Customer Reviews

Healing from Trauma: A Survivor's Guide to Understanding Your Symptoms and Reclaiming Your Life

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If you are a trauma survivor -- especially if you are just beginning to deal with your trauma and symptoms -- please read this book.

This is, finally, the book I've been looking for and really needed a year or two ago when I first started dealing directly with my trauma history and its affects on my life! I recommend this whole heartedly as a great resource for survivors and their loved ones. It is the best general guide to the subject that I have read.

I have read most of the other books folks typically recommend, and usually found them interesting and helpful. At the same time, I felt like they were either to detailed and technical (Levine, Herman, Rothschild, etc.) to really be practical. Or, they had too many exercises, reflections, and inspirational quotes for me (The Courage to Heal and its kindred) and I found them a bit too sappy and off-putting for where I was in my process.

In this book, Cori strikes just the right balance of information, suggestions, and tone. She also does a wonderful job of summarizing what trauma is, how it affects the body and mind, what therapeutic methods can be helpful, and how to generally care for oneself through the healing process. She also provides tools for self-reflection, and intersperses stories from other survivors that make the data relevant and come to life.

If this book had been available when I started dealing with my trauma, I think I would have understood the situation better and would have been more equipped to make good choices and deal with things in a caring and effective way.

While this is clearly a sort of overview or handbook, Cori provides plenty of additional references and resources so you can do further investigating on your own.

My one small quibble (and it's is very small), is that she only mentions meditation and mindfulness practices in passing. I have found these practices to be essential to my healing. But I recognize that they are a bit outside the mainstream, and certainly aren't for everyone.

Overall, a wonderful resource!

Since my trauma-related dreams surfaced three years ago, I've been to three counselors who welcomed trauma patients. After reading this book, I realize they knew little of the territory. And of the several books on trauma I've read, none came close to this thorough one in its scope and supportiveness. I hadn't realized my easily triggered nervous system, allergies, extreme sensitivity, and difficulty in planning, organizing and moving ahead with my life were trauma-related. In fact, I was about to embark on expensive allergy desensitization work, but after reading this, decided to get at the deeper causes instead. I'm already noticing an improvement in symptoms, just having worked through the book. And I wouldn't have made it through the book - it's been such an emotionally charged mirror for me - if Cori were not so encouraging. A golden strength seemed to be transmitted through her words, almost like a healing voice in my head as I read.

Cori writes as a fellow traveler. She presents up-to-date information on physiology, psychology, and spirituality. Then skillfully and gently guides you through the landscape, asking you questions about you, including exercises to help you identity your symptoms and your needs. Like a good friend, she shares what has worked well for her. Many books make you feel like a statistic or one of a herd of patients. Not this one.

This book has been pivotal, transforming the way I sense my inertia, vulnerability, and frustration. It's given me a glimpse that it's possible to fully heal, and what that might look like.

Start here. The focus is on you, not on a theory or technique, although you'll get an insightful, comprehensive overview of the best therapies for trauma, both professional and self-help.

i've often heard the term 'peeling an onion' but rarely knew how it applied. well this book does that. it walks you through what trauma is, how it's affecting you and what you can expect and do about it. it's one AH HA! moment after another. each page imparts knowledge that you didn't know but somehow now understood. i was foolish enough to go from abusive parents to an abusive spouse, recovery has been almost unattainable. there have been numerous therapists, even a hypnotist, lots of books and a few meds... what this book has done, unlike anything or anyone prior, is illustrate that whats happening to me is a very basic, natural responce, that my expreiences have affected my ability to cope with trauma. the best thing to come out of this is i no longer feel crazy for the way i respond to triggers... heck i didn't even understand the importance of triggers, i used to think i was just weak, incompetent, in a haze, unsure of my own feelings and emotions. but now i see this is just my mind helping me, it's processing and protecting me so I only cope with what i am capable of coping with. i'm not sure if i'm doing the book justice, it's difficult to describe how much a person can appreciate being helped when they have spent the majority of their life being harmed. i just wanted peace, reprieve from the pain. all i can say is the clear and steady way the book provides information has helped me, at 47 i finaly feel wiser, surer and stronger.

This is the best book on PTSD I've ever read. It's written by a therapist that knows what it feels like - she is a PTSD survivor herself. I discovered that reading about PTSD from a theoretical perspective and reading about it from someone that that has experienced it him/herself makes a HUGE difference. I finally felt like someone understood - and even better, someone highly knowledge. It's an invaluable resource. I highly recommend this book!

I love this book. It's comprehensive yet written in an experiential manner (rather than in an overly clinical/analytical tone). It's a pleasure to read -- as if the author was here talking with you directly, in a simple, warm, knowledgeable, helpful way. This book acknowledges the many effects of trauma, and gives clear, practical advice about the tasks necessary to heal. Appropriate for survivors and clinicians alike. A true gem.

This is an extremely well-written, accessible book--it will be a welcomed friend to trauma survivors and those who love them. Cori's work offers many useful insights and tools for managing the sometimes overwhelming symptoms of trauma. The author masterfully blends her expertise with compassion, encouragement, hope, and honesty. It is a truly empowering resource to be visited again and again.

A well written, user friendly and most personal book. It feels like a warm blanket.

I am half way through this book. It is bedside to refer to and I am intentionally reading slow. I have found this book to make sense of the many different ways we experience trauma, all the different labels trauma is given, and appreciate the authors language and respect to the reader( the book is not "triggering" new word used: "activating")

I am healing PTSD and DID and this book has been a great tool for me. It has helped me inaddition to my therapy, and has also helped me to participate more fully in my own self healing.

I knew when I first heard about Healing From Trauma: A Survivor's Guide.... that it would be different and special...would speak to me, personally, and be just what the title implies...a guide to survive the traumas that I have faced.
This book lives up to that title, absolutely.
Thank you, Jasmin, for writing such a helpful, life-saving book!

This book was such an eye-opener!! And I have a Bachelors Degree in Social Work! I had no idea how many of the things I dealt with regularly were actually symptoms from my trauma! And that understanding alone was worth the price. The second half of the book goes over different types of therapies and such that can assist in overcoming the trauma and I am excited to try some of them out, which were new to me.

The author writes with such compassion that you truly feel valued as a reader. Definitely worth buying!!!