Being Fiercely Present: Overcoming Trauma Difficulties in Mindfulness Practice

By Sue Berry McMurray

Many cannot just forget because these memories are frozen, stored and sometimes buried, surfacing briefly in ways that can seem illogical and crazy.

The author takes us on a journey with twists and turns, including dissociated aspects of childhood trauma. The book gives us insight into the survival systems of the brain, and leads us to understand more about ourselves. Readers will engage from many different directions: parents, counselors, teachers, law enforcement, mental health workers, and more.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 12, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491734698

Sue Berry McMurray

Sue Berry McMurray, currently an educational consultant, holds a BA in English Literature from Mary Baldwin College in Staunton Virginia.With a,long career in teaching and education,most recently she produced,a video of her work with young men at-risk for gangs to graduate from Duke’s Center for Documentary Studies in Durham NC. She is the author of several published articles and creator of five educational films. She is the mother of two sons.

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Copyright © 2014 Sue Berry McMurray.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-4917-3468-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4917-3469-8 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 07/24/2021

Contents

Introduction

1 Winter Storm

2 The Body

3 Suicidal Thoughts and Denial as a Block to Mindfulness

4 Acceptance

5 College

6 Difficulties with Mindfulness

7 Becoming a Missionary for a Short Time

8 Mindfulness with Rage

9 The Long Wait

10 Shame

11 Breakthrough with Frances

12 AA and MIndfulness

13 Being Present for Play

14 The Seeking System

15 Mentalization

16 Tibetan Buddhism and Alcoholics Anonymous

17 Mindfulness Modifications

18 The Here and Now

19 A Mixed-up Jumble

20 Listening

21 Insight from Authors

22 Notice From the Media

23 Denial

References

This book is dedicated to Stanley

Hauerwas, the Duke theologian who

introduced me to Wittgenstein.

Introduction

by Harold Kudler, MD of the

Veterans Administration.

Introduction

Nobel Prize-winning psychiatrist, Eric Kandel, once described his colleagues as divided among hard-nosed biologists and soft-nosed psychotherapists. Most members of Western Society struggle with the same dichotomy: Are we best understood in terms of body or mind?

These questions are nowhere more pressing or poignant than in the field of psychological trauma. From the beginning of modern Psychiatry, clinicians and researchers have argued about whether trauma overwhelms the circuits of the body or the conceptions of the mind. Despite tantalizing evidence accumulating from functional brain imaging, neuroendocrinology, genomics, epigenetics, and the widespread use of so-called body therapies, we are still unable to distinguish mind from brain either scientifically or philosophically. One conclusion we might draw from this is that our insistence on the distinction between soma and psyche is a figment of our misunderstanding of human nature.

If there is one thing we can be sure of, it’s that trauma may visit any of us at any time. Trauma has impact on both mind and brain and reverberates between them. It can alter the trajectory of a single life or a nation. It spreads through families and communities and resonates across generations. The very boundaries of human existence break down in the wake of psychological trauma: time, space, sense of self and connections with others bend, break and may even collapse in the face of trauma.

Should we ever succeed in defining psychological trauma in purely biological terms, that will not relieve us of the responsibility (and the opportunity) to understand and deal with a human story that transcends the events which set it in motion or the biology which subserves it. Trauma can shatter the self but may also light the way to deeper understandings. My three decades as a psychiatrist working with veterans, ex-prisoners of war, crime victims and survivors of accidents and disasters has taught me that, while