REMARKABLE . . . provides clinically relevant descriptions of the mind/body dysfunctions of both the central and autonomic nervous systems of traumatized patients. Even more than a comprehensive overview, the author presents an integrated neuropsychobiological model of the underlying mechanisms of trauma pathology, which he demonstrates in numerous case histories and applies to various trauma therapies. A CREATIVE, CUTTING-EDGE WORK -- Allan N. Schore, PhD, Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of California at Los Angeles School of MedicineAbout the AuthorRobert C. Scaer, MD, received his BA in Psychology, and his MD degree at the University of Rochester. He is Board Certified in Neurology, and has been in practice for 36 years, twenty of those as Medical Director of Rehabilitation Services at the Mapleton Center in Boulder, CO. His primary areas of interest and expertise have been in the fields of traumatic brain injury and chronic pain, and more recently in the study of traumatic stress and its role in physical and emotional symptoms, and in diseases. He has lectured extensively on these topics, and has published several articles on posttraumatic stress disorder, the whiplash syndrome, and other somatic syndromes of traumatic stress. His books include The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease, which presented a new theory of dissociation and its role in many diseases, and The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency, which addressed the broad and relatively unappreciated spectrum of cultural and societal trauma that shapes every aspect of our lives. He is currently retired from clinical medical practice, and continues to pursue a career in writing and lecturing in the field of traumatology. is there an app that reads books to you The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation, and Disease Second edition
28 of 29 people found the following review helpful. Massage therapists, PTSD survivors, chronic pain sufferers, anyone who has been abused--READ THISBy ETGThis book is a must read for PTSD survivors and their loved ones. While it can be very technical, you will gain an understanding of what is going on in your body. Mainly, if you have ever suffered trauma, it is literally living in your body and manifesting as pain. Massage therapists have long known that some clients cry when a certain body part is massaged. This book explains cellular memory and demystifies PTSD survivors' longing for solitude and inexplicable behavior. It offers some hope with new therapies that it turns out are not quackery, discusses pharmaceuticals and psychiatry. I see it is selling out. I know many therapists have it on their shelves but we as lay people need to know what's happening to us, too. It's worth the $30 and much better and an easier read than the first one.53 of 53 people found the following review helpful. An exceptional eductional and reference work from a skilled neurolgist and trauma expertBy NH Doc 4385By way of full disclosure, I am a plastic surgeon with an interest in patients troubled by disturbed body image and an addiction to cosmetic surgery. When I first wrote about that topic in my 2009 surgery textbook, I made the case from a few of my own patient studies that childhood trauma was one of the causes of an obsession for plastic surgery and postoperative dissatisfaction, but it was Dr. Scaer's work and that of others in the trauma field (Peter Levine, Bessel van der Kolk, Pia Mellody, Pat Ogden, Bernice Andrews, and others) that has subsequently helped me piece together a stronger theory and then provide evidence for it, some of which will be published in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery in October. Dr. Scaer and I have subsequently traded a few emails and he has encouraged my further researchDr. Scaer is a physician but not a psychiatrist, which gives him the distinct advantage of being able to review the relevant mental health literature from the standpoint of another specialty. A neurologist with an obvious command of neuroanatomy and physiology and all of the abnormalities that developmental and accidental trauma produce, he can write compellingly to make the case, which I believe most physicians do not appreciate, that trauma is not universally perceived. The response to trauma depends upon its meaning to the victim and his or her sense of helplessness in a perceived life-threatening situation. It's like the lion chasing the antelope--the same physiological reactions are occurring--the pupils are dilated, the muscles are pumping, the adrenaline and cortisol are high--but the meaning to the lion is lunch and to the antelope it is survival.Dr. Scaer has drawn the same link to whiplash and other disease of traumatic stress, and leads the reader through the relevant physiology, trauma and attunement theory, and the way traumatic reactions manifest themselves in a variety of common diseases. As a hand surgeon for many years, I saw the effects of trauma--dissociation, re-experiencing, and avoidance--displayed in many injured, depressed, and angry patients suffering from what is now called "complex regional pain syndrome" and struggled to treat it. All hand surgeons knew that these patients were "difficult", but even now more of them should read Dr. Scaer's work. "Tormented" would be a more accurate term.The third edition is significantly improved and elaborated over the second, which itself was exceptional. I have read every word of both. There are new chapters on bonding and attunement. The whole text is more "dense", literature references updated and exhaustive. Yet somehow it is still smooth reading for a relative novice to the field. That is the author's skill.Dr. Scaer seems aware that not all allopathic physicians will subscribe to his ideas, but in my opinion they should. These patients have lifelong afflictions that they did not cause, and until some compassionate physician recognizes it, too many will be discounted as "crazy." They deserve better, and it is pioneers like Dr. Scaer who will educate all of us.20 of 20 people found the following review helpful. Great Validation for Body Centered TherapiesBy Passionate TherapistScaer is an honest and courageous clinician: when his patients' course of healing did not add up he resisted dismissing them as most doctors had been doing and continue to do. His basic thesis, that emotional suffering is tied up with the autonomic nervous system, gives support to body-based versus cognitive therapies in general. That said, Scaer is oriented very much above the neck, in the brain. The title states 'the body bears the burden' but he himself sees the body as an implement of the mind, a pack-animal if you will, rather than a seat of the person. Also despite emphasizing that trauma is so widespread as almost to be universal, he still seems to consider it an accident or bad luck. That is, he does not deal with social and family dynamics that are systematically traumatizing people in the physiological sense that he describes.EDIT October 2012: I have just read the authors other book The Trauma Spectrum: Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency and I saw that he does there get into the 'little traumas' of parenting and social interaction. Because the second edition of this book bears a later copyright than Trauma Spectrum I had assumed there would be nothing in Spectrum that was not here also. I was wrong, read both books.