Sunshine Parenting

In this episode, I'm talking with Dr. Ruth Gerson, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at NYU's Langone Medical Center, about helping teens who have been exposed to trauma. Trauma is, by definition, when an experience feels so threatening to one's safety and well-being that it overwhelms one's ability to cope. Human beings, especially children, are amazingly resilient. Not only can we humans survive terrible things, but often we commit incredible acts of strength and heroism in the face of adversity, such as the soldier who carries a wounded friend out of battle despite her own wounds, or a father who rescues his children from a raging fire. But just because we survive something does not mean we are not marked by the experience. -Ruth Gerson, M.D., Beyond PTSD Ruth's book, which she co-authored with Patrick Hepple, is Beyond PTSD, Helping and Healing Teens Exposed to Trauma. Ruth is a colleague of Dr. Jess Shatkin, who I interviewed back in Episode 16 about his book, Born to be Wild: Why Teens Take Risks, and