INTERVIEWS
THE NEW YORK TIMES: THE HEALING POWER OF STRENGTH TRAINING
“Everyone knows that weight lifting increases physical strength. But, for some, it can give psychological power, too.”
Finding Compassion and Space for Children and Caregivers During COVID-19
In this podcast, we welcome Mariah Rooney to talk about how caregivers can find compassion and spaciousness for themselves and the children in their care.
Experience Life Magazine: Self-Care for Activists
Self-care is not escapism: It’s a way to remain present, connected, and committed. Here's how to battle burnout if you're an activist.
Trauma specialist Mariah Rooney, MSW, LCSW, co-founded Trauma Informed Weight Lifting in 2018 after hearing countless stories from people who turned to lifting to cope with mental health challenges, but had harmful or unwelcoming experiences in fitness spaces.
Insight Mind Body Talk Podcast
Do you like to pick heavy stuff up and set it down? Have you noticed the emotional benefits of moving your body in new and challenging ways? In Trauma-informed Weight Lifting, Jess (she/her) and her guest Mariah Rooney (she/her), talk weight lifting and how building strength not only builds resilience but helps resolve past trauma. Trauma-informed weight lifting is asking each of us to be curious, to be mindful, and to be open to new ways of healing old wounds.
Mpls St. Paul Magazine: Lifting the Weight for Hope and Recovery
The experience of trauma—from sexual assault to a tragic vehicle crash—can have lasting effects that are invisible to outsiders. No singular remedy exists, of course, but a Twin Cities therapist and her trainer are exploring whether weight lifting can lighten the emotional burden.
Shape Magazine: How Trauma-Informed Personal Training Is Helping Clients Heal Through Movement
Trainers are approaching fitness through a trauma-informed lens, helping to ensure their clients feel welcome, included, and most importantly, safe.
Rotem Brayer interviews Mariah Rooney about integrating EMDR and Internal Family Systems (IFS). Mariah explains her passion for interweaving EMDR with parts work and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy and how to work with adult and child parts. Toward the end of the interview Mariah talks about parts EMDR therapists need to pay attention to in order to avoid blocked reprocessing.
Experience Life Magazine: How Exercise Can Help Build Physical — and Mental — Resilience
Learn how exercise can help build a body and mind that can roll with life’s punches — and come back stronger after stress.
How Weight Lifting is Educating Gym Owners, Coaches to Help Clients Heal from Trauma
We have all heard anecdotal stories about CrossFit and weightlifting, and how getting strong has the power to help people heal from trauma.
Mariah Rooney, too, has heard these stories, and has found a way to take this healing to an entirely new level.
Rebel & Be Well: Trauma Informed Weight Lifting
During this episode of the Rebel and Be Well Podcast we connect with Mariah Rooney (MSW, LICSW) and Mark Schneider- Co Founders of Trauma Informed Weight Lifting (TIWL). TIWL is a healing co-operative focused on researching the healing potential of weight lifting for trauma-impacted adolescents and adults, and training coaches and personal trainers, to take a trauma informed and healing centered approach to their work with athletes and clients.
Experience Life Magazine: How Movement Therapy Can Heal Traumatic Stress
Self-care is not escapism: It’s a way to remain present, connected, and committed. Here's how to battle burnout if you're an activist.
USA Today: What is generational trauma? What it is, how it happens and how you can address it
According to many therapists and mental health professionals, sometimes trauma isn't derived from one-time, extreme life events like a tragic tornado, a school shooting or a car crash. Many people have reported they also experience generational trauma, meaning they suffer from the lingering effects of intense short-term or chronic stressors felt by their family or community.
Trauma Informed Weight Lifting: Considerations for Coaches, Trainers and Gym Environments
This study provides evidence to inform the design of an evidence-based trauma-informed weight lifting program for trauma survivors.
WRITINGS
A Grounded Theory of Weight Lifting as a Healing Strategy for Trauma and/or Adversity
Research has found significant benefits in using exercise as an adjunct treatment for PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Weight lifting as an adjunct treatment for trauma is an emerging research area with very few empirically based studies. This study used a qualitative grounded theory approach to explore how weight lifting contributes to healing for persons with a trauma history.
Becoming a Student of Your Students: Trauma-Informed, Culturally Relevant Practices for Physical Education Teachers
The purpose of this article is to first provide PE teachers with an understanding of the different types of trauma students face, including traumatic events, historical trauma experienced by members of racial, ethnic, sexual, and religious minorities, as well as how trauma exposure interferes with student learning.
Chapter in: Preventing and Treating the Invisible Wounds of War: Combat Trauma, Moral Injury, and Psychological Health
In press from Oxford University Press: Considers new psychological costs of war, such as moral injury, from an interdisciplinary perspective
Urges policy changes, including that moral injury would be considered for the DSM and that it would be considered in formulas for Veterans Affairs disability ratings
Chapter in Bulletproofing the Psyche: The Promotion of Well-Being in Older Veterans
In Bulletproofing the Psyche: Preventing Mental Health Problems in Our Military and Veterans an interdisciplinary team of researchers, practitioners, and military veterans in calling for a new kind of training with a focus on "bulletproofing the psyche": psychological resiliency skills training. They combine research and storytelling to argue that somatic protocols, a training method long used in the treatment sector to rewire the brain after trauma and a proven, valid alternative to drug and talk therapy, should be applied to the prevention and training sectors.
Chapter in: American Military Life in the 21st Century: Social, Cultural, and Economic Issues and Trends
A comprehensive guide to the lives and experiences of military service members, veterans, and their families in the United States today, with special emphasis given to those of the post-9/11 era.
Improving Education Outcomes for Students Who Have Experienced Trauma and/or Adversity
The purpose of this working paper is to help education policymakers and education leaders and practitioners know how to better support students who have experienced adversity and/or trauma and build their resilience.
RESEARCH IN PROGRESS:
Beyond the Binary: Searching for Gender Affirming and Trauma Informed Gym Spaces
Trauma Informed Weight Lifting as an Adjunct Mental Health Treatment for Trauma-Impacted Adolescents in a Residential Facility
WEBINARS + MORE
Trauma Research Foundation: On the Other Side of “This or That”
A free 5-part series of embodiment practices that help us step, move, breathe and express our way into the questions that are much larger than the “this or that” binary answers and constructs we often seek for comfort and familiarity and are thrust into by trauma and stress. We will explore the inherited stories that live in our bodies. We will work to expand into a fuller sense of self, which holds beautiful nuances, multiplicity, and our greatest sources of connection to self and one another.
Therapeutic Modalities Overview for Caregivers, Parents and Family of Children Who Have Experienced Trauma
Caregivers, parents and family of children who have experienced trauma, attachment disruptions and losses early in life can often find it difficult and overwhelming to determine how best to help with the complex challenges their children face. This fact sheet provides information on some common modalities for trauma, grief and loss.
ACEs in Real Life: Caring for and Parenting Children Who Have Experienced ACEs
There are many ways for us to understand, define and explore how developmental trauma impacts children and their relationships with caregivers and parents. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) study looked at broad types of negative childhood experience, including abuse, neglect, and family dysfunction and painted a picture of some of the possible long term effects of ACEs. In this workshop, we will expand our understanding of ACEs to include more recent and inclusive research and explore practical and supportive ways to engage in trauma-informed caregiving and parenting for youth who have experienced attachment trauma and disruptions as well as other forms of ACEs/trauma.
Neurobiology OF Trauma: Developmental Trauma & the Brain: How to Take a Bottom-Up Approach to Supporting Healing & Regulation with Children
Research has shown us that brain development is impacted at any stage when children experience trauma, adverse experiences, chronic stress and attachment disruptions. This fact sheet will help you gain understanding of, and provide tools to help with, repairing the harm that may be impacting the life of your child.
MN Adopt Webinar: Reliable Paths to Regulation
Children and adolescents with histories of developmental trauma often experience disruptions in the development of healthy regulation and attachment. This can have a profound impact on their ability to be in healthy relationship with others, including parents, caregivers, and clinicians. During our time together we’ll explore how Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment (SMART), a therapeutic approach that engages the whole child, mind and body, supports regulation, the safe processing of trauma, and builds attachment. This bottom-up approach utilizes a variety of therapeutic equipment such as exercise balls, large cushions and crash pads, and weighted blankets to support children in regulating their bodies and emotions, and can easily be adapted for the home environment.