Mental Trauma

As an award-winning stuntwoman, Kimberly Shannon Murphy was intimate with pain. For years, she propelled her body through dangerous spaces—medicating the trauma of her childhood sexual abuse with the adrenaline rush that came from pushing herself to the absolute limit. But as Kimberly learned, no matter how much you suppress your past, it always catches up with you.

Kathy L. Kain and Stephen J. Terrell draw on 50 years of their combined clinical and teaching experience to provide this clear road map for understanding the complexities of early trauma and its related symptoms. Experts in the physiology of trauma, the authors present an introduction to their innovative somatic approach that has evolved to help thousands improve their lives. Synthesizing across disciplines - Attachment, Polyvagal, Neuroscience, Child Development Theory, Trauma, and Somatics - this book provides a new lens through which to understand safety and regulation.

Are you constantly feeling emotionally tortured by someone you used to love? Do you see no point in trying to get out because your abusive partner has taken control of your life? Abuse survivor turned domestic violence advocate, Marjorie Lise, knows this all too well. In her audiobook, she talks about how she was able to successfully stop suffering in silence and finally escape her abusive partner whom she had stayed with for an entire decade, with the hope that her experience will inspire you to take back control of your life, too.

Dr. Laura Anderson takes an honest look at a side of religion that few like to talk about. Drawing from her own life and therapy practice, she helps listeners understand what religious trauma is and isn't, and how high-control churches can be harmful and abusive, often resulting in trauma. She shows how elements of fundamentalist church life—such as fear of hell, purity culture, corporal punishment, and authoritarian leaders—can cause psychological, relational, physical, and spiritual damage.

Somatic trauma therapist and positive psychology coach Caroline Strawson wants to show you that your past is not your life sentence. No matter what’s happened in your life, you can find joy, light, and happiness again. Integrating her own lived experience of narcissistic abuse with trauma-informed practices and positive psychology interventions, this audiobook will help you heal and begin to feel like yourself again.

How to Breathe While Suffocating is your antidote to the all-too-common tendency to surrender, giving up on your life's ambitions. You don't have to give up! For anyone who has gotten caught in the trap of "I can't do it," this book reminds you that you are enough, you possess value, and your unique ability to engage with the world can and will get you to where you want to be.

Presenting ways in which Restorative Yoga can contribute to healing emotional wounds, this book invites yoga teachers, therapists and practitioners to consider the psychological impact of ethnic and race-based stress and trauma. It aids in the process of uncovering, examining and healing one's own emotional wounds and offers insight into avoiding wounding or re-wounding others.

Dr. Francine Shapiro's groundbreaking EMDR therapy is used to treat a variety of issues, including anxiety, anger, depression, and PTSD. These issues often have their roots in past events, and yet they cause us untold anguish in the present, and hold us back from our future. Self-Guided EMDR Therapy explores how EMDR can be used to heal emotional disturbances, and what to expect during and after treatment. There are self-help grounding exercises to do before Andler guides listeners through each step of the the eight-phase treatment process to healing.

PTSD is a debilitating condition that can occur after exposure to a terrifying event. Whatever their origins, your symptoms may be getting in the way of you living your life. In The PTSD Workbook, Third Edition, psychologists and trauma experts Mary Beth Williams and Soili Poijula outline techniques used by PTSD experts from around the world to conquer distressing trauma-related symptoms. You'll learn how to move past the trauma you've experienced and manage symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety, and flashbacks.

If your life has been affected by addiction (yours or someone else's), abuse, trauma or toxic shaming, you may also be struggling with another invisible problem - codependency. Without your even being aware of the connection to the above issues, it has created additional life-long challenges such as endless guilt, anxiety, perfectionism, need to control, depression, a history of dysfunctional relationships and much more. This easy-to-understand, interactive book will reveal how codependency has sobotaged you, the lies it created in your beliefs and the truths that expose them.

An essential work that centers colonial and historical trauma in a framework for healing, Decolonizing Therapy illuminates that all therapy is—and always has been—inherently political. To better understand the mental health oppression and institutional violence that exists today, we must become familiar with the root of disembodiment from our histories, homelands, and healing practices. Only then will listeners see how colonial, historical, and intergenerational legacies have always played a role in the treatment of mental health.

Much has been written about trauma and neglect and the damage they do to the developing brain. But little has been written or researched about the potential to heal these attachment wounds and address the damage sustained from neglect or poor parenting in early childhood. This book presents a therapy that focuses on precisely these areas. Laurel Parnell, leader and innovator in the field of eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), offers us a way to embrace two often separate worlds of knowing.

Brendon Abram combines his first-hand experience with PTSD in the field and years of teaching to offer this practical guide to bringing trauma-sensitive yoga to both clinical and studio settings. Drawing on his work with military veterans, first responders, and survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, he emphasizes the importance of respecting the uniqueness of every individual and demonstrates how to use the foundational principles of yoga to create a safe experience.

Healing Through the Vagus Nerve walks you through how the nervous system and the vagus nerve function, with approachable, non-academic language and helpful illustrations. Amanda Armstrong (founder of Rise as We) teaches all about vagal tone and the impact it has on your mental health and everyday life. Then, a variety of exercises and practices provide an adaptable approach to improving nervous system function.

Although many forms of trauma treatment rely solely on talk therapy as a means of healing, we cannot "talk out" every issue related to trauma. Indeed, trauma is stored in the body and the brain and must be treated as such. Designed with both mental health clinicians and clients in mind, Trauma-Informed Yoga offers forty-seven short, simple practices that regulate the autonomic nervous system, calm the racing mind, and center those of us living chaotic twenty-first century lives.

What makes trauma therapy effective? The answers might surprise you. While therapists have been bombarded with brain science, hundreds of new models, and pressure to use evidence-based techniques, research has demonstrated that the therapeutic relationship ultimately predicts therapy outcomes. This is especially true for traumatized clients. But, what kind of therapeutic relationship? Forming a secure therapeutic alliance with traumatized clients is tricky. How do you help clients trust you after they've been abused, betrayed, or exploited?

In the aftermath of stress, disappointment, and trauma, people often fall into survival mode, even while a part of them longs for more. Juggling multiple demands and responsibilities keeps them busy, but not healed. As a survivor of sexual assault, racism, and evacuation from a civil war in Liberia, Dr. Thema Bryant knows intimately the work involved in healing. Having made the journey herself, in addition to guiding others as a clinical psychologist and ordained minister, Dr. Thema shows you how to reconnect with your authentic self and reclaim your time, your voice, your life.

Our lives and their pathways are not fixed in stone; instead they are shaped by story. The ways in which we understand and share the stories of our lives therefore make all the difference. The book invites listeners to take a new look at their own stories and to find solutions to problems and predicaments in unexpected places.

Though many of us can point to patterns of brokenness in our lives, we don't know why they're there. No matter how hard we work, we can't seem to outrun the very things that break our hearts. That's because our everyday setbacks are rooted in our unaddressed wounds. Guided by seminary-trained licensed trauma therapist Kobe Campbell, Why Am I Like This? will help you develop courage as you dare to turn your heart toward your brokenness, uncover uncomfortable truths, and learn how to invite God into your past and present pain.

Children who have been adopted and/or shuttled through the foster-care system experience trauma at a much higher rate than other kids, which can make it difficult for them to trust, relax, regulate their emotions, and connect with their new families. As a parent, learning how to heal attachment trauma, attune to your child's needs, identify triggers, and create felt safety is essential to providing the loving, supportive, and stable home they need to thrive. Written for parents of adopted and foster kids of all ages, this book offers resources for handling common concerns.