The 5 Best Books on Trauma for Your Healing Journey

When you’re healing trauma it is important to use all the resources available to you. You can enlist the support of friends, receive professional help from trauma specialists or watch YouTube videos from trauma experts.

Books on trauma can also aid you in your recovery from trauma. Our understanding of trauma treatment has blossomed in the past couple of decades, and the literature is now replete with books on trauma which can increase both your understanding of trauma, and help you to accelerate your healing.

This list comprises what we at Yatra Centre believe are the best books on trauma. We are sure that reading these books will help to enlighten you on the underlying causes of your trauma, and how you can continue to heal.

1. The Body Keeps the Score by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk

If you’ve ever wondered how trauma impacts your body and mind, The Body Keeps the Score is a crucial read. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a pioneering researcher in the field of trauma, explores the profound ways that trauma affects your body, brain, and spirit. The book explores how trauma rewires your brain, which creates a lasting impact that can manifest as physical pain, emotional distress, or a sense of being disconnected from yourself and others.

Van der Kolk explains that trauma is not just a story about something that happened in the past. It is also alive in the present, living in your body and mind. He discusses the virtues of various therapeutic approaches, from traditional talk therapy to more body-focused modalities like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), yoga, and neurofeedback, all aimed at helping you reclaim your life from trauma.

Reading The Body Keeps the Score can be both enlightening and empowering. It provides you with a roadmap for understanding how trauma has shaped your life and offers practical strategies for healing. This is one of the best books on trauma, and equips you with some of the tools to identify the ways trauma may be affecting you and giving you hope for recovery.

2. Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma by Peter A. Levine

Waking the Tiger is a groundbreaking book that introduces you to the concept of somatic experiencing—a body-centered approach to healing trauma. Peter A. Levine, a renowned trauma expert, argues that trauma isn’t just a psychological experience and that it is deeply rooted in your body’s physiological responses.

Levine draws inspiration from the animal kingdom, where animals in the wild routinely face life-threatening situations but rarely suffer from trauma the way humans do. He suggests that trauma occurs when your body’s natural responses to danger are interrupted or suppressed. This unresolved energy remains trapped in your body, leading to symptoms of trauma and PTSD.

In Waking the Tiger, Levine guides you through understanding these natural responses and how you can release trapped trauma energy from your body. The book includes exercises and techniques designed to help you reconnect with your body and its innate ability to heal. Among books on PTSD, this one stands out for its focus on the body’s role in healing.

3. It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn

Trauma spans generations, and sometimes the pain you feel isn’t solely your own. In It Didn’t Start with You, Mark Wolynn explores the concept of inherited family trauma, showing how unresolved traumas from previous generations can be passed down and shape your behavior, emotions, and physical health.

Wolynn explains that while you may not have directly experienced the trauma, you can still inherit it through your family’s emotional patterns and coping mechanisms. The book is a fascinating dive into epigenetics, the study of how behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. These changes can be passed down through generations, influencing your responses to stress and trauma.

This book is particularly eye-opening if you’ve struggled with issues that seem inexplicable or disconnected from your personal experiences. Wolynn offers practical tools, including family constellation therapy exercises, to help you break the cycle of inherited trauma. This is one of the best books on trauma for those interested in the intergenerational aspects of trauma.

4. The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Dr. Gabor Maté

Dr. Gabor Maté – renowned expert in addiction and trauma – challenges the notion of what we consider “normal” in The Myth of Normal. Maté argues that much of what society deems normal—such as chronic stress, workaholism, and emotional repression—is actually rooted in trauma and contributes to a wide range of physical and mental health issues.

Maté’s writing is deeply compassionate and insightful, offering a holistic view of trauma that explores not only the person but also the cultural and societal factors that perpetuate it. He discusses how our culture often fails to recognize the deep impact of trauma, leading to widespread suffering that is often dismissed or misunderstood.

In The Myth of Normal, you’ll find a compelling case for reevaluating the way you view health and wellness. Maté encourages you to look beyond symptoms and surface-level treatments, urging you to address the root causes of trauma that are often hidden beneath the veneer of normalcy. This book is a call to action for both personal and societal change, offering hope that healing is possible, even in a world that often seems to be stacked against it. It’s one of the most thought-provoking books on trauma and PTSD.

5. No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model by Dr. Richard Schwartz

Schwartz is the founder of Internal Family Systems (IFS), a therapeutic model that views the mind as a system of different parts, each with its own perspectives and desires. According to IFS, these parts aren’t inherently bad or destructive, even the ones that cause you pain. Instead, they are often misunderstood and in need of healing.

In No Bad Parts, Schwartz teaches you how to engage with these parts in a compassionate and nonjudgmental way. He explains that trauma often causes certain parts of you to take on extreme roles to protect you, even if these roles are ultimately harmful. For example, a part of you might push you toward perfectionism or self-criticism as a way to keep you safe from perceived threats.

The book provides practical exercises and meditations to help you connect with these parts, understand their motivations, and begin the process of healing. As you learn to embrace and integrate all aspects of yourself, you’ll find greater peace and wholeness, reducing the internal conflicts that contribute to trauma. No Bad Parts is among the best books on trauma, offering a unique approach that empowers you to see every part of yourself as valuable.

When Reading Books on Trauma Isn’t Enough

While these books on trauma will help you on your journey, reading them may not be enough for you to heal from trauma. The exercises in some of these books may help to alleviate some of your symptoms, but if you have a condition like PTSD, it is likely you will require professional support to recover fully.

At Yatra Centre, we can support you every step of the trauma healing process, empowering you to get to the root of your trauma symptoms, while giving you the tools you need to move back to wellness.

We incorporate a range of modalities at our centre. Our experience tells us that the holistic approach to trauma treatment is the most effective. And of course we have a selection of trauma-related books that you can read from while you are receiving treatment from us.

For more information on how we can help you recover from PTSD at our tropical trauma treatment centre in Krabi, Thailand, contact us today on +66 96 916 3287.