The Trauma Spectrum:
Hidden Wounds and Human Resiliency
Robert Scaer
Foreword by Peter A. Levine, Ph.D.
A neurologist's view of our response to trauma.
Our experiences of trauma sow the seeds of many persistent and misunderstood medical problems such as chronic fatigue syndrome and various maladies of the immune system. Because of our inadequate understanding of the relationship of mind and body in processing these traumas, many of us suffer needlessly from our exposure to life's traumas. Robert Scaer offers hope to those who wish to transform trauma and better understand their lives.
Robert Scaer, M.D., has taught at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and served most of his career as Medical Director of the Mapleton Rehabilitation Center in Boulder, CO. He has published several articles on the somatic syndromes of traumatic stress and is the author of The Body Bears the Burden: Trauma, Dissociation and Disease.
Praise for The Trauma Spectrum:
"Providing a thought-provoking alternative to the conceptualization of trauma, Scaer (a neuropsychologist) redefines trauma as a continuum of variably negative life events occurring over the lifespan… Highly recommended." —Choice
"I strongly recommend this book as essential reading material for professionals and students in all related areas of mental health and medicine. The author's skill in writing, clarity of thought, rich clinical observations, systematic conceptualizations of real-life trauma cases, therapeutic expertise, encyclopedic knowledge, and professional integrity shine through all 308 pages of this appealing book." —PsycCritiques
“Neurologist Robert Scaer has written a brilliantly original book that is critically important to our understanding of the nature of posttraumatic stress and its neurophysiological nature. His wide-ranging intellect makes startling, fresh connections between the trauma survivor’s experience and such things as Pavlovian conditioning, the brain’s memory pathways, Freud’s ideas about hysteria, fetal development and the modern birthing process, and the sudden flourishing of a host of modern afflictions.: The result is a stunning and resonating view of what ails usas individuals and as a culture,and some astute direction about where we can go to remediate these daunting conditions. This is a unique and valuable work from a rare, original mind.”
—Belleruth Naparstek, author of Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal and creator of the Health Journeys audio series
"Brilliant – Encyclopedic in depth. This is a book of genius, and will lead the way to the study of trauma-related diseases over the next 50 years. In addition, it will force us to examine institutionalized sources of trauma in our culture, and to make necessary medical and cultural changes. In this book, Dr. Scaer shows himself to be an extraordinary scholar, clinician, and visionary in the field of trauma.”
— Robert H. Tinker, Ph.D., author of Through the Eyes of a Child: EMDR with Children
"The Trauma Spectrum is an outstanding feat of scholarship by Dr. Robert Scaer, one of the leaders of the burgeoning field of traumatology. In this creative work he presents a compelling argument that trauma, in the forms of right brain attachment trauma in infancy, to the 'little traumas' of everyday life, to ever-present social-cultural trauma, has an impact on brain, mind, and body and thereby health and disease over the course of the lifespan. This remarkable book will be of interest to not only practitioners of psychotherapy, medicine, and neurology, but to anyone interested in cutting-edge developments in our current understanding of the deeper mechanisms of trauma."
—Allan N. Schore, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, and author of Affect Dysregulation and Disorders of the Self, and Affect Regulation and the Repair of the Self
" I strongly recommend this book as essential reading material for
professionals and students in all related areas of mental health and medicine.
The author's skill in writing, clarity of thought, rich clinical observations,
systematic conceptualizations of real-life trauma cases, therapeutic expertise,
encyclopedic knowledge, and professional integrity shine through all 308 pages
of this appealing book."
—PsycCritiques
"Providing a thought-provoking alternative to the conceptualization of
trauma, Scaer (a neuropsychologist) redefines trauma as a continuum of variably
negative life events occurring over the lifespanI. Highly recommended."
—Choice
"A powerful documentation of the wider-reaching nature of trauma than
medical science would usually permit."
—California Bookwatch
Winner, National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis Gradiva
Award, Best book in Critical Analysis and Psychoanalysis
ISBN: 0-393-70466-1
July 2005
Hardcover, 320 pages
