If you or someone you know might be interested in accessing any of these resources please contact any members of the Charlotte County Abuse Prevention Network. or Charlotte County Outreach Services, directly at 506-469-5544.
8 Keys to Safe Trauma Recovery: Take Charge Strategies for Reclaiming Your Life
Trauma recovery is tricky; however, there are several key principles that can help make the process safe and effective. This book gives self help readers, therapy clients, and therapists alike the skills to understand and implement eight keys to successful trauma healing: mindful identification of what is helpful, recognizing survival, having the option to not remember, creating a supportive inner dialogue, forgiving not being able to stop the trauma, understanding and sharing shame, finding your own recovery pace; mobilizing your body, and helping others.
This is not another book promoting a new method or type of treatment; rather, it is a necessary adjunct to self-help and professional recovery programs. After reading this book, readers will be able to recognize their own individual needs and evaluate whether those needs are being met. They will have the tools necessary to put themselves in the drivers’ seat, navigating their own safe road to recovery.
First Stage Trauma Treatment: A Guide for Therapists Working with Women
While posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has been recognized for some time, only recently have therapists begun to recognize and address complex posttraumatic stress responses in female clients who have a history of early or chronic abuse. Most mental health service providers recognize the challenges in offering help when a client's problems seem complex and overwhelming, and they may be unsure of how first to intervene. First Stage Trauma Treatment provides a conceptual framework along with practical ideas and strategies. Readers will learn: about complex post-traumatic stress responses (including depression, self-harm and substance use the importance of timing when addressing women's trauma experiences in therapy about the complex biopsychosocial context of women's trauma and its treatment the basic components of staged trauma treatment, with an emphasis on the first stage the specific tools and strategies to use when beginning this work. Women experiencing complex PTSD may seek help at any number of services, so First Stage Trauma Treatment is written for a diverse audience: mental health and addiction service providers who actively treat women who have survived abuse, and allied caregivers who wish to understand more about the clients they serve.
Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program For Restoring The Wisdom Of Your Body
Researchers have shown that survivors of accidents, disaster, and childhood trauma often endure lifelong symptoms ranging from anxiety and depression to unexplained physical pain, fatigue, illness, and harmful "acting out" behaviors. Today, professionals and clients in both the bodywork and the psychotherapeutic fields nationwide are turning to Peter A. Levine''s breakthrough Somatic Experiencing® methods to actively overcome these challenges. In Healing Trauma, Dr. Levine gives you the personal how-to guide for using the theory he first introduced in his highly acclaimed work Waking the Tiger. Join him to discover: how to develop body awareness to "renegotiate" and heal traumas by "revisiting" them rather than reliving them; emergency "first-aid" measures for times of distress; and nature’s lessons for uncovering the physiological roots of your emotions.
"Trauma is a fact of life," teaches Peter Levine, "but it doesn''t have to be a life sentence." Now, with one fully integrated self-healing tool, he shares his essential methods to address unexplained symptoms of trauma at their source-the body-to return us to the natural state in which we are meant to live
Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions For Trauma And Attachment
The body’s intelligence is largely an untapped resource in psychotherapy, yet the story told by the “somatic narrative”-- gesture, posture, prosody, facial expressions, eye gaze, and movement -- is arguably more significant than the story told by the words. The language of the body communicates implicit meanings and reveals the legacy of trauma and of early or forgotten dynamics with attachment figures. To omit the body as a target of therapeutic action is an unfortunate oversight that deprives clients of a vital avenue of self-knowledge and change.
Written for therapists and clients to explore together in therapy, this book is a practical guide to the language of the body. It begins with a section that orients therapists and clients to the volume and how to use it, followed by an overview of the role of the brain and the use of mindfulness. The last three sections are organized according to a phase approach to therapy, focusing first on developing personal resources, particularly somatic ones; second on utilizing a bottom-up, somatic approach to memory; and third on exploring the impact of attachment on procedural learning, emotional biases, and cognitive distortions. Each chapter is accompanied by a guide to help therapists apply the chapter’s teachings in clinical practice and by worksheets to help clients integrate the material on a personal level.
The concepts, interventions, and worksheets introduced in this book are designed as an adjunct to, and in support of, other methods of treatment rather than as a stand-alone treatment or manualized approach. By drawing on the therapeutic relationship and adjusting interventions to the particular needs of each client, thoughtful attention to what is being spoken beneath the words through the body can heighten the intimacy of the therapist/client journey and help change take place more easily in the hidden recesses of the self.
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, And Body In The Healing Of Trauma
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.
Body Remembers: The Psychobiology Of Trauma And Trauma Treatment
This book illuminates that physiology, shining a bright light on the impact of trauma on the body and the phenomenon of somatic memory.
It is now thought that people who have been traumatized hold an implicit memory of traumatic events in their brains and bodies. That memory is often expressed in the symptomatology of posttraumatic stress disorder-nightmares, flashbacks, startle responses, and dissociative behaviors. In essence, the body of the traumatized individual refuses to be ignored.
While reducing the chasm between scientific theory and clinical practice and bridging the gap between talk therapy and body therapy, Rothschild presents principles and non-touch techniques for giving the body its due. With an eye to its relevance for clinicians, she consolidates current knowledge about the psychobiology of the stress response both in normally challenging situations and during extreme and prolonged trauma. This gives clinicians from all disciplines a foundation for speculating about the origins of their clients'' symptoms and incorporating regard for the body into their practice. The somatic techniques are chosen with an eye to making trauma therapy safer while increasing mind-body integration.
Waking the Tiger - Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity To Transform Overwhelming Experiences
Waking the Tiger offers a new and hopeful vision of trauma. It views the human animal as a unique being, endowed with an instinctual capacity. It asks and answers an intriguing question: why are animals in the wild, though threatened routinely, rarely traumatized? By understanding the dynamics that make wild animals virtually immune to traumatic symptoms, the mystery of human trauma is revealed. Waking the Tiger normalizes the symptoms of trauma and the steps needed to heal them. People are often traumatized by seemingly ordinary experiences. The reader is taken on a guided tour of the subtle, yet powerful impulses that govern our responses to overwhelming life events. To do this, it employs a series of exercises that help us focus on bodily sensations. Through heightened awareness of these sensations trauma can be healed.
Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others
In Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way. Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices, drawn from modern psychology and a range of spiritual traditions, that enable us to look carefully at our reactions and motivations and discover new sources of energy and renewal. She includes interviews with successful trauma stewards from different walks of life and even uses New Yorker cartoons to illustrate her points.
“We can do meaningful work in a way that works for us and for those we serve,” Lipsky writes. “Taking care of ourselves while taking care of others allows us to contribute to our societies with such impact that we will leave a legacy informed by our deepest wisdom and greatest gifts instead of burdened by our struggles and despair.
The Age of Overwhelm: Strategies for the Long Haul
Whether we are overwhelmed by work or school; our families or communities; caretaking for others or ourselves; or engagement in social justice, environmental advocacy, or civil service, just a few subtle shifts can help sustain us. Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, bestselling author of Trauma Stewardship, shows us how by offering concrete strategies to help us mitigate harm, cultivate our ability to be decent and equitable, and act with integrity. The Age of Overwhelm aims to help ease our burden of overwhelm, restore our perspective, and give us strength to navigate what is yet to come.
Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices From Within The Anti-Violence Movement
Often pushed to the margins, queer, transgender and gender non-conforming survivors have been organizing in anti-violence work since the birth of the movement. Queering Sexual Violence: Radical Voices from Within the Anti-Violence Movement locates them at the center of the anti-violence movement and creates a space for their voices to be heard. Moving beyond dominant narratives and the traditional "violence against women" framework, the book is multi-gendered, multi-racial and multi-layered. This thirty-seven-piece collection disrupts the mainstream conversations about sexual violence and connects them to disability justice, sex worker rights, healing justice, racial justice, gender self-determination, queer & trans liberation and prison industrial complex abolition through reflections, personal narrative, and strategies for resistance and healing. Where systems, institutions, families, communities and partners have failed them, this collection lifts them up, honors a multitude of lived experiences and shares the radical work that is being done outside mainstream anti-violence and the non-profit industrial complex.
Transforming A Rape Culture
First published in 1993, Transforming a Rape Culture has provided a new understanding of sexual violence and its origins in this culture. This ground-breaking work seeks nothing less than fundamental cultural change: the transformation of basic attitudes about power, gender, race, and sexuality.
The editors thoroughly reviewed the book for this new edition, selecting eight new essays that address topics such as rape as war crime, sports and sexual violence, sexual abuse among the clergy, conflict between traditional mores and women’s rights in the Asian American and Latin American communities, as well insightful analyses of cyberporn.
The diverse contributors are activists, opinion leaders, theologians, policymakers, educators, and authors of both genders. An excellent text for undergraduate classes in Women’s Studies, Family Sociology or Criminal Justice, the book is being reissued on the 10th anniversary of the Violence Against Women Act.
Ask: Building a Consent Culture
Have you ever heard the phrase “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission?” Violating consent isn’t limited to sexual relationships, and our discussions around consent shouldn’t be, either. To resist rape culture, we need a consent culture—and one that is more than just reactionary. Left confined to intimate spaces, consent will atrophy as theory that is never put into practice. The multi-layered power disparities of today’s world require a response sensitive to a wide range of lived experiences. In Ask, Kitty Stryker assembles a retinue of writers, journalists, and activists to examine how a cultural politic centered on consent can empower us outside the bedroom, whether it’s at the doctor’s office, interacting with law enforcement, or calling out financial abuse within radical communities. More than a collection of essays, Ask is a testimony and guide on the role that negated consent plays in our lives, examining how we can take those first steps to reclaim it from institutionalized power.
Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman On Sexism And The Scapegoating Of Femininity
In the updated second edition of Whipping Girl,Julia Serano, a transsexual woman whose supremely intelligent writing reflects her background as a lesbian transgender activist and professional biologist, shares her powerful experiences and observations-both pre- and post-transition-to reveal the ways in which fear, suspicion, and dismissiveness toward femininity shape our societal attitudes toward trans women, as well as gender and sexuality as a whole. Serano''s well-honed arguments and reputation as a thought-leader stem from her ability to bridge the gap between the often-disparate biological and social perspectives on gender. In this provocative manifesto, she exposes how deep-rooted the cultural belief is that femininity is frivolous, weak, and passive, and how this "feminine" weakness exists only to attract and appease male desire.
Yes, Means Yes: Visions Of Female Sexual Power And A World Without Rape
With a timely new introduction, refreshed cover, and the timeless contributions of authors from Kate Harding to Jill Filipovic, Yes Means Yes brings to the table a dazzling variety of perspectives and experiences focused on the theory that educating all people to value female sexuality and pleasure leads to viewing women differently, and ending rape. Yes Means Yes has radical and far-reaching effects: from teaching men to treat women as collaborators and not conquests, encouraging men and women that women can enjoy sex instead of being shamed for it, and ultimately, that our children can inherit a world where rape is rare and swiftly punished.
The Complex PTSD Workbook: A Mind-body Approach To Regaining Emotional Control And Becoming Whole
A mind-body workbook for healing and overcoming Complex PTSD Those affected by complex PTSD, or C-PTSD, commonly feel as though there is something fundamentally wrong with them―that somewhere inside there is a part of them that needs to be fixed. Facing one’s PTSD is a brave, courageous act―and with the right guidance, recovery is possible. 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. Take healing into your own hands while applying strategies to help integrate positive beliefs and behaviors. Discover your path to recovery with: Examples and exercises―Uncover your own instances of trauma with PTSD activities designed to teach you positive strategies. Expert guidance―Explore common PTSD diagnoses and common methods of PTSD therapy including somatic therapy, CBT, and mind-body perspectives. Prompts and reflections―Apply the strategies you''ve learned and identify PTSD symptoms with insightful writing prompts. Find the tools you need to work through C-PTSD and regain emotional control with this mind-body workbook.
The Body Awareness Workbook For Trauma: Release Trauma From Your Body, Find Emotional Balance, And Connect With Your Inner Wisdom
Move past trauma, balance your emotions, and reconnect with your body’s innate wisdom in The Body Awareness Workbook for Trauma. There is a piercing epidemic of trauma in the world today. Every few days there are reports of another tragedy, of more lives lost to gun violence, loved ones and family homes lost to floods, hurricanes, or fires. Women have come to speak openly about the trauma of sexual assault, and we are finally talking openly about the trauma inflicted on people of color, on transgender people, and immigrants. But now that this trauma is out in the open, how do we heal? For years, we’ve understood the connection between trauma and mental health issues, such as depression and anxiety. But somatic psychology has recently shown that our bodies hold on to trauma, and trauma can manifest in physical symptoms, such as pain, hormone imbalance, sexual dysfunction, and addiction. In addition, we now know that developmental trauma—trauma that emerges when basic childhood needs are not met—can result in profound emotional stress and lead to serious diseases. Building on this knowledge, this cutting-edge guide offers simple skills for connecting and calming your body, balancing your emotions, and rewiring old patterns of reactivity for better self-regulation. The mind-body approach in this book is designed to guide you away from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma and toward posttraumatic growth. Using these exercises, you’ll learn how to reconnect and relate to your body—and yourself as a whole—in a new and healthy way. If you’re ready to move past your trauma and rediscover your body’s innate capacity for healing, growth, vitality, and joy, this unique guide will help light the way.
The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, And Love
Everyone needs to love and be loved -- even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are -- whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks address the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves -- and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.
Life After Trauma: A Workbook For Healing
Trauma can turn your world upside down--afterward, nothing may look safe or familiar. This compassionate workbook has already helped tens of thousands of trauma survivors start rebuilding their lives. Full of practical strategies for coping and self-care, the book guides you toward reclaiming a solid sense of safety, self-worth, trust, and control, as well as the capacity to be close to others. The focus is on finding the way forward in your life today, no matter what has happened in the past. The updated second edition has a new section on managing emotions through mindfulness and an appendix on easing the stress of health care visits. Dozens of step-by-step questionnaires and exercises are included; you can download and print additional copies of these tools for repeated use.
Overcoming Trauma And PTSD: A Workbook Integrating Skills From ACT, DBT, And CBT
If you’ve experienced a traumatic event, you may feel a wide range of emotions, such as anxiety, anger, fear, and depression. The truth is that there is no right or wrong way to react to trauma; but there are ways that you can heal from your experience, and uncover your own capacity for resilience, growth, and recovery. Overcoming Trauma and PTSD offers proven-effective treatments based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you overcome both the physical and emotional symptoms of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This book will help you find relief from painful flashbacks, insomnia, or other symptoms you might be experiencing. Also included are worksheets, checklists, and exercises to help you start feeling better and begin your journey on the road to recovery. This book will help you manage your anxiety and stop avoiding certain situations, cope with painful memories and nightmares, and determine if you need to see a therapist. Perhaps most importantly, it will help you to develop a support system so that you can you heal and move forward.
The PTSD Workbook: Simple, Effective Techniques For Overcoming Traumatic Stress Symptoms
PTSD is an extremely debilitating condition that can occur after exposure to a terrifying event. But whether you’re a veteran of war, a victim of domestic violence or sexual violence, or have been involved in a natural disaster, crime, car accident, or accident in the workplace, your symptoms may be getting in the way of you living your life. PTSD can often cause you to relive your traumatic experience in the form of flashbacks, memories, nightmares, and frightening thoughts. This is especially true when you are exposed to events or objects that remind you of your trauma. Left untreated, PTSD can lead to emotional numbness, insomnia, addiction, anxiety, depression, and even suicide. So, how can you start to heal and get your life back? In The PTSD Workbook, Third Edition, psychologists and trauma experts Mary Beth Williams and Soili Poijula outline techniques and interventions used by PTSD experts from around the world to conquer distressing trauma-related symptoms. In this fully revised and updated workbook, you’ll learn how to move past the trauma you’ve experienced and manage symptoms such as insomnia, anxiety, and flashbacks. Based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), this book is extremely accessible and easy to use, offering evidence-based therapy at a low cost. This new edition features chapters focusing on veterans with PTSD, the link between cortisol and adrenaline and its role in PTSD and overall mental health, and the mind-body component of PTSD. Clinicians will also find important updates reflecting the new DSM-V definition of PTSD. This book is designed to give you the emotional resilience you need to get your life back together after a traumatic event.
The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How To Stop Being Abused And How To Stop Abusing
"This ground breaking book succeeds in helping people stop emotional abuse by focusing on both the abuser and the abused and showing each party what emotional abuse is, how it affects the relationship, and how to stop it. Its unique focus on the dynamic relationship makes it more likely that each person will grasp the tools for change and really use them." -Randi Kreger, author of The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook and owner of BPDCentral.com
The number of people who become involved with partners who abuse them emotionally and/or who are emotionally abusive themselves is phenomenal, and yet emotional abuse is the least understood form of abuse. In this breakthrough book, Beverly Engel, one of the world’s leading experts on the subject, shows us what it is and what to do about it.
Whether you suspect you are being emotionally abused, fear that you might be emotionally abusing your partner, or think that both you and your partner are emotionally abusing each other, this book is for you. The Emotionally Abusive Relationship will tell you how to identify emotional abuse and how to find the roots of your behavior. Combining dramatic personal stories with action steps to heal, Engel provides prescriptive strategies that will allow you and your partner to work together to stop bringing out the worst in each other and stop the abuse.
By teaching those who are being emotionally abused how to help themselves and those who are being emotionally abusive how to stop abusing, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship offers the expert guidance and support you need.
The Gifts Of Imperfection
What transforms this book from words on a page to effective daily practices are the ten guideposts to wholehearted living. The guideposts not only help us understand the practices that will allow us to change our lives and families, they also walk us through the unattainable and sabotaging expectations that get in the way.
Brené writes, “This book is an invitation to join a wholehearted revolution. A small, quiet, grassroots movement that starts with each of us saying, ‘My story matters because I matter.’ Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance.”
Courage To Heal Workbook: A Guide For Women Survivors Of Child Sexual Abuse
In this ground breaking companion to The Courage to Heal, Laura Davis offers an inspiring, in-depth workbook that speaks to all women and men healing from the effects of child sexual abuse. The combination of checklists, writing and art Projects, open-ended questions and activities expertly guides the survivor through the healing process. Survival Skills—Teaches survivors to create a safe, supportive environment, ask for help, deal with crisis periods, and choose therapy. Aspects Of Healing—Focuses on the healing process: gaining a capacity for hope, breaking silence, letting go of shame, turning anger into action, planning a confrontation, preparing for family contact, and affirming personal progress. Guidelines For Healing Sexually—Redefines the concept of "safe sex" and establishes healthy ground rules for sexual contact.
Allies In Healing: When The Person You Love Is A Survivor Of Child Sexual Abuse
"But what about me?" "Is it possible to go one day without dealing with the survivor's issues?" "Will we ever make love again?" "Will the survivor love me in the end?" "How do I know if I should throw in the towel?" Based on in-depth interviews and her workshops for partners across the country, Laura Davis offers practical advice and encouragement to all partners—girlfriends, boyfriends, spouses, and lovers—trying to support the survivors in their lives while tending to their own needs along the way. She shows couples how to deepen compassion, improve communication, and develop an understanding of healing as a shared activity. Addressing partners' most important questions, Allies in Healing covers: The Basics—answers common questions about sexual abuse. Allies in Healing—introduces key concepts of working and growing together. My Needs and Feelings—teaches partners to recognize, value, and express their own needs. Dealing with Crisis—includes strategies for handling suicidal feelings, regression, and hopelessness. Intimacy and Communication—offers practical advice on dealing with distancing, control, trust, and fighting. Sex—provides guidelines for coping with flashbacks, lack of desire, differences in sexual needs, and frustration. Family lssues—suggests a range of ideas for interacting with the survivor's family. Partners' Stories—explores the struggles, triumphs, and courage of eight partners.
The Inner Child Workbook: What to Do With Your Past When It Just Won't Go Away
Recovery therapist Cathryn Taylor offers a step-by-step guide to reparenting the children within and healing their shame, anger, and feelings of abandonment. Using written and verbal exercises, guided imagery, journaling, drawing, mirror work, and rituals, you can change your experience of the past.
For each of the seven stages of childhood, you will follow six steps: • Identify your pain. • Research its childhood roots. • Re-experience the pain. • Separate from it. • Grieve the losses of each stage. • Ritually release the pain and reclaim the joy of each inner child.
In the end, you will reap the rewards of the wisdom of your true self.
The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide For Survivors Of Sexual Abuse
“Men and women who have despaired that their sex lives would never change will find hope and answers in this friendly, encouraging, and essential guide.” —Laura Davis, coauthor of The Courage to Heal and author of Allies in Healing This widely esteemed, highly respected resource helps survivors of sexual abuse heal from the past, improve relationships, and discover the joys of sexual intimacy. Compassionate and enduring, renowned author, psychotherapist, and certified sex therapist Wendy Maltz presents a comprehensive program for healing that sensitively takes readers step-by-step through the recovery process, integrating expert advice with ground breaking exercises, proven techniques, and first-person accounts of women and men at every stage of sexual healing. This compassionate resource can help you to: Identify the sexual effects of sexual abuse Eliminate negative sexual behavior and resolve specific problems Gain control over upsetting automatic reactions to touch and sex Develop a healthy sexual self-concept
Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach To Healing Sexual Trauma
The first encouraging, sex-positive guide for all women survivors of sexual assault -- heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, coupled, and single -- who want to reclaim their sex lives. While most books on the topic broach sexuality only to reassure women that it is all right to say "no" to unwanted sex, Healing Sex encourages women to learn how to say "yes" -- to their own desires and on their own terms. This mind-body approach to healing from sexual trauma was created by Staci Haines, who has been educating in the area of sexual abuse, sex education, and somatic healing for over 15 years. Her techniques are ideal for anyone looking for a new way to heal from trauma, beyond traditional talk therapy.
The Sexual Trauma Workbook For Teen Girls: A Guide To Recovery From Sexual Assault And Abuse
The Sexual Trauma Workbook for Teen Girls offers healing, real-life stories from survivors and powerful, evidence-based tools to help you reclaim your life after sexual abuse or trauma. If you’ve been sexually abused or experienced sexual trauma, you may feel confused, angry, ashamed, and unable to move forward emotionally. You're not alone. Like many teens who’ve been abused, you may be tempted to keep the secret locked deep inside and feel uncomfortable discussing your struggles with others. If so, this book can help you find your voice. This empowering workbook will help you move past your trauma and serve as a comforting reminder that you are strong and resilient. Healing is possible—and with healing, comes victory. In this book, you’ll find true stories from other teen survivors, and in reading the stories you’ll find reassurance in knowing you aren’t alone in your experiences. You’ll also find practical and proven-effective strategies and exercises to help promote emotional healing and reclaim your sense of self. Sexual abuse or trauma may be a part of your past, but it doesn’t need to define who you are now. This book will help you as you start on the path toward healing so you can move forward with confidence.
What Happened To You?: Conversations On Trauma, Resilience, And Healing
Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can’t I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What’s wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it’s easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It’s time we started asking a different question.
Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a ground breaking and profound shift from asking "What’s wrong with you?" to "What happened to you?"
Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future-opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.
