Mental Trauma

Many people have heard of trauma and PTSD. But when we think of PTSD, many of us think of nightmares and flashbacks that are related to one traumatic incident or event that has been experienced by the sufferer. There is another form of PTSD that's related to being exposed to repetitive trauma. It is called Complex PTSD, coined by a woman named Judith Herman.

If you have experienced sexual abuse, assault, harassment, or rape, you may feel disconnected from your sexual self—even if you've overcome the initial trauma. You are a survivor, but surviving is just the beginning. Written by a psychologist and grounded in cutting-edge research, Reclaiming Pleasure picks up where other sexual trauma recovery books leave off. With this sex-positive and empowering guide, you are invited to take your recovery to the next level. You'll feel emboldened by the desire for better sex, healthier relationships, and a more connected, pleasurable life.

Just as you prepared your home to welcome a new child, it is important to prepare your heart and mind - especially if the child has suffered from a background of trauma. Perhaps your invitation for love is met with hostility and you find that this new member of your family rejects connection. It’s critical to acknowledge the effects of trauma on a child’s ability to attach. Mike and Kristin Berry realized this when they became adoptive and foster parents. They now offer guidance from their own journey to others parenting a child who has experienced past trauma.

Author, mental health expert, and professor David Bedrick helps us understand how shame shows up—and offers a revolutionary, stigma-free model to help us unshame and release its hold on our happiness. Shame is more than feeling guilty, sad, or responsible. It develops when we experience a trauma but can’t access the tools or freedom to express how we feel—or are denied the ability to ask for the care we need. It shows up when we aren’t witnessed—whether by a loved one, our community, our culture, or anyone from whom we need to hear.

In recent years, therapy and self-care have become familiar buzzwords, but it's clear that people are having to face their emotional difficulties without the tools and insight to work through them. Enter Real Talk: A book to enable listeners to have genuine, authentic conversations with themselves, and to start the journey of healing their past experiences and cope with the challenges of modern life. Filled with techniques and wisdom from a therapist's toolkit this is a must-have handbook for optimising your mental health.

Understanding how our brains and bodies actually work is a powerful tool in mitigating the anxiety generated by unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms that we all may experience from time to time. Here, Robert Scaer unravels the complexities of the brain-body connection, equipping all those who are in distress with a plausible explanation for how they feel.

Transform your understanding of racial trauma. Anti-Racist Psychotherapy is an approach designed to clarify the mental health effects of racism and provide a neuroscience-informed approach to resolve racial trauma. This audiobook will help you learn a new and unique perspective for conceptualizing racism and recovering from its effects on the nervous system.

Meet Dr. Eugene Lipov. His research and partnerships have led to an amazing discovery that all trauma has at its root a single piece of human hardware: the stellate ganglion. The symptoms of post-traumatic stress are the same for all of us, whether from childhood poverty or abandonment, the ravages of war, or the brutality of sexual assault. Dr. Lipov's pioneering procedure appears to treat injury to the stellate ganglion, relieving even the worst symptoms of PTSD—irritability, hypervigilance, insomnia, and more—in a fifteen-minute treatment.

Trauma-Informed Yoga for Survivors of Sexual Assault provides a comprehensive overview of how to offer yoga to survivors of sexual assault in a safe, effective, evidence-based, and healing way. Zahabiyah A. Yamasaki, founder of Transcending Sexual Trauma through Yoga, draws on the framework of trauma-informed care and trauma-informed yoga program development and curriculum, while also weaving in personal narrative and inspiring survivor stories.

When a traumatic event occurs, our body triggers its “fight or flight” response. In many scenarios, the emotional reactions of this response get trapped, disrupting the feedback loop between our mind and body, leading to an imbalance in our nervous system function. Over time this can cause chronic stress, pain, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system. This, alongside regular triggers in our everyday life, will manifest into a disconnection between our mind and body and create a constant feeling of dissociation from our emotions, with minimal control over how we feel.

Trauma following automobile accidents can persist for weeks, months, or longer. Symptoms include nervousness, sleep disorders, loss of appetite, and sexual dysfunction. In Crash Course, Diane Poole Heller and Laurence Heller take listeners through a series of case histories and exercises to explain and treat the health problems and trauma brought on by car accidents.

I wrote this book because it is the book that I needed when I started my journey to both understanding and overcoming my traumatic past. When I started I never expected what it would become. The short version is this: I come from a dark place, my ACE score is 10, and I attempted to take my own life twice, not to mention being morbidly obese and a drug addict at 12 years old. Today, I am happy, healthy, and driven towards being my best self every day. Why? Because I choose to Think Unbroken.

The SMART (Sensory Motor Arousal Regulation Treatment) program addresses three key processes that can be derailed by developmental trauma—somatic regulation, trauma processing, and attachment-building—and uses movement and sensation to target the neurological structures that support emotional and behavioral regulation.

There is a growing awareness that the body, as well as the mind, needs to be involved in therapy. Neuroscience and attachment theories have clearly demonstrated that emotion is a physiological as well as a mental phenomenon. Dr. Dayton's approach to experiential work has been in the forefront of what is now so commonly in use in treatment centers that it has become mainstream.

Former big-city crime reporter Tamara Cherry calls on her award-winning skills as a journalist to examine the impact of the media on trauma survivors and the impact of trauma on members of the media. As Tamara documents the experiences of those who were forced to suffer on the public stage, she is confronted by everything she got wrong on the crime beat. Covering murders and traffic fatalities to sexual violence and mass violence, Cherry exposes a system set up to fail trauma survivors and journalists.

In a society that values independence, self-preservation, and individualistic thinking, we are missing the key to fulfillment: Connection through attachment. Simply, attachment is the way that we connect to each other. Without attachment, people feel alone to deal with challenges they face, which leads to distress, dysfunction, and mental health disorders. Improve your client's relationships by teaching them strategies to feel more connected reestablish trust, and restore positive emotions..

When treating a client who has suffered from interpersonal trauma - whether chronic childhood abuse or domestic violence, for example - talk therapy isn't always the most effective course. For these individuals, the trauma and its effects are so entrenched, so complex, that reducing their experience to a set of symptoms or suggesting a change in cognitive frame or behavioral pattern ignores a very basic but critical player: the body.

When trauma enters the lives of the unsuspecting, it steals from their very soul. It not only robs them of peace and joy, it can take years and decades from their lives while they desperately try to fill the hole in their heart, pretending that their soul isn't leaking out of it. No one is ever prepared for trauma, and no one is ever left unchanged by traumatic events.

Trauma is much closer to home than many of us think. It affects those fleeing wars and veterans returning from combat. Yet, it also affects those who grew up with alcoholics or those who were subjected to physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. In his book, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk goes into detail about how this changes the way we think and offers an in-depth look at the new treatments that can help overcome trauma and reshape the brain.

In this book Dr Jessamy unriddles the effects of trauma. Using a combination of psychology, neuroscience and her own experiences, Dr Jessamy brings a tough subject to life and opens up the space for healing. This book centres on the concept of 'Post-traumatic growth' - a term used to describe the remarkable way that painful experiences can lead to a valuable re-assessment of life, a renewed discovery of meaning and a fresh perspective.