Skin or Conquering Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Skin: A Natural History

Author: Nina G Jablonski

We expose it, cover it, paint it, tattoo it, scar it, and pierce it. Our intimate connection with the world, skin protects us while advertising our health, our identity, and our individuality. This dazzling synthetic overview, written with a poetic touch and taking many intriguing side excursions, is a complete guidebook to the pliable covering that makes us who we are. Skin: A Natural History celebrates the evolution of three unique attributes of human skin: its naked sweatiness, its distinctive sepia rainbow of colors, and its remarkable range of decorations. Jablonski begins with a look at skin's structure and functions and then tours its three-hundred-million-year evolution, delving into such topics as the importance of touch and how the skin reflects and affects emotions. She examines the modern human obsession with age-related changes in skin, especially wrinkles. She then turns to skin as a canvas for self-expression, exploring our use of cosmetics, body paint, tattooing, and scarification. Skin: A Natural History places the rich cultural canvas of skin within its broader biological context for the first time, and the result is a tremendously engaging look at ourselves.

Publishers Weekly

This amply illustrated rhapsody to the body's largest and most visible organ showcases skin's versatility, importance in human biology and uniqueness: human skin is hairless and sweaty, has evolved in a spectrum of colors and is a billboard for self-expression. Penn State's anthropology chair, Jablonski nimbly interprets scientific data for a lay audience, and her geeky love for her discipline is often infectious. At her most compelling, Jablonski demonstrates that our hairlessness didn't evolve after humans adopted clothing or because our distant hominid relatives splashed through an aquatic phase like dolphins and whales; rather, it's inextricably linked to our abundance of sweat glands. Similarly intriguing are the notions that indigenous people of the hot tropics are tall and lean because mammals with a high ratio of skin surface area to body weight keep cool in intense heat, and that women have lighter skin color than men because females need to maximize vitamin D production during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Much less successful is a chapter entitled "Wear and Tear," which briefly discusses but sheds little light on such skin conditions as birthmarks, scabs, burns and acne, and serves up the same visual guide to checking moles for melanoma that is found in countless doctors' offices. Color and b&w illus. (Oct.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

The most elementary anatomy or biology presentation teaches that skin is the body's largest organ. Drawing on this fact, Jablonski (anthropology, Pennsylvania State Univ.; ed., The First Americans: The Pleistocene Colonization of the New World), who taught human anatomy for many years, provides a guidebook (her term) replete with topics "that have most engaged [her] in [her] work over the years." The result is a marvelous exploration of the organ we ignore until an abnormality prompts us to seek professional help. The chapters skillfully lead from one topic to the next and cover the history and physiology of skin, sweating, color, touch, tattoos and painting, and more. Jablonski's writing is clear; her enthusiasm for the topic, evident. Illustrations appropriately support discussions. Skin's mix of science, society/culture, and anthropology makes it easily read by and useful for all patrons. Highly recommended for all collections.-Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences, RTP, NC Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Interesting book: Questões Morais em Negócio

Conquering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: The Newest Techniques for Overcoming Symptoms, Regaining Hope, and Getting Your Life Back

Author: Victoria Lemle Beckner

More than 13 million Americans experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and one out of 13 adults will develop it in their lifetime. Recent worldwide crises and events including the Iraq war; the September 11th attacks; numerous Columbine-like events; the Catholic Church child molestation scandal; and the Katrina tragedy in New Orleans, continue to present thousands more PTSD cases each year in all age groups. This book helps victims make sense of the events that led to their illness and teaches them how to create a new reality with specific advice and action plans that put them on the road to recovery and long-term healing.

Table of Contents:

Introduction     9
What Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?
Six Trauma Survivors: Their Stories     14
What is Post-Traumatic Stress?     25
Overcoming Anxiety, Avoidance, and Depression
Reduce Anxiety by Modifying Your Stress Responses     44
Overcome Avoidance by Stepping Out     66
Fight Depression by Challenging Negative Thinking and Getting Active     83
Taking Care of Your Brain and Body
Sleeping, Eating, and Medication: Ways to Promote a Healthy Brain     114
Reducing Your Dependence on Alcohol and Drugs     139
Healing Trauma by Improving Relationships
From Withdrawal to Embrace     154
From Explode to Explain     176
From Trauma to Growth
How Trauma Challenges Your Beliefs     200
Processing the Trauma by Putting It into Words     227
How to Talk about Trauma and PTSD with Others     243
Using Trauma as an Opportunity to Grow     265
Acknowledgments     290
About the Authors     292
Index     294