David A. Treleaven, Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing: W. W. Norton & Company, 2018,272 pp., $27.50

摘要

David Treleaven has written a useful book on how to minimize and manage risk when teaching or practicing mind-fulness. Given the widespread popularity of mindfulness practice, Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness is an especially important guide for safely adapting mindfulness and mediation practices for people who have experienced trauma. Treleaven offers clear and thorough recommendations; he also discusses how systems of oppression affect people from marginalized communities differently than those with more privilege. In Part I, Treleaven makes a case for the global and local pervasiveness of trauma. He defines trauma and mindfulness, provides a brief historical backdrop, and describes how neuroscience research has influenced how trauma experiences and mindfulness practice are understood. With an emphasis on how trauma affects both brain and body, Treleaven uses case illustrations and supporting literature to argue for how trauma can adversely affect mindfulness and how mindfulness can exacerbate trauma. His message is that mindfulness can be either a powerful healing tool, or, if not appropriately adapted, a re-traumatizing experience.