Social Trauma

The Politics of Trauma offers somatics with a social analysis. This book is for therapists and social activists who understand that trauma healing is not just for individuals - and that social change is not just for movement builders. Just as health practitioners need to consider the societal factors underlying trauma, so too must activists understand the physical and mental impacts of trauma on their own lives and the lives of the communities with whom they organize. Trauma healing and social change are, at their best, interdependent.

A longtime trauma worker, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky offers a deep and empathetic survey of the often-unrecognized toll on those working to make the world a better place. We may feel tired, cynical, numb, or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other animals, and the planet itself. Through Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way.

Barrister Charlotte Proudman has represented countless women in cases spanning rape, domestic abuse, child abduction, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. She has seen first-hand how the family court deepens the trauma of vulnerable women, staking their futures on the biases of individual judges and forcing them to endure the torture of a judicial process that stretches over months and sometimes years.

Indigenous author Renee Linklater explores healing and wellness in the Indigenous communities on Turtle Island. Drawing on a decolonizing approach, which puts the “soul wound” of colonialism at the center, Linklater engages ten Indigenous health care practitioners in a dialogue regarding Indigenous notions of wellness and wholistic health, critiques of psychiatry and psychiatric diagnoses, and Indigenous approaches to helping people through trauma, depression, and experiences of parallel and multiple realities.

Writer Peg Streep lays out seven distinct but interconnected stages on the path to reclaim your life from the effects of a toxic childhood: "discover", "discernment", "distinguish", "disarm", "reclaim", "redirect", and "recover". Each step is clearly explained and richly detailed with the stories of other women. With approaches drawn from psychology and other disciplines and with unique exercises, the book will help the listener tackle her own self-doubt and become consciously aware of how her mother's treatment continues to shape her behavior.

A Life in Trauma is a frank, remarkable account of a career spent helping others, offering a positive outlook on the potential of Ireland’s healthcare system in the future. Concern. Compassion. Doubt. Despair. Anger. Hope. Imagine juggling these feelings every day in a situation where your work could mean the difference between someone's life or death.

Written using a transdisciplinary approach, Yamonte Cooper presents a Unified Theory of Racism (UTR), Integrated Model of Racial Trauma (IMRT), Transgenerational Trauma Points (TTP), Plantation Politics, Black Male Negation (BMN), and Race-Based Shame (RBS) to fill a critical and urgent void in the mental health field and emerging scholarship on racial trauma. Chapters begin with specific definitions of racism before exploring specific challenges that Black men face, such as racial discrimination and health, trauma, criminalization, and more.

In this fresh look at trauma-informed practice, Alex Shevrin Venet urges educators to shift equity to the center as they consider policies and professional development.

The Therapeutic School Approach offers teachers and school leaders a step-by-step guide to embedding a trauma-informed approach that is tangible, practical, and brings the underpinning science to life in a way that is relatable and relevant. Placing a keen focus on moving towards a more inclusive way of working, it advocates for a culture that puts wellbeing and mental health at the core of teaching and school life.

HMP Graymoor. One of the UK’s most notorious prisons. Home to nearly 800 murderers, rapists and child molesters. Reporting for her first shift inside is Rebecca: twenty-two, newly graduated—and about to sit down with some of the country’s most dangerous criminals. In this gripping, hard-hitting memoir, forensic psychologist Dr Rebecca Myers revisits her time in the ‘Hot Seat’ with Graymoor’s infamous inmates—who might not be as different to us as we think.

With accessible strategies grounded in trauma-informed education and positive psychology, this audiobook equips teachers to support all students, particularly the most vulnerable. It will help them to build their resilience, increase their motivation and engagement, and fulfil their full learning potential within the classroom. Based on the successful Berry Street education strategies pioneered by the authors and includes comprehensive case studies, learning points and opportunities for self-reflection, fully supporting teachers to implement these strategies within the classroom.

With Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong, Dr. McDonald overturns the misconceptions about trauma with the latest evidence from neuroscience and psychology—and shares tested practices and tools to help you work with your body’s coping mechanisms to accelerate healing.

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.

The consequences of racism can be found in our bodies - in skin and sinew, in bone and blood. In this groundbreaking, inspiring work, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage, the physical consequences of discrimination, from the perspective of body-centred psychology. He argues that until we learn to heal and overcome the generational anguish of white supremacy, we will all continue to bear its scars. My Grandmother's Hands is an extraordinary call to action for all of us to recognise that racism affects not only the mind, but also the body.

Traditionally, when we get sick, health care professionals ask, "What's the matter with you?" But around the world, teams of doctors, nurses, therapists, and social workers have started to flip the script, asking "What matters to you?" Instead of solely pharmaceutical prescriptions, they offer 'social prescriptions'-referrals to community activities and resources, like photography classes, gardening groups, and volunteering gigs.

Angry, opinionated, mouthy, aggressive, hysterical, mad, disordered, crazy, psycho, delusional, borderline, hormonal.... Women have long been pathologized, locked up and medicated for not conforming to whichever norms or stereotypes are expected of them in that time and space. Sexy but Psycho is a challenging and uncomfortable book that seeks to explore the way professionals and society at large pathologize and sexualise women and girls.

Despite its ban more than 70 years ago, caste is thriving. Every 15 minutes, a crime is perpetrated against a Dalit person. The average age of death for Dalit women is just 39. And the wreckages of caste are replicated here in the U.S., too—erupting online with rape and death threats, showing up at work, and forcing countless Dalits to live in fear of being outed. Dalit American activist Thenmozhi Soundararajan puts forth a call to awaken and act, not just for listeners in South Asia, but all around the world.

In this groundbreaking book, Eduardo Duran - a psychologist working in Indian country - draws on his own clinical experience to provide guidance to counselors working with Native Peoples and other vulnerable populations.

The Reckoning will examine America's national trauma, rooted in its long history of slavery and civil rights abuses, but dramatically exacerbated by the impact of recent events and the Trump administration's corrupt and immoral policies. America's failure to acknowledge this trauma, let alone root it out, has allowed it to metastasise. Whether it manifests itself in rising levels of rage and hatred, or hopelessness and apathy, the stress of living in a country many no longer recognize has affected everyone. America is suffering from PTSD - a new leader alone cannot fix it.

For the past 15 years, radical psychologist and therapist Guilaine Kinouani has helped hundreds of Black people to protect their mental and physical health from the harm of white supremacy. In this timely book, she brings together powerful case studies, eye-opening research and effective coping techniques from her anti-racist academy and award-nominated blog, Race Reflections.