized behaviors and deeply embedded coping mechanisms. Patients run from their shame, using anger to act out and destroy any semblance of an authentic self. The recovery of the authentic self and the ability to live in one’s truth must be extracted from the wreckage of the addiction.

About the Author
Maureen Canning, MA, LMFT, Clinical Director of Dakota and Clinical Consultant for Sexual Disorder Services at The Meadows, has extensive experience working with sexual disorders. She is a past board member of the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health, as well as past president of the Arizona Council on Sexual Addiction.

Parenting Under the Influence

Friday, February 13th, 2009 | Meadows in the Media | No Comments

The Meadows Clinical Consultant Claudia Black recently took part in a TVOParents.com webcast panel discussion on the ways that drug and alcohol abuse affect children.

In “Parenting Under the Influence”, Claudia and co-panelists Christine Sloss and Steve Hall discuss issues such as:

• When does parental substance use become a problem?
• How many substance abusers are parents?
• What is life like for kids of substance abusers?
• How does parental substance abuse affect kids’ learning?

Visit the TVOParents.com website to view the webcast, along with Claudia’s list of indications that a child may be living with family substance abuse.

Somatic Experiencing: Resilience, Regulation, and Self

Thursday, February 12th, 2009 | Best of The Cutting Edge | No Comments

Note: This article was originally published in the Summer 2005 edition of Cutting Edge, the online newsletter of The Meadows.

Somatic Experiencing: Resilience, Regulation, and Self
By Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., Clinical Consultant for The Meadows and Mellody House

My life’s work, encompassing nearly four decades as a stress researcher and trauma therapist, has taught me how vulnerable we humans are to the effects of stress and trauma. An apparent contradiction to this fragility surfaced during a study I conducted at NASA with Apollo astronauts. In monitoring their physiological responses transmitted to Earth, I was surprised to observe an extraordinary capacity to successfully withstand extreme levels of stress.

However, the most exciting discovery of my career was the recognition that “ordinary” trauma sufferers had the same innate, though latent, ability to rebound from stress. I was both humbled and amazed to witness their ability to learn the very skills that I believe facilitated the astronauts’ spontaneous resilience.

In the 1960s, as a student in the fledgling field of mind/body psychology, I learned how to “read” people’s postures and assess the patterns of tension held in their bodies (in the vernacular, many were “uptight,” “twisted” in angst, “scared-stiff,” or helplessly “collapsed” and without energy). I was experimenting with using body awareness to help these individuals learn to normalize their excessive tension patterns. However, a deeper truth emerged from those shared efforts. I discovered that “long-forgotten” events, which had originally been perceived as significantly threatening or highly stressful, had left deep, organismic imprints on my clients. These stress patterns played out in the theaters of their bodies as habitual postures, recurring symptoms, stereotyped movements and repetitive behaviors.

As I continued to explore these body narratives, it became clear that, given the appropriate support and guidance, most individuals could unlock the somatic “stress memories” trapped in their bodies. In so doing, they experienced a rebound (albeit delayed) similar to what the astronauts exhibited as a spontaneous response to the stress of liftoff and space flight. With their self-possession restored, former trauma victims were relieved of their constrained postures, freed in their movements and behaviors, and liberated from many of their symptoms. I began to recognize that effective treatment was not a matter of remembering or erasing painful memories, but of establishing a resilient nervous system, similar to those possessed by the naturally endowed astronauts.

With the resilience of their nervous systems restored, my clients and I sometimes saw remarkable patterns of behavioral and psychological change. Rather than the repetitive and self-reinforcing patterns of symptoms, new adaptations emerged. Often, without the client even noticing, lifelong symptoms of pain, anxiety and sleep disturbances were replaced with engagement and interest in life.

Thirty years ago, Jody’s life was shattered. While walking in the woods near her boyfriend’s house, a hunter approached her and began an “innocent” conversation. It was mid-September. There was a crisp New England chill in the air. Her boyfriend and others thought nothing when they saw someone, behind the bushes, apparently chopping wood. A madman, however, was smashing Jody’s head again and again with his rifle. The police found Jody unconscious. Chips from the butt of the rifle were nearby, where they had broken off in the violent attack.

The only recollection Jody had of the event was scant and confused. She vaguely remembered meeting the man and then waking up in the hospital some days later. As she tried to recollect the event, she went blank in panic. Jody had been suffering from anxiety, migraines, concentration and memory problems, depression, chronic fatigue, and chronic pain in her head, back and neck (diagnosed as fibromyalgia). She had been treated by numerous physical therapists, chiropractors and physicians. Jody, like so many traumatized individuals, grasped desperately and obsessively in an attempt to retrieve memories of her trauma. However, her body revealed a clearer “snapshot” of the event. The upper half of her body, particularly her neck, back and shoulders, were extremely stiff. Her shoulders were high, with the right one practically touching her ear. Her upper body moved almost as one unit, stiff and jerky. Jody’s head seemed like it was retracted into her trunk, like a turtle that had been startled. Her movements were tentative, even furtive; she seemed to be always glancing to the right. It was as though she was on guard, waiting to be struck.

When I suggested to Jody that it was possible to experience healing without having to remember the event, I saw a flicker of hope and a momentary look of relief pass across her face. We talked for a while, reviewing her history and her day-by-day struggle to function. Focusing on bodily sensations, Jody slowly became aware of various tension patterns in her head and neck. With this focus, she began to notice a particular urge to turn to the right and retract her neck. In following this urge, in slow, gradual “micro movements,” she experienced momentary fear, followed by a strong tingling sensation. Through “tracking” these sensations and movements, Jody began a journey that her mind could not understand. In learning to move between flexible control and surrender, she began to experience shaking and trembling, which gradually spread throughout her body. Thus began, ever so gently, the discharging of her trauma — and the recharging of her life with its lost vitality.

In later sessions, Jody experienced other spontaneous movements, as well as sounds and impulses to run, bare her teeth and claw like a cornered animal. By gradually carrying out and experiencing these biologically established protective responses, Jody was able to sense how her body had prepared to react in that fraction of a second when the hunter raised the rifle to strike her. By allowing these incomplete movements and sounds to be mindfully expressed, Jody began a deep, organic experience of her body’s innate capacity to defend and protect itself. Through “owning” the life-preserving actions that her body activated at the time of her attack, she released that bound energy and realized — from deep within — that she in fact could, and did, act to defend herself. Gradually, as more of these “defensive” and “orienting” responses reinstated, her panic and anxiety decreased, as did her physical symptoms.

As Jody came to appreciate the return of her animal instincts, I came to appreciate how animals, while preyed upon in the wild, respond to constant, life-or-death threats without breaking down. If animals did not possess a natural “immunity” to stress, the survival of the individual, as well as the species, would be tenuous at best. This innate “hardiness” was in line with my observations of the astronauts’ stress responses, and it sharply contrasted with the symptomatic people I was beginning to treat with my body/mind techniques. This was the final piece of the trauma puzzle.

While humans and animals share the part of the nervous system designed to respond to threat, many of us have somehow lost the capacity to “shake off” our encounters with danger; instead we become paralyzed — physically, emotionally and mentally — as trauma victims. As I worked with more and more people, I became increasingly convinced that freeing that bound “survival energy” — and finding access to our innate restorative capacity — is what allows us to return fully to life. This became the central therapeutic goal. The story of how we have “forgotten” the capacity for self-regulation, and how we can regain it, is at the core of what I describe in my writings. It is what we teach in our Somatic Experiencing® (SE) professional trainings.