Trauma Storytelling

When Harvard-trained physician Dr. Annie Brewster was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001, she realized firsthand that the medical system to which she’d devoted her entire career was failing patients. The experience was dehumanizing. Her doctors weren’t listening. And the confusion, fear, and shame she felt around her diagnosis was preventing her from truly healing, claiming her story, and living her fullest, richest life. Here, Dr. Brewster and journalist Rachel Zimmerman each share their own personal stories, acting as expert guides as you move forward on your healing journey.

This book identifies seven stages of therapy that provide a framework for working with client's emotional, cognitive, somatic, and sensory experiences to heal from trauma. Through composite case illustrations, practitioners will learn how to safely mitigate a range of trauma content, including complicated grief, natural disaster, children in foster care, aggression, toxic divorce, traumatized infants diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome, and young mothers recovering from opioid addiction.

Storytelling is a practice used by counselors in prisons and many other settings to help people heal from trauma and abuse. It is a powerful tool that has been used since the beginning of time to help people make sense of their world, especially the hard parts, and it can be added to traditional or non-traditional therapy to facilitate healing. In Storytelling as a Therapy Tool, Heidi Henyon - who uses storytelling and other complementary practices with her coaching clients and traditional therapists - will teach you how to help your group honor who they are and more...