The Informative, the Strange and the Surprising

The Informative, the Strange and the Surprising

Herbalist Angie Jenkins of Sister Lotus recommended A Consumer's Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients, and I received it about a week ago. I have come across everything from the surprising and strange to the very informative. There's hours of enjoyment and some recipes in this fifth edition by Ruth Winter, although she's soft on what the David Suzuki Foundation deemed the dirty dozen, but bear in mind that this edition was published in 1999, and Ms.Winter is now 80 years old. Since purchasing this book, I have learned that a seventh edition was recently published. Drats!

Here are a few examples:

Rosemary Extract

"Widely used for beverages, condiments and meat." (Yep, I know)
"Widely used in hair products, bubble baths, body and hand preparations, lipsticks, suntan products and bath soaps." (Informative)
"A teaspoon of the oil may cause an illness in an adult." (Surprising)
"An ounce may cause death." (Surprising, strange and informative)

Bamboo

"Some extracts of bamboo are muscle relaxants--for example, curare is used by the Indians as arrow poison." (Who knew!)

Recipe: Banana Face-Mask (for dry skin) *non-toxic

"Mash one ripe banana and mash thoroughly with the tablespoon of almond meal plus two tablespoons of yogurt.
Spread mixture on face and neck.
Leave on for 4 to 5 minutes.
Rinse with lukewarm water."

BHA (butylated hydroxyanisole) Number #1 on the Dirty Dozen list

The David Suzuki Foundation: BHA serves as preservatives in make-up and moisturizers. It is also suspected endocrine disruptors and may cause cancer.

A Consumer's Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients: "A preservative in cosmetics, foods and beverages. White to slightly yellow waxy solid with a faint characteristic odor. Can cause an allergic reactions."


Sources
The David Suzuki Foundation
A Consumer's Dictionary of Cosmetic Ingredients by Ruth Winter, MS


Related posts

DIY: Moisturizer and Shampoo
Cosmetics: the Dirty Dozen
DIY: Home Spa Salt Scrub
Dirty Dozen in my Personal Care Products
Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber
Airing our Dirty Laundry
The Mile End Buzz around Beekeeping

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Update: DIY Cosmetics

Update: DIY Cosmetics

Rose Sculpture in Mile End

In an effort to rid our cosmetics of the toxic dirty dozen, I went online and found some recipes to make my own shampoo and skin moisturizer. A month has past since I posted recipes and made my own herbal shampoo and beeswax moisturizer, and I just wanted to report back to all those who were interested in trying these recipes.

Beeswax, Almond Oil, Lavender & Ylang Ylang Essential Oils, Vitamin E
Moisturizer (original recipe click here)

I am very pleased with the beeswax and almond oil moisturizer; they are perfect ingredients for creating a balm against dry skin caused by cold winter weather. I would recommend that you cut the amount of the ingredients in half. I've used less than a quarter of a small mason jar in a month. This is great for feet, hands, legs and forearms, but it's too heavy to use on your face.

I would instead recommend the Wild Rose face cream "made with love by the Nova Scotian Sister Lotus team of belly dancing herbalists." It only took three days to ship from rural Nova Scotia to Montreal. A complete list of dirty-dozen free ingredients are given on the side of the product, which costs a third of the high-end moisturizer I once used, and unlike Sister Lotus, my previous moisturizer listed only its "active" ingredients. So what about the inactive ingredients?

Rosemary, Sage, Liquid Castile Soap, Lavender Essential Oil
Shampoo (original recipe click here)

Beats Golden Rod!

I tried this several times and was unable to get the mixture completely out of my hair, but I assumed it was because I have streaks, and colour treated-hair doesn't react well to certain shampoos. My husband said that it made his scalp too dry. Suspecting it was the castile soap, I tried a new recipe that called for a smaller quantity. I thought it was a matter of proper dosing. By week three, my daughter's hair was dry and tangled, and I was beginning to look like Pippi Longstocking. I decided that I would try some more shampoo experimenting over Christmas, but until then we needed some FREAKIN' shampoo. In the end, I found a dirty-dozen free shampoo, Oneka Elements, sold by one of the people who actually picked the ingredients and made the shampoo himself. The results were great.

A few words about liquid castile soap

People in the green movement swear by castile soap for its versatility. Believe it or not, you can use it for laundry soap and even brush your teeth with it (apparently, peppermint liquid soap is the best for toothpaste). Dr. Bronner's liquid castile soap is vegetable-based and completely biodegradable, and although it's a great body soap, the maker does not advise using it as shampoo unless you use the recommended conditioner and stay-in cream rinse. Apparently, shampoo needs some acidic ingredients, which castile soap doesn't have, and that's why other products are needed.Otherwise, your hair will be very tangled, dull and straw-like after repeated use.

But I still haven't given up. I WILL continue to make my own cosmetics. Just because it's fun! If you try recipes from the Internet, I recommend that you have a Plan B in place.

Related posts:
DIY: Moisturizer and Shampoo
Cosmetics: the Dirty Dozen
DIY: Home Spa Salt Scrub
Dirty Dozen in my Personal Care Products
Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber
Airing our Dirty Laundry
The Mile End Buzz around Beekeeping


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Expozine's Broken Pencil

Expozine's Broken Pencil

St-Enfant Jésus, site of ExpoZine

Although it seems like yesterday, two weeks ago I took my son to the Saint-Enfant Jésus Church at St-Joseph and St-Dominque for the 2010 Expozine, which is held in a very warm basement with a low ceiling. This may sound unappealing, but in fact, it's wonderful. This is a large room filled with very creative people, presenting some over-the-top, fun material. And besides they serve beer.

You would expect that there would be only zines as the name implies, but in fact Expozine also features book, graphic novels and comics. It's actually a small press expo. This year, I had the impression that the work was a little more polished than in previous years. Polished is fine, but I love the very basic zine, just so I can imagine what it might be like without the typos, formatting glitches and slips of pen. These kinds of errors make a zine much more human.

A zine is a DIY self-published, small-circulation publication that uses original and/or borrowed texts and images; in other words, it can be anything you want it to be because you're the author, illustrator, graphic artist, editor, promoter and salesperson. I recently reviewed a political zine (review coming soon) that folded out into a poster, but for maximum reading pleasure, you had to read it as you unfolded. These zinesters combined the themes of raspberry jello and the Red Scare to great effect and the price was right--two bucks.

Mariko Mamaki on the Cover of Broken Pencil

As I walked around Expozine, I came across the table for Broken Pencil, a Toronto-based magazine that specializes in zine culture and independent arts. I remembered reading a Broken Pencil feature a few months earlier when I was researching work by Sonja Ahlers. They were giving out copies of past issues and a year's subscription for $10.00 at the table. I leafed through a few and saw several familiar names, all of them young writers I had never heard of until October of this year when the Canada Reads named its Top 40 Novels of the Decade. It appears that Broken Pencil has a good eye for talent.

I decided to buy a subscription. From the two issues I was given,  I learned that Heather O'Neill, a past Canada Reads winner, started out contributing to a zine. Zoe Whittall, whose recent novel was one of the Top 40, also began with zines. The graphic novels of Mariko Tamaki and Jeff Lemire were also named in this year's Top 40, and Lemire is the first graphic novelist ever to become a Canada Reads finalist. Did they, too, start out with zines? It wouldn't surprise me if they had.

The zine seems to provide the perfect starting point for aspiring writers. After all, they have to come up with the idea, story, theme, plan how it will unfold, consider the artwork and layout, find images and/or text, submit to magazines such as Broken Pencil, find a way to distribute the final product, and maybe, just maybe, recover the photocopying costs. Sounds like a practice-run for publishing a book to me. Stay tuned for my zine review...

Related posts:
Sonja Ahlers' the Selves
Upcycling: Big Cig Turns Over a New Leaf (Distroboto)
Montreal's 8th Annual Small Press Expozine
Some Thoughts on Canada Reads
Make Me a Woman by Vanessa Davis



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Some thoughts on Canada Reads

Some thoughts on Canada Reads

This week, the five finalists of the 2010 Canada Reads series were announced. Congratulations to the following authors:

1. The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis (Ontario)
2. The Birth House by Ami McKay (Nova Scotia)
3. The Bone Cage by Angie Abdou (Saskatchewan) 
4. Essex County by Jeff Lemire (Ontario)
5. Unless by Carol Shields (U.S.)

A wide spectrum of themes are covered this year: sports, politics, midwifery, mother-daughter relationships and...a graphic novel, a genre that deserves a lot more attention in English-Canada. I was interested in the Canada Reads series this year as I've never been before, and I think it was because of the variety and the representation of both women and youth in the Top 40 Books of the Decade (click here and scroll down to see the full list). There were many young authors that I had never heard of before, but I may have discovered where we might find them in the future.... Check out my next post.

Sometimes, the obvious is right in front of us.

I was pleased with the 2011 list of finalists (although I wish that my favourite Maritime writer had been among them!), especially because there were three women in the top five. Yes, CBC I have been counting and with good reason, as you will see. The judging of books is very subjective, and male writers tend to get the lion's share of press and awards, and as we all know, a positive press review and a recognized award help immensely with book sales.

Just look at the situation for women writers south of the border in terms of some major literary awards. The following statistics were originally published on Vida: Women in Literary Arts. NB, This is only a partial list, but you'll quickly understand what I'm talking about.

Amazon- Top 100 Editor’s Picks 2009

77 Men
23 Women

Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2009

Innovator’s Award- 1 Man
Robert Kirsch Award- 1 Man

LA Times Favorite Fiction 2009

16 Men
9 Women

The National Book Awards 2009

Fiction- 1 Man
Nonfiction- 1 Man
Poetry- 1 Man
Young People’s Literature- 1 Man

Publishers Weekly Best Books of 2009

71 Men
29 Women

Publishers Weekly Top 10 Books of 2009

10 Men
0 Women

Slate- Best Reads of 2009

15 Men
7 Women

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1948-2009

40 Men
16 Women

© 2010 VIDA
www.vidaweb.org
Author: Amy King

Other Book-Related posts

Spare Room by Helen Garner
The Nikolski Coincidence
Make Me A Woman
Tattoos on the Heart
Reads from Men  (Review of books by Hage, Russo, Franzen and Conlin)
Happy Home For Broken Hearts
Death to the Dictator! by Afsaneh Mosadam
The Selves by Sonja Alhers
Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber




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It Gets Better - Love Pixar

It Gets Better - Love Pixar

This short video (8 min) is from the very creative employees of Pixar, the studio world-renowned for its animation genius and such hits as Toy Story, the Incredibles and Up. This is a very moving message of hope for teens and parents from individuals you will readily relate to. Do you remember how difficult adolescence was?

I've included some statistics that might be of interest to parents at the bottom of the post. H



Some statistics

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15- to 24-year-olds, accounting for over 12% of deaths in this age group; only accidents and homicide occur more frequently (National Adolescent Health Information 2006).

Suicide is the second leading cause of death on college campuses (Center for Disease Control, 2008).

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) youth are up to four times more likely to attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers (Massachusetts Youth Risk Survey 2007).

More than 1/3 of LGB youth report having made a suicide attempt (D’Augelli AR - Clinical Child Psychiatry and Psychology 2002).

LGB youth who come from highly rejecting families are more than 8 times as likely to have attempted suicide than LGB peers who reported no or low levels of family rejection (Ryan C, Huebner D, et al - Peds 2009;123(1):346-352).

Source:
The Trevor Project

For further resources click here.



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Make Me A Woman by Vanessa Davis

Make Me A Woman by Vanessa Davis

Make Me A Woman

Vanessa Davis

Drawn & Quarterly



This review is also posted at Elevate Difference.

It’s no stretch to say that mainstream media give us a limited range of what women can be, so when we find a book that actually reflects the complexity of womanhood, we’re ecstatic. Make Me A Woman is just that. Readers will be able to readily relate to Vanessa Davis and the daily events of her life, while giving them just enough difference to sink into some pure escapism.

Make Me A Woman is a collection of Davis’s diary comics and drawings from 2004 to 2010. In watercolor, pen and ink or just pencil drawings torn from the pages of her sketchbook, Davis unveils the events of her childhood in South Florida, her life in New York in her early 20s and finally her move to California, where she currently lives with her boyfriend. Davis tackles those seemingly indescribable daily events, be it developing a crush on a stranger in her daily commute or dealing with an awkward sexual encounter or unrequited love, with biting wit and aplomb.

All those aspiring artists out there will find this collection inspirational. Davis details her series of low-paying jobs with an eye trained firmly on her career—a paid cartoonist. She also pens a few panels about facing the artist’s worst demon: procrastination. In addition to creating strips about her Jewish identity and hanging out with friends, this autobio cartoonist creates some of her funniest panels about her relationship with her mother and sister. Although Davis’s mother is the űber cool founder of the Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, she makes her daughters cringe by her mere choice of words, as mothers are wont to do.

I found Davis’s collection of strips enjoyable. I loved the tiny details she adds to her comics, and the hilarious asides that she slips in. But what I love the most is the range of feelings that the cartoonist expresses in her art, such as anger, annoyance, disappointment, anxiety, physical pain, pining, self-pity, embarrassment and bliss. What’s more, it’s refreshing to see a cartoonist who is not afraid to draw herself with some weight on her and does not obsess about her size in the book, except for the fat farm she went to in her teens, which she “enjoyed.”

I’ve read through the collection three times, and each time that I get to the end, I want more. Although her critique of Robert Crumb was worth the price of the book, I still wish that Davis had delved more into her life as a cartoonist.

Other Reviews
Tattoos on the Heart
Reads from Men 
Happy Home For Broken Hearts
Death to the Dictator! by Afsaneh Mosadam
The Selves by Sonja Alhers
Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber

Read more »

Chris Hedges and Buying Local

Chris Hedges and Buying Local

This week, I switched from reading novels from the Canada Reads 2011 series to something a little more serious. In Death of the Liberal Class, former NYT writer Christopher Hedges posits that the liberal class was, in the past, a line of defense from the excesses of power. He states that the pillars of the liberal class--the press, universities, the labour movement, culture and liberal religious institutions--no longer serve as a counterbalance to the corporate state, leaving the poor, working and middle classes without anyone to champion their cause. Hedges writes that the liberal class also provided a means for possible "incremental reform," such as the civil rights and the gay rights movements, while keeping the corporate control of politics, education, labour, the arts, religious institutions and financial institutions in check.

In other words, the liberal class has become complicit with the corporate state out of fear or greed, leaving the majority of the population without any type of protection. If you've been wondering where the Tea Party came from, I think that Mr. Hedges has offered a plausible answer. There's a large segment of the population that is unemployed, penniless and facing foreclosures on their homes who need a champion or some type of "incremental reform" to lend them a hand, and there's no one in either of the US parties offering any support.

And this isn't limited to the US; it's happening throughout the Western world. In Canada, we just have to look at our outrageous banking charges, the ever-changing billing practices of telecommunications companies or the election of Rob Ford as Mayor of Toronto to see that we are experiencing the same thing right here. Mr. Hedges even quotes federal Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who, while still living in the US in 2003, told the Guardian that "I still think that Bush is right when he says that Iraq would be better off if Saddam were disarmed and, if necessary, replaced by force." It's a small wonder that our minority Conservatives are still in power; our own Liberal leader appears to be liberal in name only.

Selling Kale at the local St-Dominique Market

Although I haven't come to Mr. Hedges' solutions yet, I can see where he's headed. We need to start supporting our neighbours to keep our own communities afloat and try to exclude corporations whenever possible.

I thought of environmental activist Laure Waridel's book Acheter c'est voter, or buying is voting. Now, more than ever we need to consider this when we make our purchases.

But finding local products is time-consuming. And how do you know if the product is good? Where do you get decent recommendations from someone who isn't a corporate shill?

It would seem that resorting to word-of-mouth among networks of friends and like-minded people is once again one of the more trusted methods, which would explain the huge success of social media.

Word-of-mouth: a new non-toxic local product

On Thursday, I was buying organic vegetables from a health food store on Laurier East. There was a man in his thirties who asked me if I wanted to try a sample of Oneka Elements shampoo that he and his wife were selling. I stopped to have a look. As some of you may recall, after reading about the Dirty Dozen or all the carcinogens, toxins and industrial ingredients used in commercial cosmetics, I tried making my own shampoo and moisturizer. The moisturizer was a hit, but my husband was not keen on the shampoo. I needed an alternative in case my next recipe was unsuccessful.

As I strained to read the ingredients on the sample bottle, I told the salesman that I had learned about all the toxins used in commercial cosmetics from the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF). He immediately blurted out that the reason their list of ingredients was so long was because he and his wife had listed them in French and English together.

You may recall that the DSF instructs consumers to buy cosmetics with the fewest ingredients. I went through the list and was pleased to see that the shampoo did not contain any Dirty Dozen ingredients. In addition, there was an asterisk next to the certified organic ingredients, and they had even indicated the ingredients that had been picked in the wild. I was also given an explanation as to the best kind of shampoo for a particular hair type. The best part--the shampoo sample was large enough to wash your hair at least three times to see if you liked it or not.

Okay, I was sold! Here, we have a husband and wife team going to health food stores to give out samples and explain their line of dirty dozen-free hair care products. What's more, it's a local product from St. Armand, Quebec. But the best part is that I tried the shampoo, and it does a great job.

Even more endearing, they deliver their product by bike with a bike trailer.

As I've said before, I'd much rather support the efforts of individuals trying to do the right thing than give my money away to a largely unaccountable, unsustainable multinational corporation.

Check out the Oneka Elements website here.

Related posts

DIY: Home Spa Salt Scrub
DIY: Moisturizer and Shampoo
Cosmetics: the Dirty Dozen
Dirty Dozen in my Personal Care Products
Living Downstream by Sandra Steingraber
Airing our Dirty Laundry
The Mile End Buzz around Beekeeping



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Le Champs des Possibles

Le Champs des Possibles

Sunset early November in the Champs des possibles

Ten years ago when I moved to Montreal, I went to visit a friend who lived on Casgrain. I was instructed to get off at Metro Rosemont and to bring a pair of gloves in case I had to climb over a train, and then walk across a garbage strewn heath by some large ugly 1970-style cement factories to get to my friend's house. I laughed about climbing over the train, but she apparently had to do it several times a week in her office attire. Not only did she pack a lunch in the morning, she also packed a pair of men's leather gloves.

A year later, we moved to Henri-Julien and my daughter was enrolled in a daycare north of the train tracks. Everyday we walked by the heath and stepped over garbage that people had thrown onto the sidewalk and into the field. This was not my favourite part of the walk. It was a neglected area, and a few times in the summer, CP Rail would come and cut the grass in the field.

Then a few years ago, a lot of the garbage disappeared, and gardening projects started to spring up. I often saw posters for activities and tours of plant and animal life in the field. Then I started to hear the field referred to as le Champs des possibles. This is also the site of the beekeeping station that I visited last summer.

Le Champs des possibles is used by many pedestrians

Just recently, there was a launch of a non-profit organization called les Amis du Champs des possibles, and apparently at the launch, they unveiled some tentative plans to turn the area into an Urban Biodiversity Reserve.

The interest in this field and the visible improvements were all welcome changes. I liked that CP did not come and cut the grass this summer. Instead, a group of people offered to pull the golden rod from the field, letting the field and wildflowers grow, thus, enhancing the area's biodiversity. The area now resembles and smells like the field that I used to play in as a child.

At the launch last Friday, urban naturalist Roger Latour, a very active member of les Amis du Champs des possibles, presented this beautiful slide show of all the species of animals, insects and plants that have been spotted in the field. You might be surprised by some of the wildlife that is living at the end of our urban street, right smack in the middle of the Island of Montreal. This is truly a beautiful presentation and a must-see (just 8 minutes)!

Related posts
The MileEnd Buzz Around Beekeeping
Urban Art Trend: the Decal

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Mont-Royal Park: New Kids' Playground

Mont-Royal Park: New Kids' Playground

There's no finer way to spend a sunny November afternoon than a trip to the top of Mont-Royal. I love the idea of being in the middle of the city without any of the cars, cement or pollution. Most of the fall leaves had already blown away, but there was a beautiful blue watercolour sky. We went to visit the ducks only to find that Beaver Lake had been drained. The last time my daughter and I had ridden our bikes to the top of the mountain, the children's playground was being refurbished, and it was in dire need. The former playground was at least 30 years old. 

The new kids' park is well worth the visit for young families. The City has set up a state-of-the-art playground complete with two rock-climbing structures and "the eye," a rope-climbing structure (See photo below). The picture on the right is my daughter on the Jetson-style see-saw or teeter-totter with Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome, my other half. There were all sorts of variations on the traditional playground rides (the space-age merry-go-round was my favourite). This is a good couple of hours of fun exercise for kids under the age of 10.


Like many parents, we're always looking for inexpensive energy-expending activities. If you come across any great things to do with kids, please drop me a line so that I can share it with everyone.

If you don't have a car take the number 11 bus outside the Mont-Royal Metro Station to get to the top.

Other Child-Related posts
Halloween in Villeray
St-Viateur: the Polish Bazaar
Ghoulish Garb
Comics: Girls, Boys and Reading



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Remembrance Day: Hope For PTSD Sufferers

Remembrance Day: Hope For PTSD Sufferers

Photo courtesy of PA Legion Auxiliary

Today, November 11, we stop to remember those who lost their lives in war in the service of their country. Their absence in our lives has and will affect us irreparably both individually and collectively as a society. But we should also remember those who return from war, unable to escape the traumatic memories they have experienced, the invisible scars of post-traumatic stress disorder.

A severe anxiety disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) can develop as a result of living through events that cause extreme psychological distress. These events may include experiencing a threat to one's life or to someone else's safety, or enduring a threat to one's physical, sexual or psychological well-being. Some of the diagnostic symptoms of PTSD are reliving the experiences through flashbacks and nightmares, avoiding any stimuli that may trigger further trauma and persistent over-arousal, such as hypervigilance or the inability to fall or stay asleep, control one's anger or concentrate. These symptoms lead to significant impairment in an individual's ability to function in social and occupational settings, as well as in other areas of life.

PTSD rates are high among those who have seen active combat. In Canada, retired Lt-General Romeo Dallaire brought PTSD to the forefront. After serving as the Canadian Commander of the UN Mission to Rwanda in 1994 and trying in vain to stop the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus, Dallaire experienced repeated flashbacks of the genocide after he returned to Canada. In one instance, while driving to the beach with his family, he saw road workers stacking wood at the side of the road and experienced a flashback in which he saw the workers stacking corpses rather than wood. He had to pull over and describe the overwhelming images to his horrified family. On another occasion, he reportedly fainted in a Montreal supermarket. The scent of fruit had overpowered him, triggering a memory of rotting fruit and corpses at a Kigali market during the mass killings.

After two suicide attempts and years of reliving the carnage, Romeo Dallaire was found in a park in Hull, Quebec, semi-conscious and curled up in a fetal position in June 2000. With the help of medication and therapy, he went on to write about his experience in Shake Hands With the Devil and become a Liberal Senator.

Although there is some debate about what is the best therapy for treating PTSD, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy is commonly used. This approach received the approval of  the American Psychological Association in 1999 and is now recommended as an effective treatment for trauma by the American Psychiatric Association and the U.S. Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs.

In 1989, psychologist Francine Shapiro discovered EMDR. At the time she was experiencing trauma in her own life, and after going for a walk, she felt remarkably better. Later, she remembered that while she was walking, she had been moving her eyes from side to side, the same rapid eye movement we do when we dream. As you may know, dreaming is how we process and deal with our emotions.

In Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, Mary K. Armstrong tells Shapiro's story, which happened at about the same time that researchers were looking at the interplay between the cognitive left and emotional right hemispheres of the brain, and how the limbic system played a role in trauma. According to Armstrong, the traumatized emotional side of the brain cannot access the rational thinking of the left brain, but somehow a connection must be made.

In her book, Armstrong spoke of her own experience with EMDR. With another psychologist, Armstrong chose to work on a traumatic memory of her father choking her after sexually assaulting her.  Armstrong summoned this painful visual memory while following the psychologist's fingers with her eyes as they moved from left to right. In the session, as Armstrong processed her memory, she saw her father come towards her and stop just before he was about to choke her. He then gradually faded from her view, and she felt enormous relief. She managed to reprocess the memory and desensitize this traumatic event.

In Confessions, Armstrong writes, "EMDR theory demonstrates that the eye movements allow for bilateral stimulation of the two halves [of the brain], thus changing the way we experience an event."

In her own private practice, Armstrong has successfully used EMDR to treat a wide range of cases in which the reactions of her patients did not make rational sense. As examples, she cites rape victims who believe that their perpetrator still poses a danger, or a car crash victim who believes that the accident will reoccur if he gets back into a car.

She also states that trauma is cumulative and that it is relatively easy to work with a young person, as opposed to adults, who have built up years of layers after a traumatic event. To illustrate this point, she refers to her own personal history as the daughter of a sexually abusive father and a narcissistic mother, leaving her devoid of a self. As a result, she made poor decisions, which resulted in an accumulation of negative experiences for many years of her life.

Armstrong cautions that EMDR is only a technique and requires a skilled psychologist who is comfortable with strong emotions, has a thorough knowledge of trauma and can provide a safe environment for the patient. In fact, throughout her book, Armstrong advocates a gentler therapy for trauma called Focusing, which could easily be the subject of another post.


Sources
Depression-guide.com
CBC
The Boston Globe, Jeet Heer
Confessions of a Trauma Therapist, Mary K. Armstrong


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