Who You Were Before Trauma: The Healing Power of Imagination for Trauma Survivors
Who You Were Before Trauma: The Healing Power of Imagination for Trauma Survivors

Author: Luise Reddemann

Publisher: The Experiment, LLC

Published: 2020-05-26

Total Pages: 301

ISBN-13: 161519617X

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Introducing a proven, pioneering program that empowers trauma survivors to take control of their recovery through imaginative exercises Over the last thirty-five years, our understanding of trauma has dramatically changed. We now know that most people live through at least one traumatic event—which can cause disorders that range from depression, addiction, and anxiety, to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. But when leading German psychotherapist Luise Reddemann became head of a psychosomatic clinic in 1985, many doctors were routinely dismissive of patients’ trauma. Dr. Reddemann has devoted her career to this question: How can survivors of complex trauma and PTSD heal—and even help themselves to heal? In Who You Were Before Trauma, she presents her groundbreaking method, along with positive therapeutic strategies, to therapists and patients alike. Psychodynamic Imaginative Trauma Therapy (PITT) incorporates imagination work at every stage of the three-phase trauma therapy model: Establish safety and stabilization Come to terms with traumatic memories Integrate and reconnect with others. By guiding patients to unearth their buried strengths, envision an inner refuge, evoke helpful guiding figures, and ultimately build an “internal counterweight” to their trauma, Reddemann’s approach avoids the counterproductive dynamic where the therapist becomes the patient’s only source of comfort. This definitive trauma resource shows the way to empower survivors—by making them true partners in their recovery.

Who You Were Before Trauma
Who You Were Before Trauma

Author: Luise Reddemann

Publisher: The Experiment

Published: 2020-05-26

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1615196161

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Introducing a proven, pioneering program that empowers trauma survivors to take control of their recovery through imaginative exercises Over the last thirty-five years, our understanding of trauma has dramatically changed. We now know that most people live through at least one traumatic event—which can cause disorders that range from depression, addiction, and anxiety, to cardiovascular disease and diabetes. But when leading German psychotherapist Luise Reddemann became head of a psychosomatic clinic in 1985, many doctors were routinely dismissive of patients’ trauma. Dr. Reddemann has devoted her career to this question: How can survivors of complex trauma and PTSD heal—and even help themselves to heal? In Who You Were Before Trauma, she presents her groundbreaking method, along with positive therapeutic strategies, to therapists and patients alike. Psychodynamic Imaginative Trauma Therapy (PITT) incorporates imagination work at every stage of the three-phase trauma therapy model: Establish safety and stabilization Come to terms with traumatic memories Integrate and reconnect with others. By guiding patients to unearth their buried strengths, envision an inner refuge, evoke helpful guiding figures, and ultimately build an “internal counterweight” to their trauma, Reddemann’s approach avoids the counterproductive dynamic where the therapist becomes the patient’s only source of comfort. This definitive trauma resource shows the way to empower survivors—by making them true partners in their recovery.

The Body Keeps the Score
The Body Keeps the Score

Author: Bessel A. Van der Kolk

Publisher: Penguin Books

Published: 2015-09-08

Total Pages: 466

ISBN-13: 0143127748

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Originally published by Viking Penguin, 2014.

Your Life After Trauma
Your Life After Trauma

Author: Michele Rosenthal

Publisher: National Geographic Books

Published: 2015-03-17

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0393709000

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Restoring your sense of self after trauma. “In 1981 as a thirteen-year-old child I was given a routine antibiotic for a routine infection and suffered anything but a routine reaction. An undiscovered allergy to the medication turned me into a full-body burn victim almost overnight. By the time I was released from the hospital I had lost 100% of my epidermis. Even more importantly, I had completely lost myself.” Now a professional coach who specializes in helping trauma victims rebuild their lives, Michele Rosenthal struggled with the effects of medically-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for over 25 years before reaching a full recovery. Today, she is 100% free of symptoms of PTSD. In this book, she applies her personal experience and professional wisdom to offer readers an invaluable roadmap to overcoming their own trauma, in particular the loss of sense of self that often accompanies it. If you suffer from the effects of trauma or PTSD, whether it was caused by a single-incident like a car accident, or from chronic childhood abuse, domestic violence, illness, or war trauma, you are well aware of how disconnected you feel from the person you most deeply wish to be. Trauma interrupts—even hijacks—your identity. To cope, you may rely on mechanisms to keep your emotions, triggers, and responses in check, but these very habits can often prevent the true restoration of safety, stability, and inner connection. How can you rediscover your sense of self so that you honor who you were before the trauma (even if that trauma began at birth), understand who you are at this very moment, and determine who you want to be going forward? Like a therapist in your back pocket, Your Life After Trauma guides you in finding answers to these tough questions. Expertly written by a helping professional who keenly understands the post-trauma identity crisis that is so common among trauma and PTSD sufferers, it is a simple, practical, hands-on recovery workbook. Filled with self-assessment questionnaires, exercises, tips, and tools—not to mention insightful personal and professional vignettes—it takes readers through a step-by-step process of healing the identity crisis, from understanding some of the basic brain science behind trauma and why you feel the way you do, to recognizing who you were (or had the potential to be) before the trauma, who you are today, after the trauma, and who you want to become. With this book by your side, it is possible to regain a sense of calm, confidence, and control on your road to recovery.

It Didn't Start with You
It Didn't Start with You

Author: Mark Wolynn

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2016-04-26

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1101980370

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A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field Depression. Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited—that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood. As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn’t Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

What My Bones Know
What My Bones Know

Author: Stephanie Foo

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: 2022-02-22

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 0593238117

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A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life “Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal.”—Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. Both of Foo’s parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she’d moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD. In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don’t move on from trauma—but you can learn to move with it. Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body—and examines one woman’s ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

What Happened to You?
What Happened to You?

Author: Oprah Winfrey

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Published: 2021-04-27

Total Pages: 282

ISBN-13: 1250223210

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ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand. “Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives.”—Oprah Winfrey This book is going to change the way you see your life. 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 groundbreaking 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.

The Trauma of Everyday Life
The Trauma of Everyday Life

Author: Dr. Epstein

Publisher: Hay House, Inc

Published: 2014-07-07

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1781804567

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Trauma does not just happen to a few unlucky people; it is the bedrock of our psychology. Death and illness touch us all, but even the everyday sufferings of loneliness and fear are traumatic. In The Trauma of Everyday Life renowned psychiatrist and author of Thoughts Without a Thinker Mark Epstein uncovers the transformational potential of trauma, revealing how it can be used for the mind's own development. Epstein finds throughout that trauma, if it doesn't destroy us, wakes us up to both our minds' own capacity and to the suffering of others. It makes us more human, caring and wise. It can be our greatest teacher, our freedom itself, and it is available to all of us. Western psychology teaches that if we understand the cause of trauma, we might move past it while many drawn to Eastern practices see meditation as a means of rising above, or distancing themselves from, their most difficult emotions. Both, Epstein argues, fail to recognize that trauma is an indivisible part of life and can be used as a tool for growth and an ever deeper understanding of change. When we regard trauma with this perspective, understanding that suffering is universal and without logic, our pain connects us to the world on a more fundamental level. Guided by the Buddha's life as a profound example of the power of trauma, Epstein's also closely examines his own experience and that of his psychiatric patients to help us all understand that the way out of pain is through it.

Your Life After Trauma: Powerful Practices to Reclaim Your Identity
Your Life After Trauma: Powerful Practices to Reclaim Your Identity

Author: Michele Rosenthal

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2015-05-16

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0393710874

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Restoring your sense of self after trauma. “In 1981 as a thirteen-year-old child I was given a routine antibiotic for a routine infection and suffered anything but a routine reaction. An undiscovered allergy to the medication turned me into a full-body burn victim almost overnight. By the time I was released from the hospital I had lost 100% of my epidermis. Even more importantly, I had completely lost myself.” Now a professional coach who specializes in helping trauma victims rebuild their lives, Michele Rosenthal struggled with the effects of medically-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for over 25 years before reaching a full recovery. Today, she is 100% free of symptoms of PTSD. In this book, she applies her personal experience and professional wisdom to offer readers an invaluable roadmap to overcoming their own trauma, in particular the loss of sense of self that often accompanies it. If you suffer from the effects of trauma or PTSD, whether it was caused by a single-incident like a car accident, or from chronic childhood abuse, domestic violence, illness, or war trauma, you are well aware of how disconnected you feel from the person you most deeply wish to be. Trauma interrupts—even hijacks—your identity. To cope, you may rely on mechanisms to keep your emotions, triggers, and responses in check, but these very habits can often prevent the true restoration of safety, stability, and inner connection. How can you rediscover your sense of self so that you honor who you were before the trauma (even if that trauma began at birth), understand who you are at this very moment, and determine who you want to be going forward? Like a therapist in your back pocket, Your Life After Trauma guides you in finding answers to these tough questions. Expertly written by a helping professional who keenly understands the post-trauma identity crisis that is so common among trauma and PTSD sufferers, it is a simple, practical, hands-on recovery workbook. Filled with self-assessment questionnaires, exercises, tips, and tools—not to mention insightful personal and professional vignettes—it takes readers through a step-by-step process of healing the identity crisis, from understanding some of the basic brain science behind trauma and why you feel the way you do, to recognizing who you were (or had the potential to be) before the trauma, who you are today, after the trauma, and who you want to become. With this book by your side, it is possible to regain a sense of calm, confidence, and control on your road to recovery.

The Trauma Heart
The Trauma Heart

Author: Judy Crane

Publisher: Health Communications, Inc.

Published: 2017-06-27

Total Pages: 378

ISBN-13: 0757319815

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The majority of people addicted to substances or process addictions such as relationship disorders, eating disorders, self-harming behaviors, gambling or pornography are trauma survivors. Many people caught in the web of addiction don't identify as trauma survivors until their personal, familial, intergenerational, and in-uterine history is exposed. Unfortunately, relapse is inevitable without trauma resolution that can only take place once their history is exposed. It is only when that happens that the behavior disorders will finally make sense. For almost 30 years Judy Crane has worked with clients and families who are in great pain due to destructive and dangerous behaviors. Families often believe that their loved one must be bad or defective, and the one struggling with the addiction not only believes it, too, but feels it to their core. The truth is, the whole family is embroiled in their own individual survival coping mechanisms—the addicted member is often the red flag indicating that the whole family needs healing. In The Trauma Heart, Crane explores the many ways that life's events impact each member of the family. She reveals the essence of trauma and addictions treatment through the stories, art, and assignments of former clients and the staff who worked with them, offering a snapshot of their pain and healing.