Trauma Resources

Understanding Trauma

Overview

• What is Trauma: An Interview with Bessel van der Kolk, MD by Big Think

• What is Trauma from Therapist Aid, LLC

• Common Responses to Trauma from Therapist Aid, LLC

• Types of Abuse from Therapist Aid, LLC

Neuroscience

• How Trauma and PTSD Change the Brain by Therapy in a Nutshell

• Trauma and the Brain by Dovetail Qld

Treatment

• 6 Ways to Heal Trauma without Medication with Bessel van der Kolk, MD by Big Think

Podcasts

• Our Whole Childhood with Patrick Teahan, LICSW

Bibliotherapy

Self-Help

• The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, MD

• The Stress Proof Brain by Melanie Greenberg, PhD (mindfulness & neuroplasticity)

• The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor (racial/minoritized/system trauma)

• Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine, PhD (somatic experiencing)

• 8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery by Babette Rothschild, MSW

• It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn

• When the Body Says No by Gabor Maté, MD

• Decolonizing Trauma Work by Renee Linklater, PhD (indigenous community)

• The Pain We Carry by Natalie Y. Gutiérrez, LMFT (BIPOC community)

• The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity by Nadine Burke Harris, MD (ACEs)

• Break the Cycle: A Guide to Healing Intergenerational Trauma by Dr. Muriel Buqué

• Healing Racial Trauma by Sheila Wise Rowe, LPC (Christian themes)

• Something’s Not Right by Wade Mullen (Christian themes)

• Say the Thing: Boundary Setting by Kami Orange

• Breathe How You Want to Feel by Matteo Pistono

Memoirs

• What My Bones Know by Stephanie Foo

• Disfigured: A Saudi Woman’s Story of Triumph Over Violence by Rania al-Baz

• What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us by Mike Mariani

• The Strength in Our Scars by Rachel L. Jacobs (audiobook of poetry & prose)

• What Happened to You by Bruce D. Perry, MD, PhD and Oprah Winfrey

• Emotional Inheritance by Galit Atlas, PhD

• Divorce Became My Superpower by Caroline Strawson (narcissistic abuse recovery)

• Unseen Wounds of Women by Caroline Strawson (post-traumatic growth)

• The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

• Apocalypse Child by Flor Edwards (post-cult healing)

• “It’s Not About The Sex” My Ass by Joanne Hanks & Steve Cuno (post-cult healing)

• Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans (healing after church abuse, from a protestant Chrisitian perspective)

Novels

• We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride & Jo Piazza (Black experience)

• Silence Broken by Rivcka Edelstein, PhD (childhood trauma)

• The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith (sexual assault)

• Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens (neglect, substance abuse, sexual assault)

• The Girl Who Survived by Ellie Midwood (Jewish, WWI, Shoah)

• After We Were Stolen by Brooke Beyfuss (escaping a cult)

• Cracked Pots by Heather Tucker

Journal Prompts

• C-PTSD Workbook by Dr. Nicole Lepera

• Journal of Radical Permission by Sonya Renee Taylor & Adrienne Maree Brown

• Trauma Recovery Journal by Trudy Gilbert-Eliot, PhD, LMFT, LCADC

• Worksheets from 101 Trauma Interventions by Linda A. Curran, LPC, EMDR-II

• Embrace Your Shadow to Find Your Light: A Shadow Work Journal by Nancy Levin

• Write a letter to someone from or with whom you experienced trauma (regardless of whether or not you ever send it)

Activities

• Write a letter to someone who caused/experienced your trauma (whether or not you ever send it.)

• Cultivate a Felt Sense exercise with Esther Goldstein, LCSW

• Somatic Meditation to Release Trauma Stored in the Body with Sukie Baxter, LMT

• Therapeutic Yoga for Trauma Recovery by Arielle Schwartz, PhD, CCTP-II, E-RYT