Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder by Scott Barbour - Booked by the Cover

Welcome to the Book by the Cover Blog(cast), a spin on a podcast that I'm not currently able to record or-well-cast.

Today's book is titled: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. The author is Scott Barbour. The cover is very colorful for a relatively grim subject like PTSD-this adds a sense of hope and perhaps reflects some of the colorful personalities that are often a result of the disorder. Or, perhaps, those colorful personalities are an indication of planned PTSD never having its intended effect. Anyway, that's a little too much of getting into the content of the text already. Now for describing just the cover in detail...

The background appears to be an image of what someone might find underneath a microscope. I don't know much about bacteria or microorganisms, but I'm pretty sure that's what's depicted there. It might be a compilation or collage or different images of select microorganisms under a microscope. I doubt it's an image of one microorganism. Anyway, the cover design includes every color of the ROYGBIV rainbow except for yellow. There's red in the bottom left corner and to the right towards the top. The text in a top banner, "Compact Research", is both in a vacious orange stroke and highlighted in orange; the banner behind the orange text forest green-allowing the orange color to pop from the contrast. 

There are prominent blue circles sprinkled above the red found toward the bottom, and purple (indigo/violet) in the top right of the cover as well as towards the bottom right. There is also another bright shade of lime green mostly taking up a significant part of the left of the book cover and slightly hinted between the red and purple of the bottom. At the very top we can find the hushed, hueless tints of white, grey, and black. While that is where most of the tints are found, they are of course also found throughout the composition of the cover as shading, outlining, and other further forms of object definition. 

Just like the top banner previously mentioned, there is a forest green rectangle with the title: "Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder". Both the title and the author, "Scott Barbour", are in white text. The font of the title is large compared to the font of the author's name found in tiny text slightly above an adjacent horizontal black rectangle. This black rectangle serves to highlight the subtitle given in medium-sized text, is the same width as the aforementioned green rectangle, and states: "Diseases and Disorders". 

And that's about it! Now for the travel associated with the design...

(Thinking of what to search.)

We must find tourist attractions involving microorganisms and maybe a little something extra that relates to PTSD.

(Well, duh. Searching.)

The first thing I've found here is a lovely blog all about microbes. Reading the bio provided, there's information from a supposed PhD about just how much microbes do to impact our everyday lives: "It’s thrilling to share all of the crazy things microbes do — they help improve our food (fermented foods – bread, wine, beer, cheese, chocolate, coffee, and the list goes on), make the soil healthy, keep our immune systems functioning properly, make oxygen, and so much more"... I'm considering looking deeper into those particular topics and activities for this itinerary.  

(Searching.)

So, I've found a food museum. Does it relate to PTSD? I think so, because we are what we are fed-true for food and interactions. I was about to type "what we feed ourselves", but the truth is: much of what we consume is out of our control. So, the food museum should offer a great metaphor to relate to what we let in to our psyches.

(Remembering.)

Oh yea! This is the Wednesday book, so I can go a little deeper and include the contents of the book within the itinerary. Yay. 

(Thinking about the book.)

So, in the book, it mentions how PTSD comes from perceived fear, horror, or helplessness-real or imagined. So as long as we don't allow ourselves to perceive fear, horror, or helplessness, we can avoid the PTSD that both real and fake threats pose. 

I guess that's similar to food. Food can be real or fake. It can at least be of varying levels of nutritional value. And, we can do our best to receive the real, good stuff exclusively.  In addition to just the food analogy, there is the consideration of how people beyond ourselves dictate our options regarding both food and interactions. The one protection we have against this is knowing we are limited and doing the best we can to make the best choices available to us. Otherwise, those who determine our options more easily disseminate fear, horror, and helplessness.

(Back to the itinerary.)

Now where is the Food Museum-the Museum of Food and Drink? It's listed as being in New York, New York. The site had apparently trademarked the phrase: "Food is Culture". That's a bit extreme and hard to believe. Is that true? Is that real? I'm referring to the phrase. I think is an oversimplification of an outdated idea of culture. While food is-of course-a component of culture, food does not equate to culture.

I'm still focused on this museum, because it has an advertisement with chemistry bonds integrated into drawings of fresh food like fruits and vegetables. But a video I see on Instagram shows plates of sweets and packaged foods. That's not to say the video reflects the entire reality of the museum's offerings. I'm simply curious how the museum visit should best be integrated into a full itinerary. 

(Looking for something more related to PTSD to add.)

There are community art workshops in DC, apparently. The one that caught my eye is "Managing Stress Through Artmaking". The dates are listed as to be determined. The offerings appear to be part of the George Washington Art Therapy Center. 

(Looking for something with specific dates.)

This next site I found seems reliable for planning itineraries into the future. However, the chances of finding something at a convenient location might be a little low, because it's a global organization. Let's see what we can find in the United States. 

(Searching on the website for places in the USA.)

Welp. Turns out the events listed here are out of date. The latest ones are from 2021. Again, this is a little difficult to believe being that the site is from an international organization, BUT I also searched a very specific topic. So, let's see what we can find next.

(Still searching for something related to PTSD.)

Here we have Art and Creativity for Healing. There's a list of many different programs including ones that are specific to women and the military. The calendar isn't available, but the contact information and other details are there for some beneficial itinerary customization. That's a good match, and it's located in California. Ouch. Going from NYC to California might be a bit of a hike. But let's see what we can find as a third location. Perhaps that'll make it all make sense. 

(Peeking at the cover again.)

I hadn't considered the "Compact Research" text at the top for guiding some travel yet. We could think about the different meaning of the word compact. Compacts are another word for makeup packaging. We could find something related to cosmetology. Cosmetology is a chemistry/food-related field. Now in relation to PTSD, many people look for ways to combat psychological damage in order to avoid or correct PTSD via their appearance. Makeup allows people with PTSD to alter the way they present themselves in ways that boost their confidence and obscure the severity and impact of their PTSD.

So, this led me to the Makeup Museum. This seems to be just online, and the collections doesn't have links to artifacts, but one of the collections listed is Curious Compacts.

(Wondering.)

Meh. This combination of travel bookings didn't bring about the same jenesequa usually hoped for, so I'm going to add an online course to finalize it. Online courses seem to always be a good way to fill in the time dedicated to travel while remaining on theme.

It looks like a flight from New York's Museum of Food and Drink to California's Art and Creativity Healing workshop while doing the PTSD training on the plane.  

So that's it for this travel itinerary take on the cover of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.