Books:
Childhood Disrupted: How Your Biography Becomes Your Biology, and How You Can Heal by Donna Jackson Nakazawa
‘Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, but it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall well-being. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly 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, physical “fingerprints” on our brains.’ …
Mother Hunger: How Adult Daughters Can Understand and Heal from Lost Nurturance, Protection, and Guidance by Kelly McDaniel
“Many of us find ourselves stuck in unhealthy habits simply because we don’t see a better way. With Mother Hunger, McDaniel helps women break the cycle of destructive behavior by taking a fresh look at childhood attachment injuries and their lasting impact. In doing so, she destigmatizes the shame that comes with being under-mothered and misdiagnosed, and offers a healing path with powerful tools thay include therapeutic interventions and lifestyle changes.”
Aimee’s Research Articles:
Finding Solid Ground
Quantitative Article, Group-Based Psychoeducation for Dissociative Disorders: Reducing PTSD and Dissociative Symptoms While Enhancing Emotion Regulation and Adaptive Capacity
Adverse Childhood Experiences.
Watch Video
The Adverse Childhood Experience (ACEs) are traumatic events that effect children while growing up, such as suffering child maltreatment or living in a household affected by domestic violence, substance misuse or mental illness.
Take Self Assessment
The ACEs questionnaire for adults is used to identify and understand problems that may have occurred early in your life and helps your therapist explore how these problems may be impacting the challenges you are experiencing today.
Misc.
Compassion Fatigue Symptoms: Learn More
[Internet Archive Link] The emotional residue or strain of exposure to working with those suffering from the consequences of traumatic events, including caring for trauma victims, hospice, and COVID-19 patients.
Introducing the Neuroplastic Narrative: Learn More
By clinicians including the context of our experiences as individuals and in examining human survival needs and patterns, diagnosticians can view symptoms of trauma not as pathological, but adaptive! Using this model alongside the medical model (to rule out organic pathology) decreases stigmatizing diagnoses and treatments. Aimee believes this can result in decreasing client’s shame.
New and Emerging Treatments for Depression: Learn More
If you are considering a medical based treatment for depression, (e.g., TMS, psychedelics, ECT, etc.) click the link above for a research review of the available studies which reveals some biases and limitations of original research. While Golden Oak will collaborate with any other treatment provider, we tend to recommend all other avenues be tried before recommending a client spend thousands of dollars on treatments that may give temporary relief, but need to be repeated. Ultimately, we recognize that suffering can be intolerable. We have observed the temporary effects of some of these treatments allow our clients the strength and motivation that was lacking with their current antidepressants, necessary to do difficult work that led to healing that is long-lasting.
Higher Level of Care
If you are in need of more treatment than what an outpatient provider can give, we recommend the following inpatient trauma-focused units after years of recommending these for our clients.
Trauma and Beyond offers IOP/PHP near Los Angeles, California. However they are cash pay, no insurance is accepted.
Banyan Mental Health is a nonprofit that will soon be open and offering IOP/PHP. Banyan was started by the owner of Golden Oak and is passionate about reducing the number of inpatient hospital admissions. Watch their website for updates.
