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Trauma & Distressing Mental States

anything related to panic, anxiety, fear, hypervigilance


A Small Library of Comfort for Anxious Times

A Small Library of Comfort for Anxious Times

We are not meant to manage fear alone. These resources have been my village.

Childhood

+7

On the Difference Between Feeling and Emotion

On the Difference Between Feeling and Emotion

How mislabeling our experience is keeping us stuck

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+6

Why Trying to Feel Safe Never Works: Winnicott on the Fear of Breakdown

Why Trying to Feel Safe Never Works: Winnicott on the Fear of Breakdown

D.W. Winnicott's unsettling theory about the catastrophe you're still waiting for

Concepts

+7

The Secret Life of Coping: The Private Strategies of an Anxious Person

The Secret Life of Coping: The Private Strategies of an Anxious Person

From the Mixed-Up Files of Ms. Amanda J. Sternweiler

Concepts

+3

Susan Sontag On Experience as the True Language of Understanding

Susan Sontag On Experience as the True Language of Understanding

Why Direct Experience Transcends Academic Knowledge

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+6

The Unbearable Lightness of Not Being Yourself

The Unbearable Lightness of Not Being Yourself

How I Stopped Being Myself Long Enough to Get Better

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+8

The Invention of Self-Doubt

The Invention of Self-Doubt

Why Our Doubts Say More About the World Than About Us

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+8

Your Brain Is a Liar. Here's How One Psychiatrist Proved It.

Your Brain Is a Liar. Here's How One Psychiatrist Proved It.

Teaching our minds manners and etiquette.

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+9

The Only Manual For Living You'll Ever Need

The Only Manual For Living You'll Ever Need

The Hidden Document I Return to When I Come Undone

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+7

The Tender Architecture of Childhood

The Tender Architecture of Childhood

The First Ever How to Live Newsletter

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+5

The Easiest People to Control

The Easiest People to Control

Why Smart, Well-Meaning Citizens Still Fall for Dangerous Leaders

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+7

When You Feel Out of Place in the Human Condition

When You Feel Out of Place in the Human Condition

Notes from an Ontological Misfit

Concepts

+4

Notes & Thoughts: The New York Times 1st Well Festival

Notes & Thoughts: The New York Times 1st Well Festival

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+12

The Meaning We Make: How Neutral Thoughts Become Personal Truth

The Meaning We Make: How Neutral Thoughts Become Personal Truth

In the space between thinking and feeling

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+7

The Hidden Language of Healing: 10 Things Every Great Therapist Knows

The Hidden Language of Healing: 10 Things Every Great Therapist Knows

A primer on what's left unsaid

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+7

The Vigilant Heart: Hypervigilance and Emotional Exhaustion

The Vigilant Heart: Hypervigilance and Emotional Exhaustion

What neuroscience and attachment theory teach us about the exhausting vigilance that keeps love at bay

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+7

Seven Inquiries That Reveal the Hidden Self

Seven Inquiries That Reveal the Hidden Self

What you avoid asking might be what you need to know most.

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+7

The Beautiful Trap: How Limerence Warps Perception and Fuels Obsession

The Beautiful Trap: How Limerence Warps Perception and Fuels Obsession

The intrusive and inescapable high that isn't love, at all.

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+7

The Basement Prisoners: How Dorothea Dix Exposed America's Hidden Mental Health Horrors

The Basement Prisoners: How Dorothea Dix Exposed America's Hidden Mental Health Horrors

A 19th Century Teacher's Campaign Revolutionized Patient Care

Systems

+2

Medicine Without Medicine: The Radical Cure of a Beloved Cult Doctor

Medicine Without Medicine: The Radical Cure of a Beloved Cult Doctor

John Sarno and the History of Psychosomatic Illness

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+6

The Survival Paradox: How Sexual Violence Hijacks Our Most Ancient Protection System and Why Victims Comfort Their Abusers.

The Survival Paradox: How Sexual Violence Hijacks Our Most Ancient Protection System and Why Victims Comfort Their Abusers.

On Fawning, in Response to the New York Article about Neil Gaiman

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+8

The Science of Connection: What Four Decades of Attachment Research Reveals About Our Deepest Human Bonds

The Science of Connection: What Four Decades of Attachment Research Reveals About Our Deepest Human Bonds

Understanding the Invisible Architecture of Human Attachment

Concepts

+5

The Art of Surrender: Finding Sleep at 3am

The Art of Surrender: Finding Sleep at 3am

For Adam W, and for you...

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+6

In the Depths of Uncertainty: Rebecca Solnit on Keeping Hope Alive

In the Depths of Uncertainty: Rebecca Solnit on Keeping Hope Alive

What we do now matters

Concepts

+4

On Loneliness and Exclusion: The Hidden Architecture of the Single Life

On Loneliness and Exclusion: The Hidden Architecture of the Single Life

When One is the Loneliest Number

Maladaptive Responses & Behaviors

+4

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