Wednesday, March 16, 2011

A Woman's World that Works for All - Volume 2


What? You didn't think I'd give up on my ladies-only line of BK books, did you? Just needed a quick break to share my thoughts on the future of book-selling (as I am wont to do), but let's get back to this game-changing series of products, shall we?

As you may recall, the first work in the 'A Woman's World that Works for All' collection came from bestselling dystopian YA author Suzanne Collins (and, if you can't recall, you can re-read here). This second book will go in a different direction, just to make sure we cover all of our bases. While Collins' BK book imagines, and works toward, a world without trauma , the next book in the series is aimed at overcoming and dealing with the trauma that already exists. Who better to pen this prescription than acclaimed psychologist Edna Foa?

As human beings, we are taught to fear those things that are harmful to us. If and when those fears are realized, the damage can be hard to undo. In extreme cases, the pain associated with these experiences is known as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a condition consisting of depression, anxiety, anger and isolation. The viciousness of PTSD is matched by the severity of the things that can provoke it: sexual assault and abuse, natural disasters, and of course, war. (Take a moment to to check out these statistics.) Many people have difficulty addressing this condition, and far too many sufferers cope by working too hard, drinking too hard, and keeping the pain to themselves. This doesn't sit well with Edna Foa.

Foa, who studied first at Bar-Ilan University in Israel and then in the U.S. at the University of Pennsylvania, began studying post-rape trauma 30 years ago, cobbling together a therapy based on related anxiety disorders. In 2000, Foa and her husband visited Israel, arriving five days before the Second Intifada began. What Dr. Foa witnessed changed her focus from post-rape trauma to combat-related PTSD, from which point she developed a therapy known as Prolonged Exposure, or PE. PE involves identifying thoughts and situations that trigger fear and then gently exposing sufferers to them, the thought behind which is that facing the memories strips them of power. And it works. The U.S. military is embracing PE, as is the Department of Veterans Affairs.

To Foa, spreading the word is what is most important. "If you develop a wonderful protocol, it's useless if nobody uses it," she says. Well, what better way to spread the word than to write about it, Edna? While Dr. Foa is already the author of numerous psychological texts, I think she could branch out with a book for Berrett-Koehler, taking on more than just the medical aspects of the condition. Namely, to help create a world that works for all, how can we apply what she has learned from PE to other trauma that exists? How would she do it? Do you, readers, have any ideas? Feel free to share below.

2 comments:

  1. My first thought was to use the protocol with children. Many children have anxiety problems in school, and the solution is often, and sadly, to diagnose them with a disorder, which often leads to medication. As an alternative, showing parents and teachers how to gently expose such a child to her fears could be a more effective, and much less damaging, way to approach the problem.

    Thanks for this post, Bonnie!

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  2. Lisa BaylessFebruary 28, 2012

    Thank you for such a great post. I have suffered from PTSD after a childhood trauma and still continue to look for ways to cope with it. Prolonged exposure sounds like a very interesting avenue of treatment. There is a lot of treatment information for PTSD at http://onlineceucredit.com/edu/social-work-ceus-nd. This site has offered me a lot of techniques to cope with my PTSD symptoms.

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