Trauma-Informed Storytelling Master Class "David Mount's book offers suggestions for rewriting our concept of chronic pain as a type of trauma and treating our clients and patients justly, addressing these traumatic sequelae. The trifecta of post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms involves key consequences: reexperiencing trauma, avoidance, and physiological arousal. When we look at chronic pain through the lens of trauma, we find the same. The world of chronic pain treatment is growing every year, but still, it can be flooded with erroneous and outdated ideas about chronic pain and addiction." -Dr. Jennifer Bugg Wright, a practicing psychologist, neuropsychologist, and psychotherapist with more than twenty-six years in the field of mental health and fifteen years as a neuropsychologist and forensic expert. ---------------------- "Pain management providers interact daily with a broad spectrum of society including administrators, mothers, attorneys, veterans, business owners, factory workers, teachers, and students. To a person, what these patients want is to be heard, to be understood, and to have action taken on their behalf. These people deserve more attention than they garner, more respect than they are given, and more sympathy than is lent. In the final analysis, it's a matter of enough people demanding change for people in a meaningful way." -Dr. Christopher A. Gilmore, a partner at the Carolinas Pain Institute in Winston-Salem who has served as a clinical assistant professor and adjunct faculty at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. --------------------- "It is time to focus on the big picture of unmasking vulnerability and disability attached to unfulfilled dreams. Complex-persistent-debilitating chronic pain is a neuro-psycho-social collapsing condition that can adversely affect thinking, concentration, memory, sleep quality, energy, nutrition, behavior, mental well-being, and faith/spiritual practices. Chronic pain does not discriminate based on your sociodemographic characteristics, hitting with a boxer's punch. No population segments or communities are off-limits, from Main Street to Wall Street, from the paved roads to the dirt roads. None of us, not one of us, want to be disqualified based on social standards that seek to marginalize our value because we live with chronic pain complications. But yes, it happens every day, the actions of others operating to sideline our talents, gifts, and long-standing contributions, creating a type of neuropsychosocial inertia in the suffering person. Being relegated to an invisible status is all too familiar for so many people in the chronic pain fraternity and sorority. This book will inspire new understanding and conversational breakthroughs as we explore the challenges, trials, and tribulations others are facing while hiding in plain sight." -Dr. David L. Mount, a proud husband, father, patient, congregational member, entrepreneur, influencer, philanthropist, talent coach, organizer, and mixed-methods innovator The Gentle Power of Compassion in Action