"The power of this book lies in its passionate appeal to news and entertainment media for their help in turning the horrors of history into healing and peace. Beyond the Trauma Vortex clarifies how reactions to trauma can influence reporting in ways that distort news coverage for readers and viewers, adding to their confusion and helplessness rather than informing and moving them to constructive action."Migael M. Scherer, Journalist, teacher, and author of Still Loved by the Sun: A Rape Survivors Journal"Gina Ross has produced a must-read that illuminates peoples ability to constructively understand, recognize, and heal their own traumas, whether witnessed directly or secondhand. Beyond the Trauma Vortex alerts us to traumas being a root cause of violence and advises us to look at political conflicts between groups and nations through the trauma lens. Making us aware of what she calls the 'trauma vortex' is her eye-opening prelude to the 'healing vortex,' our inner resources that allow us to move beyond events we might like to lay to rest but are unable to. I can attest that the "healing vortex" works. During a time of great peril and extreme stress in my life, I was able to draw on many of the healing resources Gina describes so accurately in this book. Consider this review an endorsement and a testimonial as well."Jerry Levin, Former CNN Middle East bureau chief."In our post-9/11 world, no one escapes emotional trauma; its effects are only a matter of degree. Beyond the Trauma Vortex is a sorely needed examination of the origins and nature of trauma, and how we can heal from it. This is a very wise book that deserves a wide readership for the sake of our country and our world."Larry Dossey, M.D., Author of Healing Beyond the Body and Reinventing Medicine"Theres a really important message in this book. A great worldwide benefit will come as a result of our better understanding of the impact of trauma and the process of personal and collective healing and response that is possible. This well-researched work offers insight and tools for all those involved in transforming old problems into new solutions."Jack Kornfield, Author, meditation teacher, and co-founder of the Insight Meditation SocietyAbout the AuthorGINA ROSS, MFCC, is the founder and chair of the International Trauma- Healing Institute in the United States and the co-founder of the Israeli Trauma Center in Jerusalem. She specializes in trauma and has been involved in the understanding and treatment of trauma since 1990. She is trained in cognitive, behavioral, and somatic treatment approaches and is certified in the more innovative techniques of Somatic Experiencing (SE), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Thought Field Therapy (TFT), and Traumatic Incident Reduction (TIR). She was the founder and chair for seven years of the Cross-Cultural Committee under the Los Angeles, California, Association of Marriage, Family, and Child Therapists (MFCT) and serves multicultural clientele from over 50 countries in her cross-cultural practice.Ross is a faculty member and teacher/trainer for the Foundation for Human Enrichment; she has presented at international conferences and has also appeared on radio and television. Ross sees that the media plays an important role in the way trauma is perceived by individuals, communities, groups, and nations. She and her institute have undertaken the goal of putting and keeping the issue of trauma on the global agenda, and developing resources and collaborating with organizations to further the healing of trauma at the community, national, and international level. Currently, she is working with Israeli and Palestinian society, and particularly the media, to bring about understanding of the role of trauma and the political trauma vortex in Middle Eastern politics. She is developing a model to work at national levels that can be applied to other regions as well. She is the published author of several articles. Beyond the Trauma Vortex: The Medias Role in Healing Fear, Terror, and Violence is her first book. Gina Ross can be reached at: ginaross@traumainstitute.org. how can i get ibooks for free Beyond the Trauma Vortex: The Media's Role in Healing Fear, Terror, and Violence
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. I am so glad I found this author and this bookBy JenniferI am so glad I found this author and this book. It is so interesting and helpful. Our media does play an important role in the way that they influence society--for better or worse. Media has the power to either plant seeds of peace or of dissent. Too often, I see the media planting seeds of dissent, rather than peace and fostering of healing. I thought news was supposed to be objective and "just the facts" (which would be traumatizing enough) but it seems to fall more in the "editorial" realm these days--and they seem to want to add to the trauma. Must sell better. But, what are the long term consequences? But, this book helps one realize--not only do we all have responsibility as we report the news or talk about events, we also have the ability to process the trauma that events, learning of the news and even hearing editorials create. I love it that we can learn to process stressful events--and even trauma--so that we don't have to suffer long term consequences and we can go on to live our best lives. I definitely recommend this book! Great author! Much wisdom.6 of 9 people found the following review helpful. An important subject, an imperfect lookBy TraumaTherapistGina Ross tackles an important subject and she does it from her own experience as a Jewish woman who has lived through difficult times in the Middle East. This book certainly expresses her passionate feelings about the effects of trauma on a community or a country. However, once she gets to the meat of the subject of the book she fails. What replaces the traumatic material, when that's a large part of the national news? How do communities heal from trauma or secondary trauma? How do individual stations help their communities heal when the stations control only about 5% of their content?Gina's prose also fails her. It's often confusing and occasionally states the opposite of what she apparently intends. Another failure is that she hasn't really thought through how the media might help a community once it is traumatized. Mostly she talks about techniques for healing individuals and even there her information is quite limited.Again, this is an important subject. It's clear to me that it has not yet been addressed.9 of 9 people found the following review helpful. Author takes on the Media in Reporting MethodsBy A CustomerGina Ross presents a unique outlook on the role the media plays in interpreting and affecting our perceptionos of traumatic events and our reactions to them. When overwhelming traumatic events impacts us, our nervous system becomes deregulated and the brain chemistry changes. As a consequence, a variety of symptoms may develop. We may lose our ability to self-regulate the nervous system and become prey to agitation, panic attacks, hyper-vigilance and loss of the ability to concentrate and to learn. We may lose the ability to contain emotions and feel out of control. We may be at the mercy of mood swings, emotional outbursts of anger, sadness, fear depression and apathy. We may lose the control over our actions, engaging in obsessive, repetitive defensive patterns or addictions, as a way of self-medicating the uncontrolled activation, and/or repetition of traumatic events (such as a series of accidents, rapes, abuse, etc.). We may lose our ability to reason and our shrinking becomes polarized, black or white, intolerant of differences, blaming and judging, leading to demonizing and dehumanizing behavior. People under the impact of trauma are easily re-triggered by other traumatic events, even by innocuous events that are vaguely similar to the original event.The media has the ability, through responsible reporting, has the ability to change these aspects. Additionally Ross addresses the "secondhand" trauma of reporting. Trauma's impact on the people who surround victims has not been well understood. In addition to the physical destruction of trauma, there is the psychic deterioration - breakdown start, rippling, stressing the system and exhausting its resources. Efforts are spent on (stress management and catastrophe fixing) managing and coping, rather than building and creating, creating a system of deficits rather than assets, which makes the family community or group lose its resiliency, become more vulnerable to further disorganization at the next traumatic events.When resources are already low, and the system is placed under further stress by poverty, lack of democracy, instability through ethnic religious mobilization, the system become more vulnerable its collapse more likely.Our actions therefore are run by out of control emotions, rather than by a stable, integrated, thinking process. Actions become more impulsive, less thought out; more risks are taken, endangering behaviors are rampant. Family and community networks breakdown. Paranoid thinking (the "sound" of threat) is internalized, engendering paranoia, negative confused thinking; Cynicism disenchantment affects reality assessment. Blaming and judging replace communication and exchange. The most dangerous aspects of the trauma vortex is that "bad feels right," the disconnection from any other possible reality becomes prevalent and the focus of reality becomes very narrow and trauma driven, fed by paranoia.The ethical self takes a back seat to a survival mechanism gone awry, unrealistic and destructive emotions are exaggerated. Danger is exaggerated, insufferable profound helplessness transforms into any kind of action that will relieve it, accepting and justifying violence for normal peace-seeking people. Furthermore, the raw and exaggerated emotions become over-coupled, mixed in a messy amalgam, where every activation of the nervous system is connected to feelings of fear and terror, blaming of the "other" hair-trigger situation from a hair-trigger nervous system.A macro trauma vortex is further exacerbated by the reactions it provokes: empathy without judgment (assessment) fear and counter-reaction, paralysis, and passivity, unconscious reactions to the trauma vortex amplifies it many times fold.Only the capacity to hold both positions: empathy and judgment.The focus on the possible outcome disappears - the "other" becomes a stereotyped, generalized negative figure. Distrust of anything originating from the other is couched as autonomy.Ross addresses these issues and suggests productive mechanisms to change the trauma vortex into a healing vortex. A must read for all media personnel, students of journalism, and the general public who believe things could be reported in a much better way. Sunny Sherat