For three years Charles Shaw traveled the globe, with a pair of cameras and an audio recorder, meeting with people who told them about their most intimate traumatic experiences. The result of this work is At Home in the Dark: 17 Short Films Exploring Trauma & PTSD.
The series is a highly personal, creative and subjective exploration of one of our culture’s most ignored and misunderstood public health crises. From the streets of Harlem to the jungles of Peru, At Home in the Dark introduces the viewer to a diverse range of trauma survivors, from former slave-holding blue bloods to suffering veterans, and takes their tragedy and turns it into art with beauty and meaning.
Introduced by the Center for Optimal Living’s Dr. Jenifer Talley and moderated by John Crepsac, LCSW, the speakers included: Gabriel Sayegh of the Drug Policy Alliance, Dr. Suneal Aggarwal of Americans for Safe Access, psychiatrist and author Dr. Julie Holland, and Dr. Andrew Tatarsky, founder and director of the Center for Optimal Living
Harm reduction is a revolutionary framework for addressing substance misuse and addiction and other potentially risky behaviors that does not require abstinence. All positive changes are viewed as successes; so reducing, using more safely, moderating, controlling and stopping the behaviors are all seen as acceptable goals on the path towards positive change, healing and growth.
