Trauma-Informed

What We Hear Under Anesthesia Still Matters  When we think about surgery, we often focus on the technical aspects—skilled surgeons, effective anesthesia, and a successful outcome. But what we hear during the surgery may also play a critical role in how we heal.   Although research to date is inconclusive, clinical experience has repeatedly shown that not only do we …

As stated in earlier blogs, surgical trauma is one of the more complex categories of trauma to treat because of the multiple factors that combine in a surgery. Immobilization, altered states of consciousness, physical injury, the body’s feeling that it is being attacked, as well as the sometimes thoughtless conversations that happen in the operating room can all work together …

In this blog, I will discuss some tips for choosing a surgeon, and talking to them about your surgery. I am aware that in cases of emergency, socialized medicine or medical providers that offer limited options, that choice of a doctor is not a luxury that everyone has access to. However in all cases we have some choices and exercising …

In this blog, I would like to tell my own story of two surgeries that I did, a year and a half apart, to replace my two hip joints. These surgeries became a pivot point in my recovery from some surgeries that I had undergone as a child which left a long-term imprint of terror in my body. I will …

As a practitioner and teacher of Somatic Experiencing® for the last 30 years, and as someone who has undergone a number of surgeries herself, starting with some “harmless” dental surgeries as a child, I have had occasion to work with many different surgical traumas over the years, both in my own system and with my clients. Surgical trauma is a …