THE BODY REMEMBERS: VOLUME 2

This book is a continuation of the discussion that began more than fifteen years ago with the publication of the best-selling The Body Remembers. Amid a growing recognition that many clients are being hurt by the retelling of their stories as the basis of healing, The Body Remembers Volume 2 offers a new way and, in so doing, will revolutionize trauma treatment.

This new book is grounded in the belief that the most important goal for any trauma treatment is to improve the quality of life of the client. Therefore, the first prerequisite is that the client be reliably stable and feel safe in his or her daily life as well as the therapy situation. To accomplish this, Babette Rothschild empowers both therapists and clients by expanding trauma treatment options. For clients who prefer not to review memories, or are unable to do so safely, new and expanded strategies and principles for trauma recovery are presented. And for those who wish to avail themselves of more typical trauma memory work, tools to make trauma memory resolution even safer are included. Being able to monitor and modulate a trauma client’s dysregulated nervous system is one of the practitioner’s best lines of defense against traumatic hyperarousal going amok?risking such consequences as dissociation and decompensation. Rothschild clarifies and simplifies autonomic nervous system (ANS) understanding and observation with her creation of an original full color table that distinguishes six levels of arousal. Included in this table (and the discussion that accompanies it) is a new and essential distinction between trauma-induced hypoarousal and the low arousal that is caused by lethargy or depression. The full color ANS table is also available from W.W. Norton as a laminated desk reference and a wall poster suitable for framing so this valuable therapeutic tool will always be at hand. Babette Rothschild, MSW, has been a practitioner since 1976 and a teacher and trainer since 1992. She is a bestselling author of six books, all published by WW Norton and translated into more than a dozen languages. She is also the creator and Series Editor of the 8 Keys to Mental Health Series. After living and working for 9 years in Copenhagen, Denmark she returned to her native Los Angeles where she is writing her next books while she continues to lecture, train, consult, and supervise professional psychotherapists of all sorts worldwide.