BookS on somatic psychology and more

The Mind-Body Stress Reset
By Rebekkah LaDyne MS, SEP, and Author

If you are like almost all the therapists I know, including myself, you are finding that your clients need more support now than nearly any time previously.  Most of my colleagues are in high demand, seeing their own personal maximum of clients, and feeling the pressures of client’s increased stress levels compounded by their own increased stress levels.  We could use some help! Our clients could use some additional help too.  And as we commonly only see our clients for one or possibly two hours each week, having some tools to offer them between sessions can be deeply helpful for client and practitioner alike.  

 

I wrote The Mind-Body Stress Reset well before the pandemic began, but uncannily the first copies hit the shelves—and websites—the month many State’s shutdowns began.  I believe that any book is a labor of love, and I undertook this labor so our current and prospective clients would have an easy-to-read manual for building a toolkit to use between sessions, or after treatment concluded.  The Mind-Body Stress Reset, Somatic Practices to Reduce Overwhelm and Increase Well-Being, is full of self-help skills backed by solid scientific research, and it’s written in a way that keeps it lighthearted and even playful—even extreme stress can be aided by some humor.  I wrote it because I needed such a manual during my own period of crisis.  The book was born out of my very real experiences of very real anxiety and extreme stress, and the tools within it are still my go-tos today.

 

I believed that others who found themselves suddenly struggling more than they ever had before (as I had) would find my book helpful, comforting even.   I knew it was needed, but I couldn’t have known how needed these self-help skills were going to be when all of our worlds shifted.  And here we are, living inside that shift.  If you could use some help supporting your clients during this extraordinary time, I hope you’ll consider reading The Mind-Body Stress Reset yourself and teaching some of the skills within it in your own voice, or recommending your clients read it themselves and incorporate its tools into their week when they are not able to be with you.  Either approach could significantly lessen their stress, and by extension, yours.

 

I hope you are finding some ease during these challenging times, and most importantly, receiving support yourself.  I sincerely believe that we have to fill our own vessel if we want to help others fill theirs.

 

**The Mind-Body Stress Reset, Somatic Practices to Reduce Overwhelm and Increase Well-Being is out in paperback now, and the audiobook is due to be released in April 2021.

 

Available wherever books are sold:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Indie Bound – independent bookstores

 

 

 

The Neurobiology of Health, Healing, and Human Connection
by Michael Changaris, Psy.D.
ISBN 9780940795068

Touch is the basis of our sensory world. Touch is our first way of relating with ourselves, others, and our environment. Providing physical and emotional communication at a level far deeper then words, touch is a vital aspect of experiencing meaning, purpose, and joy throughout our lives.

Touch has an important role in our capacity for self-regulation, impacting how effectively children learn to socialize, pay attention, and even engage in classroom activities. How do we experience healthy, supportive contact with others, recognize and avoid unhealthy contact?

The author provides outstanding documentation of research clearly indicating how vital touch is to human health and healing. Shared experiences, illustrative charts, tables for clinical interventions, and practical homework exercises offer compassionate guidance for implementing healthy, supportive touch into many personal and professional situations. This book is a vital addition to our understanding of health and what it means to be human.This book belongs in the library of every practitioner, teacher, social worker, couple, parent, prospective parent, and family – anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of the profound effects of touch on health and well-being.

Michael Changaris, Psy.D. is the founder of the International Institute of Touch Training and Research (ITTR). As a clinical psychologist he specializes in the biological basis of behavior stress physiology, psychobiology of neurodegenerative disorders and the neurobiology of post-traumatic stress.

Transformation through Love, Sex and Neurobiology

by Stella Resnick, PhD

This book presents an integrative, growth-oriented approach to therapy with couples that demonstrates the dynamic interplay between partners’ emotional issues and their sexual difficulties. It offers a model for relational and sexual enhancement that focuses as much on partners’ present, nonverbal body-to-body communications as on their words. 

Dr. Stella Resnick draws on research from interpersonal neurobiology, sexology, positive psychology, and Gestalt therapy, and shares a rich assortment of therapy vignettes to demonstrate the transformative power of pleasure.

The therapeutic process is explored in four related spectrums: the Problem-Transformation Spectrum, the Attachment-Sexuality Spectrum, the Pain-Pleasure Spectrum, and the Cognitive-Somatic-Experiential-Behavioral-Spectrum. Chapters show how a focus on body-to-body intimacy can heal emotional wounds from the past and encourage greater presence, empathy, authenticity, playfulness, and sexual pleasure between intimate partners. A series of process-oriented exercises and a Family Closeness Profile for therapists to use in their practice is included.

 
Body-to-Body Intimacy will enable couples therapists and sex therapists to expand their practices and enrich their clients’ sexual and relational dynamics.

This book also contains valuable information that will be appreciated by anyone interested in a greater understanding of a growth-oriented therapeutic process for couples and the quality of life that can be achieved together through a deeply loving and sexually fulfilling intimate love relationship.

ISBN: 978-0-470-58235-0

Click through to buy your copy at these online stores today!

AMAZON

INDIE BOUND

BARNES & NOBLE

REVIEWS

“In this groundbreaking volume Stella Resnick applies recent advances in neurobiology and decades of clinical experience to offer an overarching integration of couples therapy and sex therapy.  Using evocative clinical vignettes, she eloquently describes various right brain implicit change mechanisms operating in both close emotional relationships and intimate sexuality. I highly recommend this remarkable feat of clinical scholarship to all mental health workers.”

—Allan N. Schore, PhD, author of The Science of the Art of Psychotherapy, Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

“Dr. Stella Resnick has been a powerful and highly respected thought leader in the fields that address therapeutic approaches to sexual issues for many decades. Her science based work is innovative, but also firmly grounded in the best information scholars and researchers have certified as worthy.  This book will be a must read guide for therapists, researchers and educators who wish to understand and apply the emerging interdisciplinary discoveries of how our minds and bodies can enrich our sexuality. ”

—Pepper Schwartz, PhD, Past President, the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexualities; Sociology Professor, The University of Washington, Co-author: 50 Great Myths of Human Sexuality

“Stella Resnick has written an invaluable and insightful book that addresses the important issues of the real relationship and that the mind, brain and body are one. Her well-written approach is positive, and the book highly detailed and well researched. She has a positive and healing vision which successfully integrates couples therapy and sex therapy. Dr. Resnick has brought back the concept of “corrective emotional experience” and effectively weaves the current thinking about attachment theory and interpersonal neurobiology into couples and sex therapy.  I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in relationships."

—Walter E. Brackelmanns, MD, Professor of Psychiatry, Director, Couples and Sex Therapy Training Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA

“Filled with the integrative wisdom of a seasoned relationships therapist, Stella Resnick’s new book weaves together interpersonal neurobiology, somatic awareness of the mind-body connection, and attachment dynamics within the couple. Dr. Resnick’s emphasis on present-centered experiential processes highlights ways that therapists can access our own body-based wisdom to help couples drop beneath their words to recognize and learn from the deeper meanings in their non-verbal, implicit communications.”

—Bonnie Goldstein, PhD, Lifespan Psychological Center Director, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute, Teaching Faculty

“Stella Resnick, author of the classic The Pleasure Zone, has done it again! She has created a compelling case for the need to integrate mind and body, past and present, the individual and the relational in sex and couples therapies. Recommended strongly for novices and the experienced therapist. ”

—Peggy J. Kleinplatz, PhD. Professor and Director of Sex and Couples Therapy, University of Ottawa; Editor, New Directions in Sex Therapy: Innovations and Alternatives.

"In this new book, Stella Resnick, a highly regarded expert on human sexuality and relationships, uses a vast range of research to create her own model of dealing with sexual concerns and issues. She integrates the Gestalt approach with those of Maslow, Reich, and even Freud. But what is most interesting is her attention to the right brain, describing the large, often unacknowledged role of the sensory, emotional, and kinesthetic in all relationships. At the end, it is her ability to add her wisdom, compassion, and joy to this endeavor, which makes this book so important for all therapists and practitioners."

—Joseph Melnick, PhD, Founding editor of Gestalt Review, Co-Chair of the Cape Cod Training Program, Gestalt International Study Center

"Resnick’s work on couple’s sex therapy is arguably one of the most important contributions to body psychotherapy for couples in recent years.  It leverages the experiential wisdom of her Gestalt orientation that is endowed by contemporary neurobiology.  This book will help foster embodied intimacy through a contemporary relational approach, and invites us all to experience a greater, more playful and creative form of love.” 

—Christopher Walling PsyD, MBA, President, United States Association for Body Psychotherapy

"With a laser focus on the body/mind connection, Resnick’s Embodied Relational Sex Therapy model is an integrated system directing therapists to work with the couple as a living, breathing entity, instead of a problem to be solved. Incorporating cutting-edge neuroscience with Resnick’s years of experience and wisdom, this multi-faceted approach situates dyadic regulation where it belongs – between the couple—to create deep empathy and change. This book is a “must read” for the modern couple/sex therapist! " 

—Alexandra Katehakis, PhD, founder of Center for Healthy Sex, author of Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Meditations on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence

"Finally, a professional book has arrived that details the primacy of sexual issues to emotional intimacy! Stella Resnick’s latest book, Body-to-Body Intimacy, provides couples and sex therapists with everything they need to know about sex but either have been afraid to ask or not known where to get answers. Just as the body is inseparable from the mind, so too is couples therapy inseparable from sex therapy." 

—Terry Marks-Tarlow, PhD, author of Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy; Awakening Clinical Intuition; Truly Mindful Coloring; and Psyche’s Veil

"This is an important book. Dr. Resnick brings a wealth of knowledge of individual and couples therapy, neuroscience and developmental theory, and brings all of these to her work with couples experiencing difficulties in their sexual relating. The most important aspect of her work is that she does not separate out couples therapy and sex therapy, seeing them as inextricably linked." 

—Peter Phillipson, MSc, author of The Emergent Self: An Existential-Gestalt Approach, Gestalt Institute of Manchester, UK

"This brilliant book by Dr. Stella Resnick is a “must read” for all who are interested in the intersection of sex therapy with couple counseling. Dr. Resnick uses pieces of her personal story and illuminating clinical examples to illustrate her holistic approach to relational healing—an approach which combines the latest findings in the neurobiology of attachment, with positive psychology, sex therapy, and Gestalt therapy. " 

—Elinor Greenberg, PhD, CGP, Gestalt Therapy Institute of New York trainer, author of Borderline, Narcissistic, and Schizoid Adaptations: The Pursuit of Love, Admiration, and Safety

"In this well-written, engrossing, and trailblazing book, Dr. Stella Resnick integrates a wealth of data from diverse fields of science into her decades of experience as a therapist to expand upon our understanding of the transformative power of pleasure in achieving sensual intimacy. It is destined to become a classic in the study of sexual and relational dynamics and in the practice of couples and sex therapy across multiple disciplines." 

—Carol Cassell PhD, Former health scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and author of Put Passion First: Why Sexual Chemistry is the Key to Lasting Love

"Stella Resnick is a dedicated genius of collaborative exploration. Her new book, Body-to-Body Intimacy, creatively integrates neuroscience, Gestalt psychology, life experience, couples and sex therapy. It instructs those seeking relationship to resist the trigger, ignore the knee jerk, live for moments of presence. Dr. Resnick shows how to ride the wave of right brain to right brain communion. She is a pleasure activist who convinces us pleasure can make us better." 

—Susan E. Stiritz, MBA, PhD, MSW, President-elect, American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, (AASECT), Associate Professor of Practice Chair, The Brown School Washington University in St. Louis

"Stella Resnick has broken new ground with her alchemical integration of the seminal ingredients that will help our clients to repair the damage from their sexual wounds and seize the opportunity for sexual healing and pleasure fulfillment. Professionals of all backgrounds will find this a readable, thought-provoking, evidence-steeped paradigm shift, worthy of acclaim." 

—Patti Britton, PhD, Co-Author of Designing and Leading a Successful SAR and Co-Founder of SexCoachU.com

"Stella Resnick presents an integrated, comprehensive, and neurobiologically informed fresh approach to therapy, distilling a brilliant career as a Gestalt couples and sex therapist. Finally, we  can stop separating the emotional, sexual, and relational when we practice therapy – transferring people from one provider to another. This is the book the field has been waiting for. Every therapist needs to read this book!" 

—Tina Schermer Sellers, PhD, author of Sex, God and the Conservative Church: Erasing Shame from Sexual Intimacy

"Sexuality is ubiquitous but it’s astounding how little we know about the intertwining of relational intimacy and sexual expression. Shame, insufficient personal exploration, and inadequate training in this vital realm of treatment restrict the therapist in the quest to help others. Dr. Resnick’s personal wisdom journey through the deepest realms of the heart, the spirit, the psyche and human sexuality make this a riveting book." 

—Susan Warren Warshow, LCSW, Founder, DEFT Institute

"Stella Resnick’s new book, Body-to-Body Intimacy gives therapists a powerful theoretical, and skills training model; one that will positively enhance working with clients in couples and sex therapy. Her work deserves serious time for consideration, digestion, discussion, and application. This is a remarkably important work and a reflection of a lifetime journey of discovery." 

—Melvyn S. Kimura Bucholtz, MA., Invited Lecturer on Psychology, Harvard University Medical School; Boston University School of Biobehavioral Medicine

"Dr. Resnick’s latest book, Body-to-Body Intimacy, delineates her approach to couples and sex therapy. She skillfully utilizes research from interpersonal neurobiology, sexology, positive psychology, and Gestalt therapy, to demonstrate how pleasure and body-to-body intimacy can lead to a closer and more dynamic relationship.  Body-to-Body Intimacy will be a valuable resource for any therapist engaging in couples and sex therapy.  " 

—Herb Samuels, PhD., Past President, The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS).

Description:

The idea that partners in committed relationships elicit strong reactions in each other is self evident. That these passions are often overlooked in the therapy room is equally a reality. In this ground-breaking book, you will discover an innovative system for helping couples discover all of who they are. The Gleasons ask you to reconsider what it means to trust your intuition, make room for strong energies, work with the body, bring sexuality into the therapy room, and to elicit full emotional expression. Here you will learn to welcome the passionate, erotic, chaotic truths that are often kept under wraps in the therapy room.

Exceptional Couples: Transformation Through Embodied Couples Work synthesizes modern developmental theories with the wisdom of somatic psychotherapy and reveals how "embodying" is fundamental to helping couples break their patterns of vitality destroying habits of interacting. The Gleasons invite you on a journey of the highest magnitude where couples can come fully alive. They generously open the door to their practice room, sharing in-depth case examples and effective strategies they've developed over the course of their careers.

They ask you to come along with them and live in the mystery of yet-to-be discovered places in every relationship. The Gleasons met in in 1976 in clinical social work graduate school. They have devoted their lives to exploring how couples, including themselves, can have exceptional (beyond the ordinary) relationships.

Reviews

As an Exceptional Marriage Mentor working with my husband, (couples helping couples), we apply the EM approach with couples every day. I am thrilled with the content and the message of Brian and Marcia Gleason's book: Exceptional Relationships. Transformation Through Embodied Couples Work. This method really works. We have seen couples find their deeper truths with each other again and again as we use the EM methods. We have witnessed couples not only be relieved to understand what is really happening to them but we are regularly touched at how deeply couples can express what is underneath their strife when we guide them in embodying their interactions with each other. My husband Barry and I have practiced this method with couples for the past 7 years and it's great to have a published book that not only teaches the Exceptional Marriage approach, but also further inspires us with this soulful writing to carry on and bring couples to their underlying love for each other. Bravo Marcia and Brian.

~ Liz Carl, LCSW

Hallelujah! Thank you Marcia and Brian for a wonderfully written, well documented, well explained, much needed book on truly intergrating the work of body-mind-spirit for couples.

Couples and therapists will gain powerful insight on how to actually heal issues most have only had band aids for in the past. If you are working with couples and you value your soul as a therapist you will read this book today!

Pamela Chubbuck PhD, LCSW
Director, Core Energetics Institute South
Certified Bioenergetic Therapist

Excellent reading for therapists working with couples. Takes 'traditional talk therapy' to deep levels where emotions are embodied- a place where change can happen in ways beyond talking. It has been exciting to employ these methods and experience what is possible. Work draws on wide range of psychological literature and is masterfully summarized. I was also drawn to the female therapists poetry as yet another example of the power of embodying emotions and the power of what can emerge in a 'shared energy field'. Succinctly, concretely, expertly written. I highly recommend it.

Lisa Monagle, CCEP, CPRA
Core Energetics and Radical Aliveness Practitioner

About the Author

Marcia Gleason, LCSW is the Co-Director of the Institute for the Exceptional Marriage. She brings 30 years experience to her work as a couples therapist, body-oriented psychotherapist, trainer, and workshop facilitator. Marcia has in depth training in several modalities such as Core Energetics and Internal Family Systems which she integrates intuitively in her work with clients. She trains therapists in the Exceptional Marriage Approach both in the USA and internationally. She also teaches in the New York institute of Core Energetics. Marcia brings warmth, creativity and compassion to her work with couples.

Brian Gleason, LCSW, and is the co-founder, director, and trainer of Exceptional Marriage. Brian has over 30 years of experience in working with organizations, groups, couples, and individuals in a variety of mental health, corporate, wellness, and educational settings. Brian is a senior faculty member of the N.Y. Institute of Core Energetics. He teaches internationally and is author of a book on transpersonal psychology – Mortal Spirit. Brian also enjoys a thriving private practice in the New York area for individuals, groups and couples as well as providing supervision for therapists.

Together Marcia and Brian developed the Exceptional Marriage, an experience-based methodology for working with committed relationships which allows couples to honor each partner's capacity to discover his/her greatest gifts and deepest truths. This authentic, rich and powerful journey is explored in couples workshops, professional workshops, books and CDs, including the last book: Going All the Way, The Heart and Soul of the Exceptional Marriage.

Description:

Riane Eisler and Douglas P. Fry

• Provides a new analytical tool--the biocultural partnership-domination lens--that integrates knowledge to solve our personal, social, economic, and environmental problems
• Issues a new understanding of human possibilities, showing how we can structure our environments to support our great human capacities for consciousness, caring, and creativity
• Distills and contextualizes findings from neurology, psychology, primatology, anthropology, economics, consciousness studies, chaos theory, and gender studies

Reviews:

"Nurturing our Humanity upends the very core of our notion that humanity is, at heart, violent and greedy. Human nature holds just as much potential for caring and partnership as war and domination. Knowing that changes everything." -- Abigail Disney, President & CEO, Fork Films, director/creator of Pray the Devil Back to Hell and the PBS series Women, War, & Peace

"In a world that feels ever more dangerous, divided, and out of balance, Nurturing Our Humanity outlines the roadmap for how we raise a healthier generation of children and move away from a punitive and domination based society to a world that leads with partnership-where empathy, care, and community are valued above all, and each can fulfill our full human potential." -- Jennifer Siebel Newsom, First Partner of California, Filmmaker, Miss Representation, The Mask you Live In, The Great American Lie

"This is the book for our time! Eisler and Fry have put their minds and hearts together to provide an integrative vision of how humanity's cooperative nature can be nurtured and supported... Everyone should read this book... so together we can re-envision our future!" -- Darcia Narvaez, Professor of Psychology, University of Notre Dame

"This fearless, beautiful, and very timely book is a radical reminder that humanity's truest nature is oriented toward love, partnership, gender equality, and peace. It is essential and transformative reading for every policymaker, philanthropist, activist, and change-maker interested in a more just, balanced, and peaceful world." -- Jennifer Buffett, Co-President, NoVo Foundation

"This path-breaking book goes beyond the conventional divides hurting today's civilizations... It is essential that the virtues of partnership get stronger and the vices of domination are controlled." -- Ernst von Weizsäcker, Honorary President, Club of Rome

"Nurturing Our Humanity explores the capacity for human happiness and its relationship to the development of sustainable cultures at a political and environmental point in history when we need it the most." -- James McClintock, Author, Lost Antarctica

"Eisler and Fry show how we lived without war thousands of years ago, and how we can do so again. This groundbreaking book should be required reading for all world leaders and decision makers." -- Sarah Parcak, Author, Archaeology from Space

Description:

Palgrave  Macmillion publishers write, "Somatic psychology and bodymind therapy (the simultaneous study of the mind and body) are challenging contemporary understandings of the psyche, of what it means to be human and how to heal human suffering."

Reviews:

"Barnaby Barratt, Ph.D., DHS has written an overview of somatic psychotherapy that is extraordinary in its mature scholarly depth and breadth of presentation. It is thoroughly post-modern in that what he terms somatic psychology and bodymind therapy can only be considered in a highly contextualized way in relation to history, philosophy, cultural values, social structures, science, spirituality, and more. Thus, the reader is confronted with not simple the emerging field of somatic psychotherapy, but the entire field of psychology in relation to Western globalized life. It is radical or prophetic in its implications for somatic ways of cultivating awareness. It encounters the reader with the need to work through weighty issues, whether one agrees completely with Barratt's conclusions and directions or not. "

- Greg Johanson, Ph. D.

Get Johanson's excellent review and commentary companion piece to this book at https://hakomiinstitute.com/Forum/Issue24/2011_Hakomi_Forum_Book_Review.pdf

"Barnaby Barratt's work is essential for students not only in the field of somatic psychology but for any clinicians who need to understand the intricate impacts of bodily experience on healing and human development. Its publication in paperback is a welcome event making it more widely available for academic courses and workshops." - Don Hanlon Johnson, Professor of Somatics, California Institute of Integral Studies, USA

"We can celebrate this new paperback edition. It means that this important new book by Barnaby Barratt will find the wider circulation it merits. The Emergence of Somatic Psychology and Bodymind Therapy is a truly unique account of an emerging field - unique not only because it defines the scope of the field and offers a very intelligent historical and philosophical reflection, but also because it contributes a visionary sense of our future." - Joe Coppin, Founding Program Chair Depth Psychology with Emphasis in Somatic Studies, Pacifica Graduate Institute, USA

"Dr Barnaby Barratt provides us with an outstanding, insightful and readable text that introduces both beginning and advanced students of psychology and psychotherapy into the blossoming field of somatic or bodymind science and therapy. I enthusiastically recommend this book to anyone concerned with healing practices and the way in which body, mind and spirit, can be directed toward harmony and enlightenment." - Irv Katz, President, International University of Professional Studies, USA

Edited by Helen Payne, Sabine Koch, Jennifer Tantia

Description

There is a growing interest in embodied approaches to psychotherapy internationally. This volume focuses on the respective focal professions of dance movement psychotherapy (DMP) and body psychotherapy (BP), addressing the psychotherapeutic need for healing throughout the lifespan. Within embodied clinical approaches, the therapist and client collaborate to discover how the body and movement can be used to strengthen positive relational skills, attending to the client's immediate and long-term needs through assessment, formulation, treatment and evaluation. Both DMP and BP are based upon the capacity and authority of the body and non-verbal communication to support and heal patients with diverse conditions, including trauma, unexplained bodily symptoms and other psychological distress, and to develop the clients’ emotional and relational capacities by listening to their bodies for integration and wellbeing.

In The Routledge International Handbook of Embodied Perspectives in Psychotherapy, world leaders in the field contribute their expertise to showcase contemporary psychotherapeutic practice. They share perspectives from multiple models that have been developed throughout the world, providing information on theoretical advances and clinical practice, as well as discourse on the processes and therapeutic techniques employed individually and in groups. Presented in three parts, the book covers underpinning embodiment concepts, potentials of dance movement psychotherapy and of body psychotherapy, each of which is introduced with a scene-setting piece to allow the reader to easily engage with the content. With a strong focus on cross- and interdisciplinary perspectives, readers will find a wide compilation of embodied approaches to psychotherapy, allowing them to deepen and further their conceptualization and support best practice.

This unique handbook will be of particular interest to clinical practitioners in the fields of body psychotherapy and dance movement psychotherapy as well as professionals from psychology, medicine, social work, counselling/psychotherapy and occupational therapy, and to those from related fields who are in search of information on the basic therapeutic principles and practice of body and movement psychotherapies and seeking to further their knowledge and understanding of the discipline. It is also an essential reference for academics and students of embodied psychotherapy, embodied cognitive science and clinical professions.

Reviews

"A broader and more international collection of writing on embodiment and psychotherapy is currently unimaginable. This new collection should serve as an authoritative source for embodied psychotherapy practitioners for many years to come. The coverage provided by the thirty-seven chapters that cover dance movement psychotherapy and body psychotherapy practice is unprecedented and offers a truly wide range of opinion and approach. This work may serve to bring these related but different approaches closer and establish greater understanding. Kudos to the editors, this volume is a true achievement!" - Robyn Flaum Cruz, PhD, BC-DMT; Professor, Lesley University PhD Program in Expressive Therapies, USA

"The editors of this volume bring together an illustrious group of international leaders in both dance movement psychotherapy and body psychotherapy to share their wisdom on embodied therapeutic practice. Vast in its scope, original in its perspective, and comprehensive in its inclusion of diverse points of view, this book is a treasure trove of practical and theoretical riches. For all who honor the role of the body’s natural intelligence in healing from trauma and attachment inadequacies, this book is an essential resource." - Pat Ogden, PhD; founder of Sensorimotor Psychotherapy Institute and author of Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy: Interventions for Trauma and Attachment

Click here to purchase

A practical, integrated approach for therapists working with people (both adults and children) who have been impacted by developmental trauma and attachment difficulties

Kathy L. Kain and Stephen J. Terrell draw on fifty years of their combined clinical and teaching experience to provide this clear road map for understanding the complexities of early trauma and its related symptoms. Experts in the physiology of trauma, the authors present an introduction to their innovative somatic approach that has evolved to help thousands improve their lives. Synthesizing across disciplines--Attachment, Polyvagal, Neuroscience, Child Development Theory, Trauma, and Somatics--this book provides a new lens through which to understand safety and regulation. It includes the survey used in the groundbreaking ACE Study, which discovered a clear connection between early childhood trauma and chronic health problems. For therapists working with both adults and children and anyone dealing with symptoms that typically arise from early childhood trauma--anxiety, behavioral issues, depression, metabolic disorders, migraine, sleep problems, and more--this book offers fresh hope.

Amazon Review Brandy V333 
5 out of 5 Stars

A book that will help people understand developmental trauma in a new way.

May 16, 2018

Format: Paperback Verified Purchase

As a somatic psychotherapist working with early developmental trauma, this is the book I've been waiting for. It is a tremendous resource that pulls together attachment theory, polyvagal theory, brain development and trauma physiology into one cohesive and easy to read book. I'm referring it to colleagues and clients who want to understand the origins of emotional and physical symptoms in a new way.

Get it online 

About the Co-Author and USABP member Stephen Terrell

We know that when choosing a Psychotherapist, there are many options.  Allow me to share a little bit with you about my story.

I am a single parent living in the Austin area with my two sons who both happen to be adopted. My first book, Nurturing Resilience has recently been published and is available at most book stores. 

I have advanced training and specialize in Early Developmental Trauma and Attachment Resistance but none of my training has proved as valuable to me in treating children as my experiences parenting my two sons. After adopting my first son, I realized that my education didn't provide all the answers I needed to understand what my son was going through. I began researching Reactive Attachment Disorder more in-depth to gain more knowledge. Beyond specialized training I was looking for a doctoral program that would meet my needs as a single parent. I realized that going away to classes several times a week was not an option with my son's special needs. A good friend who was a principal for AISD encouraged me to check out the distant learning program at California Coast University. The Doctorate of Psychology program met mine and my son's needs and allowed me to gain a more advanced education. I completed my Doctorate at California Coast University. This program is accredited by the State of California. I practice as a Licensed Professional Counselor based on my masters from Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi and all insurance inquires and billing will also be determined on my Masters.

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By Judith Blackstone, PhD

Trauma and the Unbound Body offers a method for uncovering our own nature as a fundamental ground of consciousness, pervading our body and environment as a unity. It describes how we constrict and fragment ourselves in reaction to trauma, and how we can utilize this subtle, fundamental consciousness to find the exact pathways of these constrictions, and free ourselves from the effects of trauma.

Pervading our body, fundamental consciousness is the basis of our experience of existing as an individual. It frees, deepens and integrates all of our human capacities, so that we can know, feel, sense, perceive and respond with our whole being. Pervading our body and environment, it is the basis of an experience of unity, of oneness between ourselves and everything and everyone around us.

Fundamental consciousness has never been injured. As this unbreakable ground, we open not into the daunting void of nothingness, but into our own underlying wholeness. We become more of ourselves as we transcend ourselves, as we become more open to the world around us. Fundamental consciousness is the spark of our true nature that is bound within our trauma-based constrictions, and that can lead us back to the unbound fullness of our being.

“This groundbreaking book teaches us how to resolve all levels of trauma through inhabiting the internal space of our body. The practices and teachings reveal the ground of fundamental consciousness, and Judith Blackstone is a brilliant, experienced guide. This path of healing trauma is deep, powerful and true.” Tara Brach, Author of Radical Acceptance and True Refuge.

Workshops and Teacher Certification Trainings with Judith Blackstone are available.

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Traumatic events can leave mental and physical scars—but these scars don’t have to define you. Heal the Body, Heal the Mind takes trauma survivors on a supportive and healing journey toward well-being. By practicing the somatic exercises and mind-body interventions in this compassionate guide, you’ll learn to move past difficult experiences, restore relationships, and cultivate spiritual awareness.

When trauma occurs, the logical mind is hijacked and physiology takes over in an effort to protect you. This leaves an imprint—your body wants to ensure that nothing like that will ever happen again. Being reminded of a traumatic event can trigger these automatic responses, leaving you feeling paralyzed or unable to take action. This book will help you understand why and how unresolved trauma can infiltrate all aspects of your life, including your mind and body—even when you’re not aware of its influence.

With Heal the Body, Heal the Mind as a gentle guide, you’ll learn about different types of trauma, find helpful assessments, and discover how traumatic experiences—even childhood and incidental traumas—can affect all aspects of your life: your relationship choices, the roles you play in them, your sense of pleasure and desire, and how you approach your career, spirituality, and interactions with others.

Using the combination of mind-body interventions, cognitive behavioral theories, research, case studies, and exercises woven into each chapter of this warm-hearted, relatable book, you’ll begin to address the unresolved trauma held in your body and advance your healing process. So, if you’re ready to move beyond the trauma that’s been holding you back in your relationships, at work, and in your spiritual practice, this guide will show you how.

Reviews

"Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, "Heal the Body, Heal the Mind: A Somatic Approach to Moving Beyond Trauma" is impressively informative and ideally suited to the needs of the non-specialist general reader having to cope with trauma in their own lives or the lives of loved ones. While especially and unreservedly recommended for personal and community library collections, it should be noted that "Heal the Body, Heal the Mind" is also available in a digital book format."

-- Helen Dumont, MBR Review: 

“Comprehensive, thoughtful, well written, and scientifically grounded.”
-- Peter A. Levine, PhD, trauma expert and author of Waking the Tiger.

About the Author

Susanne Babbel, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist practicing with a trauma specialty in her private practice in San Francisco, CA. She is a member of the California Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT), as well as the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP) and European Association for Body Psychotherapy (EABP). A contributing author for nearly a decade to the Psychology Today online blog, Babbel also writes for magazines and newspapers, appears on radio shows, creates CDs for healing, and co-taught the UC Davis Extension online course on trauma bonding.

Learn more and buy the book