1. Some Practical Tools to Support Our Nervous System
- iChill App by the Trauma Resource Institute (free). Offers Community Resiliency Model skills. Also available in Spanish.
- Help Now Strategies by TRI, drawn by Heidi Hanson
- Prentis Hemphill video - Somatic Practices For Regulating the Nervous System During Uprisings
- Summary of Resilience Skills
- Capacitar’s Emergency Response Toolkit
- Resmaa Menakem’s book is full of useful exercises: My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies
- Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) (Demo by Victor Lewis; Drawing of tapping points; background info)
- Deck of Mindful Grounding Activities by Lindsay Braman
- Resource Bi-lateral Tapping
- Language of Body Sensations
- Clean & Dirty Pain combined with Pendulation Practice
- Free Cultural Somatics Online Course.
- Art of Healing Trauma Coloring Book (includes somatic therapy exercises)
- 5 Steps to Self Holding illustrated by Heidi Hanson
- Alta Starr video- Connecting Personal and Social Change: A Somatic View Online Leadership Dojo
2. Somatics / Body-based Approach to Healing Trauma
Below the references is a list of some somatic (body-oriented) practitioners who help manage stress and heal trauma. For those of you wanting one-on-one somatic coaching with one of us, you can contact Carlee Adamson here and Anouk Shambrook here. Anouk’s healing work includes somatic work and working with unconscious parts of your personality using the Aware Ego process.
What happened to you? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing (Dr. Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey)
Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences (Peter Levine, Ph.D.)
In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness (Peter Levine, Ph.D.)
The Politics of Trauma (Staci Haines)
5 Personality Patterns (Steven Kessler)
Eastern Body Western Mind (Anodea Judith, Ph.D.)
Selection of Somatic Practitioners Who Specialize in Healing Trauma
- Generative Somatics (directory practitioners) Somatic Transformation with a focus on Social Justice Healing
- The Black Embodiment Initiative by The Embodiment Institute
- Indigenous Focusing-Oriented Therapy (BIPOC practitioners grounded in land-based Indigenous philosophy and community healing)
- Community Well (different healing modalities- ask for practitioner specific to trauma; free access to health classes for low-income San Francisco residents)
- Somatic Experiencing (directory of practitioners)
- Trauma Resource Institute (Find a certified therapist)
- Strozzi Institute Embodied Leadership (coach directory)
- EMDR (directory of practitioners) a trauma healing practice facilitated by licensed clinical psychologists (confirm practitioner is body-based)
- Parts Work: Aware Ego Process Facilitators directory (confirm practitioner is body-based)
- Cognitive Processing Therapy (distinct from CBT) for one-time event trauma as opposed to systemic, long-term trauma (directory of practitioners for PTSD)
- Homeopathy (Bay Area or US directory - ask for practitioner w/ experience healing trauma) (article explaining use of homeopathy in supporting healing trauma)
- Deep Time Liberation for people of African Descent- An embodied ancestral healing journey.
- Trauma-Informed Mindfulness (While this doesn't heal trauma, it does recommend specific modifications to generic mindfulness practice to minimize re-traumatizing people with a trauma history).
3. For Educators & Parents
Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain (Zaretta Hammond)
Trauma Proofing your Kids (Peter Levine, Ph.D. and Maggie Kline)
Additional Resources
- Recognizing and Responding to Safety Patterns in the Classroom
- Distinctions of Equity (Zaretta Hammond)
- Critical Practices for Anti-Bias Education (Teaching Tolerance)
- Ways to Hold Our Children Through Collective Crisis & Grief (Landers)
- Alameda County Healing Centered Arts Curriculum for Distance Learning
- Trauma-Informed School Strategies during COVID-19 (including Distance Learning)
- Trauma-Informed Circles for Distance Learning
- K-12 Anti-Racist Curriculum Resources
- SEE Learning (Social, Emotional, and Ethical Learning) Chapter 2 p. 48 of pdf is about building resilience
- Calling In/ Calling Out - Sample Language to Support Interrupting/ Responding to Racism and Bias
- Embracerace.org
4. The Science of Trauma & Epigenetics
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk)
The Stress-Disease Connection (Dr. Gabor-Maté)
Additional Resources
5. Trauma Informed Systems Change
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds (adrienne maree brown)
The Politics of Trauma (Staci Haines) Unlock the power of somatics to heal individuals and strengthen social change movements
Targeted Universalism: Policy & Practice (john a. powell, Ph.D.)
6. Racial Resilience, Trauma and Healing
We scaffold historical, sociological, and scientific understandings of types of trauma associated with oppression, while understanding that without somatic approaches, lasting transformation is unlikely.
Healing the Hidden Wounds of Racial Trauma (Kenneth Hardy, Ph.D.)
Decolonizing Trauma Work: Indigenous Stories and Strategies (Renee Linklater)
My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (Resmaa Menakem)
Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: American’s Legacy of Enduring Injury & Healing 3-min video; book (Joy Degruy, Ph.D.)
See No Stranger: A Memoir & Manifesto of Revolutionary Love (Valarie Kaur, J.D.)
European Settlers in the US: Healing Your Thousand-Year-Old Trauma (Resmaa Menakem)
Selection of some research on different race / ethnicities
- The Historical Trauma and Resilience of People of Indigenous Mexican Ancestry Living in the United States: A Scoping Literature Review 2020
- The impact of historical trauma on American Indian health equity 2020
- Trauma lives on in Native Americans by making us sick – while the US looks away 2019
- Trauma Affecting Asian-Pacific Islanders in the San Francisco Bay Area 2017
- Trauma and Well-Being among Asian American Women 2018
- Intergenerational trauma in Latinxs: A scoping review 2021
- Intergenerational trauma of Indigenous European Ancestors 2018
- European Americans: Healing Your Thousand-Year-Old Trauma 2018
- Intergenerational Trauma 2019 (including Holocaust survivors, survivors of Native American “boarding schools”, & African Americans)
- How Trauma and Resilience Cross Generations 2017
- Breaking the Chains of Intergenerational Trauma, Dr. Mariel Buqué 2020 Video
We welcome other recommendations
7. The Impact of Racial Trauma on Health
Racing ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences) “If it's not racially just, it's not trauma-informed.”
Microaggressions and traumatic stress: Theory, research, and clinical treatment. American Psychological Association. Nadal, K. L.
Eliminating race-based mental health disparities: Promoting equity and culturally responsive care across settings. Context Press. Williams, M. T., Rosen, D. C., Kanter, J. W., & Arredondo, P.
Selection of additional Resources
- Comas-Díaz, L., Hall, G. N., & Neville, H. A. (2019). Racial trauma: Theory, research, and healing: Introduction to the special issue. American Psychologist, 74(1), 1-5.
- Sue, D. W., Alsaidi, S., Awad, M. N., Glaeser, E., Calle, C. Z., & Mendez, N. (2019). Disarming racial microaggressions: Microintervention strategies for targets, White allies, and bystanders. American Psychologist, 74(1), 128-142.
- Roberts, S. O., & Rizzo, M. T. (2020). The psychology of American racism. American Psychologist. Advance online publication.
- Jernigan, M. M., Green, C. E., Pérez-Gualdrón, L., Liu, M., Henze, K. T., Chen, C., Bazelais, K. N., Satiani, A., Mereish, E. H., & Helms, J. E. (2015). #racialtraumaisreal. Boston College. www.bc.edu/content/dam/bc1/schools/lsoe/sites/isprc/racialtraumaisreal.pdf
- Resler, M. (2019). Systems of trauma: Racial trauma. Family and Children's Trust Fund of Virginia.
- Williams, M. T. (2015, September 6). The link between racism and PTSD. Psychology Today.
- Villines, Z. (2020, July 7). What is racial trauma? Causes, symptoms, and how to cope. Medical News Today.
- Kendi, I. X. (2020, May 12). Who gets to be afraid in America? The Atlantic.
- Wilson, J. (2020, July 1). This is what racial trauma does to the body and brain. HuffPost.
- Menakem, R. (2020, June 4). Resmaa Menakem - ‘Notice the Rage; Notice the Silence’. Interview by K. Tippett. The On Being Project.
- Williams, M. T., Printz, D., Ching, T., & Wetterneck, C. T. (2018). Assessing PTSD in ethnic and racial minorities: Trauma and racial trauma. Directions in Psychiatry, 38(3), 179-196.
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2014). SAMHSA's Concept of Trauma and Guidance for a Trauma-Informed Approach (SMA14-4884).
- National Child Traumatic Stress Network, Justice Consortium, Schools Committee, and Culture Consortium. (2017). Addressing Race and Trauma in the Classroom: A Resource for Educators. National Center for Child Traumatic Stress.
- Making The Case That Discrimination Is Bad For Your Health Public Health researcher, Arline Geronimus
8. Intersectional Trauma
Intersectionality Matters! with Kimberlé Crenshaw
Additional Resources
- Somatic Experiencing Anti-Oppression Resources (scroll past webinars to see articles, books, interviews, & organizations)
- Becoming an Embodied Anti-Racist for Collective Trauma Healing with Francesca Marguerite Maximé
- National Queer & Trans Therapists of Color Network
- Black Radical Queer Podcast
- Coronavirus Resources Gathered by Generative Somatics