Barbara Lewison, LCSW, LLC

This expresses what I’ve explained about writing or journaling, and how it can get the circular thoughts out of your head and onto paper, where it can be either an outlet for healing or a way to examine unhelpful thoughts or ways of seeing yourself.

How racial trauma and inter generational trauma affect the body and brain.

I'm attending a Renfrew Center Foundation Training today, and just learned about some important genetic research related to eating disorders. Such as conceptualizing Anorexia Nervose as a metabo-psychiatric illness rather than seeing it as only psychological. We now have the data to show that there are differences in the way people with anorexia nervosa response to negative energy balances, as compared to others. There are also important implications for long-term ED recov...ery, similar to the progressive disease concept of alcoholism, and now we can point to the biological and metabolic correlations and genetic markers with other psychiatric and metabolic conditions. If you or anyone you know has ever had an eating disorder and would like to contribute to this incredible research study, please check The Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative (EDGI) out. The Eating Disorders Genetics Initiative (EDGI) is the largest-ever genetic research study of eating disorders. If you have had anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, or binge-eating disorder at any time in your life, please take their survey. If you are outside of the US, click here to see if there is an EDGI site in your country: https://edgi.org

This video, by Men Healing, is one of the best videos on explaining trauma, which includes the emotional, mental, and physical reactions that many survivors have after experiencing overwhelming, extremely stressful, and traumatic events. Traumatic events, can be one-time occurrences, or on-going including emotional/verbal abuse/neglect, physical abuse/assault, sexual abuse/assault - domestic/intimate partner violence & children of alcoholics/addicts; military/combat trauma; ...Continue reading

Today I heard this story of an accidental overdose at a party and wanted to share a newer resource: The girl who accidentally overdosed on more than one substance wasn’t breathing. The people at the party refused to call 911, so they drove her to the ER, in which case it’d been over an hour and she was left brain dead. Her family started an organization called #alwayscall911 Also, the human brain’s prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until about age 25, so sometimes thi...ngs like this have a developmental/biological cause for poor judgment. How incredibly sad. ALWAYS call 911 to save a life as quickly as you can for dire emergencies. #alwayscall911 See more