The Trauma/Addiction Cycle

Addiction encourages trauma, and trauma can encourage addiction. This process becomes a vicious circle or negative feedback loop, with trauma contributing to addiction, which in turn fuels more trauma, encourages still more addiction, and so on. The Claudia Black Young Adult Center treats substance and process addictions, recognizing them as… Read More

30 Things You Need to Know about Trauma and PTSD: PTSD Awareness Month

My therapist prescribed me to drink more alcohol. I had described symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), yet once again, the diagnosis was completely missed. Even worse, this uniformed therapist suggested that I drink wine “medicinally,” beginning in the morning, to help cope with what he said was high anxiety. Read More

Frozen Tears: Processing Hidden Losses

Grief is normal, it is a direct result of attachment and love. There is really no one-size-fits-all approach to grief. Still, normal grief tends to follow a pattern, whereas complicated or what psychologists refer to as disenfranchised losses can go underground and truthfully never get processed at all. This is… Read More

How PTSD Treatment Cured my Back Pain and More on the Mind-Body Connection

I was diagnosed with osteoporosis in my early twenties. Why were my young bones already losing tissue? Women who struggle with anorexia nervosa, like me at the time, are at a higher risk of developing the disease. I also believe that my eating disorder may have contributed to my sluggish… Read More

PTSD in Children of Alcoholics

The most important emotional attachment for a child is usually their parents. Children learn from their parents how to behave, how to function in life, and how to form other healthy relationships. When children grow up in unstable environments, it can disrupt normal development and lead to difficulties, such as mental health conditions. Read More

Building Strength and Resilience through Facing and Dealing with Life’s Problems

Resilient qualities are not only what we’re born with but also the strengths that we build through encountering life’s challenges and developing the personal and interpersonal skills to meet them. It is one of life’s paradoxes that the worst circumstances can bring the best out of us. According to the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) studies performed by Robert Anda (2006) and his team at Kaiser Permanente’s Health Appraisal Clinic in San Diego, we will all experience four or more serious life stressors that may be traumatizing, and according to positive psychology research, most of us will grow from them. Read More

What is Child Abuse and Why Does Child Abuse Still Matter in Adulthood?

The Meadows specializes in treating trauma.  Abuse is one form of trauma.  Often times, childhood trauma that occurred because of child abuse is overlooked as a core issue when people enter treatment for addictions or other mental health disorders.  Sometimes people minimize what they experienced as children, deny that they were abused, or believe that it happened so long ago that they are (or that they should be) “over it” or it is no longer relevant. Read More

Childhood Abuse Is More Prevalent Than You Think

It is estimated that annually, three million cases of child abuse are reported to authorities in the United States (source: Childhelp.org). Childhood abuse comes in many forms and can be anything from physical abuse, sexual boundary violations, and neglect of medical and physical needs to emotional and social maltreatment and… Read More

The Magic of Sand Tray

Sandtray therapy is a valued medium I use to help young adults who are trauma survivors and/or are struggling with addiction. At the Claudia Black Young Adult Center I use it with clients with early childhood complex trauma, those with attachment disruption often associated with adoption histories, those with dissociative symptoms, or major traumatic events such as sexual assaults, nightmares, and polarities around addiction.  Certainly, family dynamics can be explored with this medium. For the client who is showing resistance, has poor verbal skills and/or social-relational difficulties it is really useful as the sand tray becomes both a visual and a sensory tactile experience creating the ability to go deeper within and regain an internalized sense of control and safety. Read More

Adopted Children Often Face Mental Health Struggles as Young Adults

By GinaMarie Guarino, LMHC Adoption is a delicate process that comes with many different considerations. The relationship between an adopted child and his or her adopted parents is unique, and in many ways unlike that between parents and their biological children. It is difficult to predict how a child… Read More