‘You sowed a baby and you reaped a bomb. ’ D.W. Winnicott D.W. Winnicott was a children’s physician in England who pioneered therapeutic approaches with children who were evacuated and relocated apart from their families during WW II . The majority of the youth he treated (and supervised treatment of) had a pre-existing history of trauma. Even under the best of circumstances, according to Winnicott, an adolescent will exhibit destructive behaviors that challenge their parents and society, but are essential to their becoming healthy adults. Winnicott viewed anti-social behavior as a positive indication of liveliness, response and need and a healthy reaction to loss. Adolescents who are exp
Alissa Torres wrote this article giving advice to victims of trauma, specifically, terrorism and violence. In it she writes about how her writing changed, and helped her process her experience, remember the husband she lost, and cope with family, friends, and strangers questions and advice. #writing #trauma
The challenge was this: how to get a group of fourteen to eighteen-year old boys, all of whom had been through the court system in New York City and had now landed at Andrew Glover, a program for at-risk juvenile offenders, to write something. I knew it wouldn’t be easy because anything that smacks of schooling is problematic for these kids, many of whom have a history of academic failure, not because they’re not smart but because in many cases the system has failed them. I write crime novels and so I decided to introduce them to this genre because I thought it would be something that would interest them. But going in I knew I had to do something a little different, if I was going to get the
