Psychology Today Blog

We know that just over 100 years ago, the 1918 pandemic took over 50 million lives around the world. Last year, car crashes resulted in over 50 million causalities and an estimated 1.25 million deaths worldwide. Being injured in a car accident is one of the leading causes of disability, and in some age groups, the leading cause of death. From my practice treating survivors of severe auto accidents over the past two decades, I have seen up close the blink-of-an-eye devastation that forever changes [...]

A number of years ago, I read two fascinating books written by a Russian psychiatrist, Dr. Olga Kharitidi, who was born in Siberia and worked in a Soviet-era State mental hospital. She was moved to study ancient indigenous shamanic traditions. Kharitidi wrote about the “spirit of trauma,” and how it can overtake one’s self, and detailed things she learned from ancient tools that had been passed down to native healers. It seems with the current COVID-19 pandemic, the world is immersed in a "spirit of [...]

By way of background: Last November, I had the opportunity to preview a new documentary film that will soon be released (in early November of this year) that deals with the silent killer of traumatic brain injury and the hope for healing and recovery. Almost a year ago now, I was able to talk with Jerri Sher, the director, writer, and producer of Quiet Explosions, and last night I was able to do a follow-up interview with the two-time, Emmy award-winning documentarian. Read More

As mental health professionals, we are always concerned about the risk of suicide with depression. As a nation, we acknowledge this week as National Suicide Prevention Week to spotlight the importance of prevention. Given the stressors modern life presents to all of us, awareness of this vital mental health issue is now, more than ever, important for us to discuss. Depression is a ubiquitous condition of life. As we move through life, we constantly encounter loss or the threat of the loss of important people, [...]

While writing my book on recovering from auto accident trauma, I found myself revisiting how I came to follow my path into clinical work which has now spanned over 40 years. Many major life decisions begin with painful emotional events and traumas that break the human heart. A journey then begins to heal the shattered self. In the preface to my book, I talk about my mother’s death last year and the painful dynamics that were set in place over ninety years ago when she [...]

Starting in March of this year, the world began an uncharted journey into a global pandemic related to a new virus called COVID-19. The pandemic abruptly changed the way we live, relate to others, and function on a day-to-basis. For many people, anxiety and depression are experienced to some degree as a response to this crisis. Fear, confusion, irritability, and sleep disturbance are all common reactions to trauma. The impact of the pandemic on the mental health of the global human population may have lasting, [...]

Football season is going to be missed by many, especially parents who long to watch their children play. But we should take this opportunity to focus on a serious topic that is often left out of football talk: TBI related to sports injuries. How I Became Interested For over 15 years, my work has focused on a sub-specialization of trauma psychology dealing with car accident trauma. Increasingly, I saw how the forces involved in a car accident caused injuries to the brain which impacted every [...]

For over fifteen years, I have subspecialized in an area of trauma psychology dealing with surviving car accidents. No one wants to think about what is involved for the hundreds of thousands of people who each year survive car accidents in the United States, and indeed many millions worldwide. In doing research for my forthcoming book, I discovered we are talking about the 40,000-death range year after year and survivors in the estimated fifty million range. When it comes to car accidents, we are talking about a yearly worldwide pandemic—but [...]

Billions of people around the world are affected directly or indirectly by roadway collisions. In the United States alone, approximately 3 million people every year sustain auto-accident injuries, which often become lifelong disabilities. In the months following a devastating collision, survivors and their loved ones are often overwhelmed dealing with the aftermath. Survivors may feel like they’ve been transported to another planet where they’re drowning in a sea of pain and heightened emotion. They may no longer feel like the person they once were, and [...]

A patient recently told me during a therapy session about a movie she recommended I see. As always, when a movie is discussed as meaningful to the psychotherapeutic process, I was intrigued to see what it is about and how it might further elucidate significant inner issues. The movie was "Lars and the Real Girl," a 2007 film written by award-winning playwright and screenwriter Nancy Oliver, who was actually nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for this film. In 2008, she won the Humanitas Prize for [...]

Trauma turns the world upside down and inside out, disrupting our ability to process feelings and meaning. In psychology, the word “affect” is used to mean emotions or feelings. A big part of trauma-informed psychotherapy is about working to process trauma-linked emotions and regaining—or learning—affect regulation and affect tolerance. Donald Kalsched, author of The Inner World of Trauma, offers us his useful definition of trauma: “Trauma is about the fact that we are all given more to experience in this life than we can bear to experience consciously.” (This quote is from [...]

Living as a human being in our world exposes us to many events that have the potential to cause trauma. The traumatic stimulus can be actual or threatened injury or death to self or others. One of the many stimuli for traumas that, unfortunately, befall many people are auto accidents, some of which are severe and cost life, limb, and livelihood. For the past 15+ years, I have subspecialized in psychological care of people traumatized by severe car accidents. Initially in this work, I focused exclusively on the psychological dimension [...]