10 books about trauma and how to deal with it

1. “The Trauma Process”

Lyudmila Trubitsyna, Meaning, 2012

How can a suffering person, confident that he has forever lost the joy and taste of life, restore peace of mind, return to everyday life? Lyudmila Trubitsyna, a medical psychologist, a specialist in working with trauma, explores in detail the phenomenon of experiencing a traumatic event: death or threat to the life of a loved one, illness, severe humiliation, a situation of “collapse”, “failure”, loss of all hope.

Trauma is not something exceptional, it occurs in the life of almost any person. The author sees in it a certain single integral process with its stages, patterns and mechanisms, which are described in detail in the book. Separate sections are devoted to the peculiarities of children’s perception and modern methods of psychological assistance.

2. “Emotional female trauma”

Linda Shiers Leonard, Class, 2011

A study by American Jungian psychotherapist Linda Leonard focuses on women who experienced a dramatic relationship with their father as children. By telling the stories of patients, describing their hurting relationships with an authoritarian or seductive, humiliating or indifferent father, the author shows how this trauma is formed and manifests itself.

“These women appear to be quite successful when they walk into my office,” writes Linda Leonard, “but behind their outward success lies a deep despair, a feeling of abandonment and loneliness, a fear of rejection, an inability to form close relationships with men. It is as if they do not live their own lives, but only perform the roles imposed on them. How to heal from childhood trauma and regain your true self, this book tells.

3. “Psychic Trauma”

Mikhail Reshetnikov, Yurayt, 2018

The main ideas of the analytical theory of trauma, the history of the issue, diagnostic methods, as well as the symptoms of post-traumatic disorders and methods for their correction. Doctor of Psychology, Rector of the East European Institute of Psychoanalysis Mikhail Reshetnikov wrote a fundamental work and addressed it primarily to future psychologists. But the book is written in a language accessible to a wide audience, it will be useful for practicing psychologists as well.

“No therapy makes a person happy,” writes Mikhail Reshetnikov. “All we can do is just remove obstacles and help: first find peace of mind, and then feel the support under your feet for the next step – to a fulfilling life. And even this little we can only if we can understand the patient. His book is an attempt to get closer to such an understanding.

4. “Trauma, connection and family constellations. Understand and heal spiritual wounds

Franz Ruppert, Institute for Consulting and System Solutions, 2010

German clinical psychologist Franz Ruppert uses the family constellation method. But to work with traumatic events, he created his own form – the arrangement of trauma. Ruppert proceeds from the fact that in the course of trauma, the soul splits into healthy, surviving and traumatized parts. And the surviving “I” needs resources not to come into contact with the traumatized “I”.

Unless the traumatized person subsequently succeeds in “processing” the traumatic event—that is, remembering, processing, and re-feeling the dissociated feelings—the psychic split will persist. It is in trauma that Ruppert sees the basis of such mental illnesses as phobias, panic attacks, schizophrenia and paranoia. In the book, he gives a classification of injuries, illustrating it with practical examples. The path to healing is the restoration and “recovery” of connections and attachments.

5. “Trauma and soul. Spiritual-psychological approach to human development and its interruption”

Donald Kalsched, Cogito Center, 2015

The title of the book reflects the idea of ​​the coexistence of two worlds: material and spiritual. Their meeting place is the human soul. In therapeutic work with patients who have suffered from early childhood trauma, the Jungian analyst Donald Kalsched takes into account this binary soul – and its spiritual potential, and the experience of mystical experiences.

Here is an example. An angel blocks the path of a little girl who carries a note from her mother to her father in the office. The second attempt to deliver the message fails for the same reason. The third time the mother walks with her daughter and sees that the husband has died at the table in his office. Whether the angel was a fiction or not, in any case, he protected the girl from impressions that the child could not bear.

What’s next for the angel? It depends on the mother. If she comforts the child, the angel will disappear, because his presence will no longer be needed. If the mother plunges into her own grief, the angel will remain to protect the child from loneliness. Perhaps later he will become a dark angel, saving the girl at the same time from contact with reality, and from development, for which such contact is necessary.

This is just one episode among many dozens of cases in which Donald Kalsched explores the work of mental forces in a situation of early trauma. The author describes the trauma as a forced gap in the development of the personality, and psychological protection as a special reality, a kind of mythopoetic cocoon for the suffering soul, from which, however, it is sometimes difficult to get out.

6. “Under the shadow of Saturn. Men’s mental trauma and their healing “

James Hollis, Cogito Center, 2005

The famous Jungian analyst, director of the K.G. Jung in Houston reflects on the causes of men’s psychological vulnerability. Boys grow up under the yoke of the image of a Man, who must meet certain role expectations, compete and be at enmity with rivals. Suffering from their failure, experiencing the fear of inconsistency with the archetypal image, men inflict injuries on themselves and others.

Speaking about the inevitability and even necessity of some of these injuries, Hollis offers seven steps to self-healing – at least on an individual level. Among these steps are, for example, the following: the search for teachers and mentors, the willingness to tell secrets and participate in the “revolution” – that is, in the process of radical change.

7. “Trauma and human existence”

Robert Stolorow, Cogito Center, 2016

Classical Freudian psychoanalysis proceeds from the fact that the basis of our psyche is drives that belong to the individual psyche. Robert Stolorow proposes a new psychoanalytic approach. It is based on affects, that is, subjective emotional experiences. How each of us experiences affects depends not only on ourselves, but also on whether we find in others understanding and willingness to respond to our feelings.

This approach, called intersubjective systems theory, is used by Robert Stolorow to make sense of his own loss. His first wife died of cancer, and his mourning dragged on for many years. But the grief became easier to bear at the moment when the new wife Julia was able to meet the pain of his loss, not considering that her own presence in her husband’s life was diminished by this experience. Philosophical and at the same time deeply personal narrative touches upon the painful question of being: the limited existence in time of ourselves and our loved ones – and is based on psychoanalysis and the works of Martin Heidegger.

“When my traumatized states could not find emotional shelter, I became insensitive, and my world was bleak. When I again found such a shelter, I came to life, and the colors of my world returned.

8. “Post-trauma. Diagnosis and therapy »

Olga Bermant-Polyakova, Speech, 2006

Most people deal with traumatic experiences on their own. In this case, a specialist can assess the resources of the victim, help to comprehend the crisis event, learn to live without the lost and create something new. Working with people who have not managed to overcome the destructive impact of trauma on their own requires a special approach.

Israeli clinical psychologist and psychotherapist with 25 years of experience Olga Bermant-Polyakova describes in detail the consequences of trauma, talks about “opening therapy” according to Edna Foa, about working through anger, shame and guilt in post-trauma psychotherapy. In addition, he introduces the basics of psychoanalytic diagnostics and psychodynamic interpretation of the Rorschach test, the main projective method in foreign clinical psychology.

9. “Shards of Childhood Trauma”

Donna Jackson Nakazawa, Bombora, 2018

How do negative childhood experiences affect a person’s mental and physical health in adulthood? Science journalist Donna Nakazawa has experienced the effects of early trauma and has done a great job of researching the topic in depth. She met doctors and psychologists, wrote down the personal histories of their clients, and in addition collected and described the latest scientific discoveries that confirm the negative changes in the brain that result from traumatic experiences.

But in the second part of the book, the author explains that many problems can be overcome in adulthood. She cites stories of people who managed to cope with the consequences of traumatic events on their own and describes good methods that work.

10. Ancestral Syndrome

Ann Anselin Schutzenberger, Psychotherapy Institute Press, 2011

Unhealed traumas are passed on from generation to generation, subtly but powerfully influencing the lives of unsuspecting descendants. Psychogenealogy allows you to see these secrets of the past and stop paying the debts of your ancestors. But doing this alone is difficult, you need the eye of a psychotherapist to follow all the intricacies of mental associations and reservations, as in any psychotherapy.

The author of the method, the French psychoanalyst Anne Ancelin Schutzenberger, shows how one of the main “tools” of the method, the genosociogram, works. It allows you to unravel the complex tangle of family histories, identify links between generations and break the chain of unconscious repetitions so that a person can realize his own destiny and use his chance in life.