Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I: our interconnected nature. The last place you want to be: facets of trauma -- Living in an immaterial world: emotions, health, and the body-mind unity -- You rattle my brain: our highly interpersonal biology -- Everything I'm surrounded by: dispatches from the new science -- Mutiny on the body: the mystery of the rebellious immune system -- It ain't a thing: disease as process -- A traumatic tension: attachment vs. authenticity -- Part II: the distortion of human development. Who are we really? Human nature, human needs -- A sturdy or fragile foundation: children's irreducible needs -- Trouble at the threshold: before we come into the world -- What choice do I have? Childbirth in a medicalized culture -- Horticulture on the moon: parenting, undermined -- Forcing the brain in the wrong direction: the sabotage of childhood -- A template for distress: how culture builds our character -- Part III: rethinking abnormal: afflictions as adaptions. Just not to be you: debunking the myths about addiction -- Show of hands: a new view of addiction -- An inaccurate map of our pain: what we get wrong about mental illness -- The mind can do some amazing things: from madness to meaning -- Part IV: the toxicities of our culture. From society to cell: uncertainty, conflict, and loss of control -- Robbing the human spirit: disconnection and its discontents -- They just don't care if it kills you: sociopathy as strategy -- The assaulted sense of self: how race and class get under the skin -- Society's shock absorbers: why women have it worse -- We feel their pain: our trauma-infused politics -- Part V: pathways to wholeness. Mind in the lead: the possibility of healing -- Four A's and five compassions: some healing principles -- A dreadful gift: disease as teacher -- Before the body says no: first steps on the return to self -- Seeing is disbelieving: undoing self-limiting beliefs -- Foes to friends: working with the obstacles to healing -- Jesus in the Tipi: psychedelics and healing -- My life as a genuine thing: touching spirit -- Unmaking a myth: visioning a saner society.