Journey Through Trauma: A Trail Guide to the 5-Phase Cycle of Healing Repeated Trauma


Gretchen Schmelzer - 2018
    They found it too difficult or too frightening or just decided that for them it was too late. But as a therapist and trauma survivor herself, Dr. Schmelzer wants us to know that it is never too late to heal from trauma, whether it is the suffering caused within an abusive relationship or PTSD resulting from combat. Sometimes what feels like a big setback is actually an unexpected difficult step forward. So she wrote Journey Through Trauma specifically for survivors--to help them understand the terrain of the healing process and stay on the path. There are three basic principles that every trauma survivor should know: Healing is possible. It requires courage. And it cannot be done alone. Traumas that happen more than once--child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, gang violence, even war--are all relational traumas. They happened inside a relationship and therefore must be healed inside a relationship, whether that relationship is with a therapist or within a group. Journey Through Trauma gives us a map to help guide us through that healing process, see where the hard parts show up, and persevere in the process of getting well. We learn the five phases that every survivor must negotiate along the way and come to understand that since the cycle of healing is not linear, circling back around to a previous stage does not mean defeat - it actually means progress as well as facing new challenges. Authoritative and accessible, Journey Through Trauma provides support for survivors and their loved ones through one of the most challenging but necessary processes of healing that anyone can face.

The Creative Connection: Expressive Arts as Healing


Natalie Rogers - 1993
    Natalie Rogers has developed a process called the Creative Connection RM that interweaves all the expressive arts -- movement, sound, drawing, painting, writing, and guided imagery -- to tap into the deep wellspring of creativity within each of us. The aim is to reclaim ourselves and then help others reclaim themselves as actively playful, spirited, and conscious individuals. Rogers emphasizes the importance of psychological safety and freedom while using the creative arts. This reflects her extensive work with her father, Carl Rogers, and a deep belief in his person-centered approach to counseling.Photos and art help demystify this process, and various exercises range from the simple to the complex. Natalie's practical suggestions aid counselors who want to add expressive arts to their regular sessions.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR): Basic Principles, Protocols, and Procedures


Francine Shapiro - 2001
    She is the founder and President Emeritus of the EMDR Humanitarian Assistance Programs, a nonprofit organization that coordinates disaster response and pro bono trainings worldwide. She has served as advisor to a wide variety of trauma treatment and outreach organizations and journals. Dr. Shapiro has been an invited speaker on EMDR at many major psychology conferences, including two divisions of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society Presidential Symposium on PTSD. The author or coauthor of numerous articles, chapters, and books about EMDR, she is a recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Achievement in Psychology Award presented by the California Psychological Association

Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease


Robin Karr-Morse - 2012
    In Scared Sick, Robin Karr-Morse connects psychology, neurobiology, endocrinology, immunology, and genetics to demonstrate how chronic fear in infancy and early childhood -- when we are most helpless -- lies at the root of common diseases in adulthood. Compassionate and based on the latest research, Scared Sick will unveil a major public health crisis. Highlighting case studies and cutting-edge scientific findings, Karr- Morse shows how our innate fight-or-flight system can injure us if overworked in the early stages of life. Persistent stress can trigger diabetes, heart disease, obesity, depression, and addiction later on.

The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self


Alice Miller - 1979
    I simply meant all of us who have survived an abusive childhood thanks to an ability to adapt even to unspeakable cruelty by becoming numb.... Without this 'gift' offered us by nature, we would not have survived." But merely surviving is not enough. The Drama of the Gifted Child helps us to reclaim our life by discovering our own crucial needs and our own truth.

Emotion-Focused Therapy


Leslie S. Greenberg - 2009
    Greenberg provides a thorough introduction to this feeling-centered, humanistic approach to therapy. Emotion-focused therapy emphasizes the awareness, acceptance, and understanding of emotion, and proposes that emotions themselves have an adaptive potential that, if activated, can help clients to change.

Letters to a Young Therapist


Mary Pipher - 2003
    In Letters to a Young Therapist, Dr. Pipher shares what she has learned in thirty years as a therapist, helping warring families, alienated adolescents, and harried professionals restore peace and beauty to their lives. Letters to a Young Therapist gives voice to her practice with an exhilarating mix of storytelling and sharp-eyed observation. And while her letters are addressed to an imagined young therapist, every one of us can take something away from them. Long before "positive psychology" became a buzzword, Dr. Pipher practiced a refreshingly inventive therapy--fiercely optimistic, free of dogma or psychobabble, and laced with generous warmth and practical common sense. But not until now has this gifted healer described her unique perspective on how therapy can help us revitalize our emotional landscape in an increasingly stressful world. Whether she's recommending daily swims for a sluggish teenager, encouraging a timid husband to become bolder, or simply bearing witness to a bereaved parent's sorrow, Dr. Pipher's compassion and insight shine from every page of this thoughtful and engaging book.

How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self


Nicole LePera - 2021
    Nicole LePera often found herself frustrated by the limitations of traditional psychotherapy. Wanting more for her patients—and for herself—she began a journey to develop a united philosophy of mental, physical and spiritual wellness that equips people with the interdisciplinary tools necessary to heal themselves. After experiencing the life-changing results herself, she began to share what she’d learned with others—and soon “The Holistic Psychologist” was born.Now, Dr. LePera is ready to share her much-requested protocol with the world. In How to Do the Work, she offers both a manifesto for SelfHealing as well as an essential guide to creating a more vibrant, authentic, and joyful life. Drawing on the latest research from a diversity of scientific fields and healing modalities, Dr. LePera helps us recognize how adverse experiences and trauma in childhood live with us, resulting in whole body dysfunction—activating harmful stress responses that keep us stuck engaging in patterns of codependency, emotional immaturity, and trauma bonds. Unless addressed, these self-sabotaging behaviors can quickly become cyclical, leaving people feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and unwell.

The Mindful Therapist: A Clinician's Guide to Mindsight and Neural Integration


Daniel J. Siegel - 2010
    An integrated state of mindful awareness is crucial to achieving mental health. Daniel J. Siegel, an internationally recognized expert on mindfulness and therapy, reveals practical techniques that enable readers to harness their energies to promote healthy minds within themselves and their clients. He charts the nine integrative functions that emerge from the profoundly interconnecting circuits of the brain, including bodily regulation, attunement, emotional balance, response flexibility, fear extinction, insight, empathy, morality, and intuition. A practical, direct-immersion, high-emotion, low-techno-speak book, The Mindful Therapist engages readers in a personal and professional journey into the ideas and process of mindful integration that lie at the heart of health and nurturing relationships. .

On Being a Therapist


Jeffrey A. Kottler - 1986
    Jeffrey Kottler provides a candid account of the profound ways in which therapists influence clients and, in turn, are impacted personally and professionally by these encounters. He shows how therapists can learn, develop, and grow during the process of therapy and explains how practitioners can use the professional skills and insights gained from their sessions to address their own personal issues, realize positive change in themselves, and so become better helpers for others. This thoroughly revised edition includes discussion about how the business and practice of therapy has changed in recent years, the effects of technology and managed care, the breakdown of theoretical orientation, and the greater client diversity represented in contemporary practice.

Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society


Bessel van der Kolk - 1996
    Together, the leading editors and contributors comprehensively examine how trauma affects an individual's biology, conceptions of the world, and psychological functioning. Key topics include why certain people cope successfully with traumatic experiences while others do not, the neurobiological processes underlying PTSD symptomatology, enduring questions surrounding traumatic memories and dissociation, and the core components of effective interventions. A highly influential work that laid the foundation for many of the field's continuing advances, this volume remains an immensely informative and thought-provoking clinical reference and text. The preface to the 2007 paperback edition situates the book within the context of contemporary research developments.

Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual


Deborah L. Cabaniss - 2010
    This book offers a practical, step-by-step guide to the technique of psychodynamic psychotherapy, with instruction on listening, reflecting, and intervening. It will systematically take the reader from evaluation to termination using straightforward language and carefully annotated examples. Written by experienced educators and based on a tried and tested syllabus, this book provides clinically relevant and accessible aspects of theories of treatment processes. The workbook style exercises in this book allow readers to practice what they learn in each section and more "actively" learn as they read the book.This book will teach you:About psychodynamic psychotherapy and some of the ways it is hypothesized to work How to evaluate patients for psychodynamic psychotherapy, including assessment of ego function and defenses The essentials for beginning the treatment, including fostering the therapeutic alliance, setting the frame, and setting goals A systematic way for listening to patients, reflecting on what you've heard, and making choices about how and what to say How to apply the Listen/Reflect/Intervene method to the essential elements of psychodynamic technique How these techniques are used to address problems with self esteem, relationships with others, characteristic ways of adapting, and other ego functions Ways in which technique shifts over time This book presents complex concepts in a clear way that will be approachable for all readers. It is an invaluable guide for psychiatry residents, psychology students, and social work students, but also offers practicing clinicians in these areas a new way to think about psychodynamic psychotherapy. The practical approach and guided exercises make this an exceptional tool for psychotherapy educators teaching all levels of learners.This book includes a companion website: www.wiley.com/go/cabaniss/psychotherapywith the "Listening Exercise" for Chapter 16 (Learning to Listen). This is a short recording that will help the reader to learn about different ways we listen.Praise for Psychodynamic Psychotherapy: A Clinical Manual"This book has a more practical, hands-on, active learning approach than existing books on psychodynamic therapy."Bob Bornstein, co-editor of Principles of Psychotherapy; Adelphi University, NY"Well-written, concise and crystal clear for any clinician who wishes to understand and practice psychodynamic psychotherapy. Full of real-world clinical vignettes, jargon-free and useful in understanding how to assess, introduce and begin psychotherapy with a patient. Extraordinarily practical with numerous examples of how to listen to and talk with patients while retaining a sophistication about the complexity of the therapeutic interaction. My trainees have said that this book finally allowed them to understand what psychodynamic psychotherapy is all about!"--Debra Katz, Vice Chair for Education at the University of Kentucky and Director of Psychiatry Residency Training"This volume offers a comprehensive learning guide for psychodynamic psychotherapy training."--Robert Glick, Professor, Columbia University

Healing the Shame that Binds You


John Bradshaw - 1988
    The more I drank to relieve my shame-based loneliness and hurt, the more I felt ashamed.” Shame is the motivator behind our toxic behaviors: the compulsion, co-dependency, addiction and drive to superachieve that breaks down the family and destroys personal lives. This book has helped millions identify their personal shame, understand the underlying reasons for it, address these root causes and release themselves from the shame that binds them to their past failures. Key Features This is not just a recovery book. Among other things, it is a classic book on identifying and working through unresolved family issues. Includes affirmations, visualizations, inner voice and feeling exercises. Strong supporting studies make this a popular book with counselors and other professionals. Completely updated and revised

The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-Body Approach to Regaining Emotional Control and Becoming Whole


Arielle Schwartz - 2017
    Though untrue, such beliefs can feel extremely real and frightening. Difficult as it may be, facing one’s PTSD from unresolved childhood trauma is a brave, courageous act—and with the right guidance, healing from PTSD is possible. Clinical psychologist Dr. Arielle Schwartz has spent years helping those with C-PTSD find their way to wholeness. She also knows the territory of the healing firsthand, having walked it herself. This book provides a map to the complicated, and often overwhelming, terrain of C-PTSD with Dr. Schwartz’s knowledgeable guidance helping you find your way. In The Complex PTSD Workbook, you’ll learn all about C-PTSD and gain valuable insight into the types of symptoms associated with unresolved childhood trauma, while applying a strength-based perspective to integrate positive beliefs and behaviors. Useful features of The Complex PTSD Workbook include: Examples and exercises through which you’ll discover your own instances of trauma through relating to PTSD experiences other than your own, such as the following: [Example] Diane was very skilled at avoiding dealing with her traumatic past. To survive, she had learned to bury her painful feelings and memories, preferring not to talk about her childhood. It simply hurt too much. [Exercise] In what ways can you relate to Diane’s story? Take some time to write down any associations you have. Information about common PTSD misdiagnoses such as bipolar disorder, ADHD, anxiety disorders, major depressive disorder, and substance abuse, among others. Explorations of common methods of PTSD therapy including somatic therapy, EMDR, CBT, DBT, and mind-body perspectives. Chapter takeaways that encourage thoughtful consideration and writing to explore how you feel as you review the material presented in relation to your PTSD symptoms. The Complex PTSD Workbook aims to empower you with a thorough understanding of the psychology and physiology of C-PTSD so you can make informed choices about the path to healing that is right for you and discover a life of wellness, free of C-PTSD, that used to seem just out of reach.

Polysecure: Attachment, Trauma and Consensual Nonmonogamy


Jessica Fern - 2020
    Using her nested model of attachment and trauma, she expands our understanding of how emotional experiences can influence our relationships. Then, she sets out six specific strategies to help you move toward secure attachments in your multiple relationships. Polysecure is both a theoretical treatise and a practical guide.