In this important new book, Richard Polt takes a fresh approach to Heidegger’s thought during his most politicized period, and works toward a philosophical appropriation of his most valuable ideas. Polt shows how central themes of the 1930s—such as inception, emergency, and the question “Who are we?”—grow from seeds planted in Being and Time and are woven into Heidegger’s political thought. Working with recently published texts, including Heidegger’s Black Notebooks, Polt traces the thinker’s engagement and disengagement from the Nazi movement. He critiques Heidegger for his failure to understand the political realm, but also draws on his ideas to propose a “traumatic ontology” that understands individual and collective existence as identities that are always in question, and always remain exposed to disruptive events. Time and Trauma is a bold attempt to gain philosophical insight from the most problematic and controversial phase of Heidegger’s thought.

"Bullets don't just travel through skin and bone. They travel through time." These words were tattooed onto the shoulder of a young woman whose father was shot during "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. This wrenching, volatile but also binding truth is the subject of this book. It's a truth about traumatic experiences that happen to a family, but also to a society, and to the organizations that link these intimate units with the larger context of history and culture. It's also a truth about the way trauma plays out over time, including between generations. Grounded in Erik Erikson's "way of looking at things", the book is a journal of encounters between clinical psychoanalysis and other disciplines, and an inquiry into what might be learned there for both. Sometimes that learning has to do with trauma: the way in which what can't be emotionally contained, thought about or spoken in one part of a system is passed along, with disorganizing, sometimes heartbreaking consequences, to another. After a reflection on dignity, the book examines intergenerational trauma in families, including Erikson's. It then illustrates how trauma to organizations slips below the threshold of awareness and yet continues to wear down its members. The final section examines aspects of the larger society, including radicalization, war trauma, the pandemic and cultural healing. What emerges is the sober yet hopeful truth that what people discover by taking their own emotional experiences seriously, though that might markedly differ from what is accepted in the everyday world, is a primary path toward recovery from trauma.

Named One of the Top 20 Books of 2009 by Cleveland Plain Dealer Medical school taught John Rich how to deal with physical trauma in a big city hospital but not with the disturbing fact that young black men were daily shot, stabbed, and beaten. This is Rich's account of his personal search to find sense in the juxtaposition of his life and theirs. Young black men in cities are overwhelmingly the victims—and perpetrators—of violent crime in the United States. Troubled by this tragedy—and by his medical colleagues' apparent numbness in the face of it—Rich, a black man who grew up in relative safety and comfort, reached out to many of these young crime victims to learn why they lived in a seemingly endless cycle of violence and how it affected them. The stories they told him are unsettling—and revealing about the reality of life in American cities. Mixing his own perspective with their seldom-heard voices, Rich relates the stories of young black men whose lives were violently disrupted—and of their struggles to heal and remain safe in an environment that both denied their trauma and blamed them for their injuries. He tells us of people such as Roy, a former drug dealer who fought to turn his life around and found himself torn between the ease of returning to the familiarity of life on the violent streets of Boston and the tenuous promise of accepting a new, less dangerous one. Rich's poignant portrait humanizes young black men and illustrates the complexity of a situation that defies easy answers and solutions.

In his landmark book, The Time Paradox, internationally known psychologist Philip Zimbardo showed that we can transform the way we think about our past, present, and future to attain greater success in work and in life. Now, in The Time Cure, Zimbardo has teamed with clinicians Richard and Rosemary Sword to reveal a groundbreaking approach that helps those living with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to shift their time perspectives and move beyond the traumatic past toward a more positive future. Time Perspective Therapy switches the focus from past to present, from negative to positive, clearing the pathway for the best yet to come: the future. It helps PTSD sufferers pull their feet out of the quicksand of past traumas and step firmly on the solid ground of the present, allowing them to take a step forward into a brighter future. Rather than viewing PTSD as a mental illness the authors see it as a mental injury—a normal reaction to traumatic events—and offer those suffering from PTSD the healing balm of hope. The Time Cure lays out the step-by-step process of Time Perspective Therapy, which has proven effective for a wide range of individuals, from veterans to survivors of abuse, accidents, assault, and neglect. Rooted in psychological research, the book also includes a wealth of vivid and inspiring stories from real-life PTSD sufferers—effective for individuals seeking self-help, their loved ones, therapists and counselors, or anyone who wants to move forward to a brighter future.

Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.

Trauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic. In The Trauma of Everyday Life renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker Mark Epstein uncovers the transformational potential of trauma, revealing how it can be used for the mind's own development. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesn't destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds' own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us. Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a tool for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. Guided by the Buddha's life as a profound example of the power of trauma, Epstein's also closely examines his own experience and that of his psychiatric patients to help us all understand that the way out of pain is through it.

Through cutting-edge research and thoughtful personal stories comes a “compassionate, friendly, and empathetic” (Kirkus Reviews) exploration of post-traumatic growth—the emerging idea that psychological trauma doesn’t destroy a person, but can instead spark future growth, self-improvement, and success. What if there’s an upside to experiencing trauma? Most survivors of trauma—whether they live through life-threatening illnesses or accidents, horror on the battlefield, or the loss of a loved one—can suffer for months, even years. But recently, psychologists have discovered that PTSD, or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, is only a piece of the whole experience. With the right circumstances and proper support, many trauma survivors also benefit after a terrible experience. They emerge stronger, more focused, and with a new perspective on their future. In the tradition of Po Bronson and Paul Tough, journalist Jim Rendon delivers a deeply reported and unique look at the life-changing implications of post-traumatic growth. The pain and anguish caused by traumatic events can become a force for dramatic life change. It can move people to find deeper meaning in their lives and drive them to help others. But how can terrible experiences lead to remarkable, positive breakthroughs? Upside seeks to answer just that by taking a penetrating look at this burgeoning new field of study. Comprised of interviews with leading researchers and dozens of inspiring stories, Rendon paints a vivid and comprehensive portrait of this groundbreaking field and offers a roadmap for anyone trying to understand how personal tragedy can lead to a more hopeful and positive future.

In this innovative title, celebrated trainer and trauma practitioner Laura Khoudari brings a fresh approach to healing after trauma, using strength training as an embodied movement practice. Compassionate, witty and fastidiously researched, Khoudari's debut, Lifting Heavy Things, is a breakthrough title that will empower and inspire you to develop resilience and build emotional and physical strength through working out with weights, while mindful of the ways that trauma can compromise the wellbeing of the mind and body.

In this groundbreaking book, a leading clinical psychiatrist redefines how we think about and treat victims of trauma. A "stunning achievement" that remains a "classic for our generation." (Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., author of The Body Keeps the Score). Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war. Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most important psychiatry works to be published since Freud," Trauma and Recovery is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand how we heal and are healed.

Following the most solemn moments in recent American history, comedians have tested the limits of how soon is “too soon” to joke about tragedy. Comics confront the horrifying events and shocking moments that capture national attention and probe the acceptable, or “sayable,” boundaries of expression that shape our cultural memory. In Tragedy Plus Time, Philip Scepanski examines the role of humor, particularly televised comedy, in constructing and policing group identity and memory in the wake of large-scale events. Tragedy Plus Time is the first comprehensive work to investigate tragedy-driven comedy in the aftermaths of such traumas as the JFK assassination and 9/11, as well as during the administration of Donald Trump. Focusing on the mass publicization of television comedy, Scepanski considers issues of censorship and memory construction in the ways comedians negotiate emotions, politics, war, race, and Islamophobia. Amid the media frenzy and conflicting expressions of grief following a public tragedy, comedians provoke or risk controversy to grapple publicly with national traumas that all Americans are trying to understand for themselves.