Through grounded scholarship and wide-ranging case examples, Treleaven illustrates the ways mindfulness can help - or hinder - trauma recovery. Part I provides an insightful and concise review of the histories of mindfulness and trauma, including the way modern neuroscience is shaping our understanding of both. Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness offers answers to this question. This raises a crucial question for mindfulness teachers, trauma professionals, and survivors everywhere: How can we minimize the potential dangers of mindfulness for survivors while leveraging its powerful benefits? Instructed to pay close, sustained attention to their inner world, survivors can experience flashbacks, dissociation, and even retraumatization.

But the reality is not so simple.ĭrawing on a decade of research and clinical experience, psychotherapist and educator David Treleaven shows that mindfulness meditation - practiced without an awareness of trauma - can exacerbate symptoms of traumatic stress. At first glance, this appears to be a good thing: Trauma creates stress, and mindfulness is a proven tool for reducing it. This means that anywhere mindfulness is being practiced, someone in the room is likely to be struggling with trauma. At the same time, trauma remains a fact of life: The majority of us will experience a traumatic event in our lifetime, and up to 20 percent of us will develop post-traumatic stress.

From elementary schools to psychotherapy offices, mindfulness meditation is an increasingly mainstream practice.

Treleaven trauma