Books
The foundation of my nutrition training comes from this book. Julia Ross discusses amino acids extensively and this would be great book to read on your own or in conjunction with my workshops or mental health therapy.The Mood Cure is an easy read and one that can be found used on Thriftbooks.com for about $5.
Another foundational book from my nutrition training. Dr. Hyman writes books that are so easy to read and packed with helpful information. He has chapters related to nutrition, hormones, inflammation, digestion, detox, metabolism and how to promote a calm mind.
Dr. Hyman is an advocate for functional medicine, improving our food growing industries, cleaning up the toxins in our food and air, as well as calling out the food marketing practices that target our most vulnerable populations. Dr. Hyman’s website is the beginning point to find his podcasts, video series, numerous books and articles. DrHyman.com
Thrifbooks.com has this book for around $5!
This is another book that helps increase understanding about how to heal the brain and improve brain function. I suffered from brain fog and memory problems and found some easy solutions in this book. It is a bigger, more intensive book, but he breaks down the concepts of inflammation and leaky gut that motivated me to change my eating habits.
Thriftbooks.com has in in stock as I write this post.
A foundational book when it comes to alcoholism. Who knew there were different types of alcoholics?! Joan Mathews Larson has an assessment quiz to help you find your alcohol bio-type and solutions to healing your brain and body. This information goes to the source of the problem and will improve the effectiveness of substance abuse treatment programs or the participation in self-help recovery groups, such as AA, NA, CA.
Very easy book that encompasses information about brain function, addiction and how food and water impact addictions. This is an easy read that might be helpful for family members who have someone they love who is struggling with addiction.
Anxiety can dominate your life, preventing you from doing the things that you would like to do. Our diet has a huge impact on our mental health. Trudy Scott provides easy to understand information about food choices and supplements that can eliminate anxiety. She explains neurotransmitters and the amino acids that support a healthy brain, reducing anxiety. If the initial changes in your diet do not help, she discusses pyroluria—a zinc and B6 deficiency that may be causing your anxiety. I had never heard of pyroluria and was surprised at how many of my client’s tested high on this assessment tool.
Our bodies hold on to our traumas. Most of my clients do not want to acknowledge their traumas because “that was in the past.” Unfortunately, if we don’t heal from our trauma, they will have a negative impact on our physical and mental health. This book is pretty intense and does a great job explaining how trauma shows up in our bodies. He explains therapy techniques that have the best outcomes and the difference between “top down” therapies such as talk therapy and “bottom up” therapist such as yoga, and EMDR.
I took a class called Your Brain On Yoga with Rachel Posner and this was one of the texts she used to develop the curriculum. This book is an easy read and my copy is heavily highlighted with notes in the margins. This is where I learned the phrase “Your brain is like Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones…” If you are interested in the brain or how to move towards more peaceful awareness, this is a great book to read.
Yoga is a bottom up technique to heal the body, which means it heals from within. I highly recommend yoga for anyone, but particularly for those who have experienced trauma. It builds compassion for the self and helps release the “issues in the tissues,” as my yoga instructor used to say. This book explains what traumatic stress is and then speaks specifically to clinicians, survivors and yoga instructors.
Full Circle Yoga is where I took the class Your Brain On Yoga and they have trauma sensitive yoga! Look at this great Yoga Student Bill of Rights they have posted in the yoga studio.
This book discusses emotional and social intelligence and how our brain is plastic, meaning it can heal. Dan Siegel taught me the parts of the brain with the fist as a model, which is an easy way to explain how our brain function impacts our mood and ability to connect with others. Here is a more recent podcast from October 2018, that highlights his current teachings.
This book is recommended if you are interested in EMDR therapy and would like to know more before diving into it. This was one of three books that were required reading for clinicians trained in EMDR.
Being an empath is different that having empathy. Empathy means you have the capacity to feel how someone is feeling as they are expressing themselves. It helps us feel compassion and act in kindness towards others. This is related to our mirror neurons found in our pre-frontal cortex.
Being an empath means you have a heightened ability to not only feel, but absorb the mental or emotional state of another person. This is exhausting because there are many people with chaotic, angry or anxious energy and an empath picks that up and holds onto it in their bodies. They can leave a social situation and feel so exhausted or anxious that it can take days to settle down. This can also be very confusing because it is hard to distinguish their own feelings and emotions from others. Many people with substance abuse issues are empaths who are trying to manage their high levels of distress.
Here is a self-assessment tool to identify if you are an empath. This book offers some straight forward suggestions on how to protect yourself from other people’s energies.
If you have never had the opportunity to read this book, please take some time to read it now. It is foundational in living life and would be great if all adolescents were given this as a gift as a rite of passage as they grow up. He uses metaphors and many examples to get his point across.
Be impeccable with your word
Don’t take anything personally
Don't make assumptions
Always do your best
There is a Fifth Agreement which is basically be a critical thinker, but he doesn’t say it as succinct as he lists the first four.
My Grandmother’s Hands is a book I reference often. Resmaa Menakem is a therapist and discusses racism in a way I haven’t heard before. He discusses “black body trauma,” “white body trauma,” and “police body trauma.” He explains how unhealed white body trauma leads to “dirty pain” directed toward others leading to more trauma. He gives practical and easy exercises to work through and release trauma in the body. I highly recommend this book and would especially recommend it to other therapists.
In our culture, narcissism and borderline personality disorders are often referred to casually: “He is a narcissist!” or “She’s so borderline!” And although people may not have a formal diagnosis, they may have traits that put them somewhere on the spectrum of narcissism or BPD. This book speaks to those who move from being a caring person into the caretaker role that can suck a person dry. She is straightforward to read. She talks about deciding if you want to stay in the relationship or end it. If you choose to stay in the relationship, she gives practical advice about setting solid and healthy boundaries.
Additional Resources:
Grief:
The Wild Edge of Sorrow: Rituals of Renewal and the Sacred Work of Grief by Francis Weller
How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed A Journal For Grief by Megan Devine
Prayers for Honoring Grief by Pixie Lighthorse
Trauma & Health:
When The Body Says No: Exploring the stress-Disease connection by Gabor Mate'
Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body by Peter Levine
Plant Medicine:
The Psychedelic Explorer’s Guide by James Fadiman, PhD
How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan
Consciousness Medicine: Indigenous Wisdom, Entheogen, and Expanded States of Consciousness for Healing and Growth
Transgender & NB:
When Gender is in Question: A Guide to Understanding by Suzanne Sherkin, with Dr. Helma Seidl and Skyler Hagen
Trans Allyship Workbook: Building Skills to Support Trans People In Our Lives by Davey Shlasko
Being a Super Trans Ally! A Creative Workbook and Journal for Young People by Phoenix Schneider, MSW & Sherry Paris, MEd
Trans Survival Workbook by Owl and Fox Fisher
Masculinity:
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore and Doug Gillette
IFS (Internal Family Systems:
Introduction to Internal Family Systems by Richard C. Schwartz, PhD
You Are The One You’ve Been Waiting For: Bringing Courageous Love to Intimate Relationships by Richard C. Schwartz