Trauma, Bodywork, & Integrative Care
A traumatic event is any experience that overwhelms your capacity to cope. Survivors may often experience repercussion of traumatic events that persist for months or years after the initial event is over. Trauma caused through relationship, especially by individuals who are supposed to prioritize our safety and well-being, such as parents, family members, intimate/romantic partners, or caregivers, can be particularly devastating to your well-being.
Trauma has a number of impacts on your health and well-being; not just emotionally, but psychologically and physiologically as well. Below are a number of resources that may help illuminate the multi-faceted ways trauma impacts health and why therapy is so critical to untangle this impact.
Trauma, Healing, & The Body:
The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk
The Body Keeps the Score utilizes cutting edge science to illustrate how trauma impacts and fractures both the body and brain, compromising our capacity for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.
Complex PTSD & Childhood Trauma:
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry
This book looks through the lens of developmental psychology to breakdown and examine the effect that trauma can have on a child, how PTSD impacts the developing mind, and the path to recovery through a series of case studies and reflections. This book does not constitute therapeutic advice, but rather asks the reader to reflect on the true cause of difficult behavior.
Racial & Inter-generational Trauma:
My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem
An examination of the damage caused by racism in the US from the perspective of trauma, body-centered psychology, and therapy. This book pushes the reader to recognize that racism is not only about the head, but experienced in the whole body through generations.
Inter-generational Trauma:
It Didn't Start with You by Mark Wolynn
It Didn't Start with You lays out a compelling case that many of our difficulties, such as depression, anxiety, and chronic pain, have their origins in the lives of our family tree. Traumatic experience can be passed down through generations.
Domestic Violence:
Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft
A resource for DV survivors and those currently experiencing DV, Why Does He Do That addresses the cycle of abuse and the factors that make in both so painful and so hard to get help.
Podcast:
The Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness Podcast with Daniel Treleaven
A monthly podcast hosted by David Treleaven featuring a variety of guests discussing how mindfulness, meditation, and trauma all interact.
Podcast:
Back From The Abyss with Craig Heacock
Podcast by Psychiatrist Dr. Craig Heacock who offers a deep dive into powerfully moving stories of hope and healing, recovery and redemption. Asking the questions: How do we find a way out of the darkest depths of despair?