FURTHER LEARNING
Complex PTSD & Trauma
Resources for understanding complex trauma, survival responses, relationships, emotional regulation, and the ways earlier experiences can continue to shape life in the present.
Books
Foundational texts, memoir, and accessible guides for understanding complex trauma, survival responses, and healing.
FOUNDATIONAL TEXT
Trauma and Recovery
The Aftermath of Violence — From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror
A foundational work on psychological trauma and recovery. Herman describes healing through safety, remembrance and mourning, and reconnection while placing trauma within its broader relational and social context.
MEMOIR
What My Bones Know
A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
A memoir exploring Foo’s experiences with childhood trauma, Complex PTSD, and therapy. It offers a lived-experience perspective on how trauma can shape identity, relationships, and emotional responses.
SELF-HELP GUIDE
Complex PTSD
From Surviving to Thriving
A widely used self-help resource focused specifically on Complex PTSD. Walker explores emotional flashbacks, the inner critic, trauma responses, relationships, and emotional regulation.
ACCESSIBLE TRAUMA EDUCATION
What Happened to You?
Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing
An accessible exploration of how experiences can shape development, relationships, and responses to the world. The book encourages understanding behavior through the lens of experience rather than asking what is “wrong” with someone.
Watch
Videos exploring childhood trauma, Complex PTSD, relationships, dissociation, and trauma recovery.
FEATURED CHANNEL
Patrick Teahan, LICSW
A therapist and childhood trauma survivor who creates accessible educational videos about childhood trauma, family dynamics, boundaries, relationships, triggers, and patterns that can continue into adulthood.
Explore the channel →LIVED EXPERIENCE & SELF-HELP
Crappy Childhood Fairy
Anna Runkle
Anna Runkle creates educational and self-help content about the lasting effects of childhood trauma, particularly emotional dysregulation, relationships, boundaries, and everyday life. Her work draws primarily from lived experience and self-help rather than clinical practice, so it can be useful as one perspective alongside professional trauma resources.
Explore the channel →CLINICAL EDUCATION
Janina Fisher, PhD
Healing the Fragmented Self After Trauma
In this presentation, trauma specialist Janina Fisher explores how overwhelming experiences can contribute to fragmentation, dissociation, and self-alienation. Her approach reframes many trauma-related symptoms as adaptive survival responses and emphasizes understanding fragmented parts with curiosity and compassion.
Watch on YouTube →Listen
Podcasts exploring Complex PTSD, nervous-system responses, emotional neglect, and trauma recovery.
COMPLEX TRAUMA & CPTSD
The Complex Trauma Podcast
Sarah Herstich, LCSW
Hosted by an EMDR and somatic trauma therapist, The Complex Trauma Podcast explores Complex PTSD, childhood emotional neglect, nervous-system responses, toxic shame, hypervigilance, dissociation, relationships, and the patterns that can develop when survival mode becomes familiar.
An introduction to complex trauma and the experiences and patterns the podcast explores.
TRAUMA & THE NERVOUS SYSTEM
Trauma Rewired
Elisabeth Kristof & Jennifer Wallace
Trauma Rewired explores trauma through the nervous system and neuroscience, examining how survival responses can become patterned in the brain and body. Episodes cover topics including Complex PTSD, emotional flashbacks, freeze and fawn responses, shame, dissociation, boundaries, and nervous-system regulation.
An exploration of how chronic shame can become intertwined with identity after complex trauma and how it can affect connection, emotional expression, and the nervous system.
Not sure where to start?
You don’t need to work your way through everything here. Start with the resource that feels most relevant — or most accessible — to you right now. A memoir or podcast may feel like a gentler introduction, while a practical guide can offer strategies and a clinical resource can help if you want to understand trauma in greater depth. There’s no right order, and you can take in as much or as little as feels useful.
