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Books That Support Emotional Healing and Trauma Recovery
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items These are the books I reached for when I didn’t have the words yet. But I just knew something hurt and kept on hurting. I built this list for other adults trying to heal from childhood trauma, any kind, like CPTSD, anxiety, shame, chronic illness, or...
When I first read The Deepest Well, I finally felt seen, not just for what happened to me, but for how it shaped my body, my brain, and the way I move through the world. Dr. Nadine Burke Harris connects the dots between adverse childhood experiences ...
The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity
This one hit me right where I live. Being (Sick) Enough speaks to that complicated place where trauma and chronic illness blur together. Jessica Graham’s writing is honest, raw, and sometimes painfully familiar if you grew up carrying too much and ar...
Being (Sick) Enough: Thoughts on Invisible Illness, Childhood Trauma, and Living Well When Surviving Is Hard
Reparenting felt like a buzzword to me, until this book helped me understand what it actually means. Nicole Johnson breaks it down gently, without pressure. If you grew up without consistent love or safety, this book offers real tools for learning ho...
Reparenting Your Inner Child: Healing Unresolved Childhood Trauma and Reclaiming Wholeness Through Self-Compassion
This was one of the first books that helped me put words to what I’d been living with for years: complex PTSD. Arielle Schwartz lays out the symptoms, the science, and the strategies in a way that feels doable. It’s written with so much care and resp...
A Practical Guide to Complex PTSD: Compassionate Strategies to Begin Healing from Childhood Trauma
This book helped me understand that love shouldn't hurt and that pain isn’t proof of devotion. Not the Price of Admission gave me language for boundaries I didn’t know I was allowed to have. Laura S. Brown writes for those of us who grew up thinking ...
Not the Price of Admission: Healthy relationships after childhood trauma
Makes me tear up thinking of Good Will Hunting each time I even seen this title. Reading this was like exhaling after holding my breath for years. It’s Not Your Fault is a reminder many of us need again and again, that what happened to us wasn’t our ...
Its Not Your Fault: Why Childhood Trauma Shapes You and How to Break Free
What makes this book hit so hard is that the harm didn’t come from strangers, it came from the people who were supposed to love and protect you. Baffled by Love holds space for the grief and confusion that come from betrayal by caregivers. Laurie Kah...
Baffled by Love: Stories of the Lasting Impact of Childhood Trauma Inflicted by Loved Ones
This book made me furious in the best possible way. Damaged puts a spotlight on what so many trauma survivors already know: the health care system is not built for us. The symptoms we bring like pain, fatigue, anxiety, autoimmune issues that are ofte...
Damaged: Childhood Trauma, Adult Illness, and the Need for a Health Care Revolution
This isn’t my exact story, but it’s the story of so many others I care about. After the Tears speaks directly to adult children of alcoholics who grew up in chaos and emotional scarcity. The authors approach the topic with gentleness, wisdom, and cla...
After the Tears: Helping Adult Children of Alcoholics Heal Their Childhood Trauma
There’s so much light in this book. Healing Childhood Trauma doesn’t deny what’s happened, but it focuses on what’s possible. Robin Marvel offers stories and tools rooted in post-traumatic growth and the idea that even deep pain can lead to purpose, ...
Healing Childhood Trauma: Transforming Pain into Purpose with Post-Traumatic Growth
It took me a long time to connect intimacy and safety in the same sentence. Coming Home to Passion gets how trauma messes with connection, touch, desire and how love can start to heal what was harmed. Ruth Cohn doesn’t shame or rush you. She just gen...
Coming Home to Passion: Restoring Loving Sexuality in Couples with Histories of Childhood Trauma and Neglect
I wish I had this book years ago. How Not to Fuck-Up Your Kids is blunt, useful, and so deeply necessary. It doesn’t shame, it just teaches. For those who are trying to parent differently than they were parented, this feels like a roadmap. Clear, pra...
How not to f*ck-up your kids: Minimising childhood trauma and practical parenting ideas
This isn’t just a story about military toughness. It’s about emotional survival. Rising Above shows how strength doesn’t come from ignoring pain, but from facing it head-on. Sean Rogers shares his experience of childhood trauma with raw honesty, and ...
Rising Above: A Green Beret's Story of Childhood Trauma and Ultimate Healing
There’s a tenderness to this book that stayed with me. Janyne McConnaughey writes like someone who’s lived it, and who knows how heavy it can be to carry childhood trauma into adulthood. A Brave Life is honest about the pain, but rooted in hope. Her ...
A Brave Life: Survival, Resilience, Faith and Hope after Childhood Trauma
So much of what I’d experienced physically started to make sense after this book. Scared Sick explores how early trauma rewires our nervous systems and can set us up for lifelong health issues like autoimmunity, chronic fatigue, anxiety, heart proble...
Scared Sick: The Role of Childhood Trauma in Adult Disease
If you’ve ever felt stuck in a relationship where you give too much and receive too little, this one hits close. The Dysfunctional Dance explores how trauma survivors, especially empaths, can get caught in unhealthy patterns with narcissists. Rita Lo...
The Dysfunctional Dance Of The Empath And Narcissist: Create Healthy Relationships By Healing Childhood Trauma
This workbook is like therapy in print because it's accessible, structured, and full of tools I wish I’d had sooner. If you’re dealing with anxiety, shame, or shutdowns tied to early trauma, the prompts and CBT/DBT exercises here offer a way forward....
The Childhood Trauma Recovery Workbook for Adults: Interactive Exercises, Therapeutic Prompts, and CBT/DBT Strategies for Dealing with Depression, Anxiety, Shame, and Other Effects of Abuse
This book doesn’t rush. It lays out practical, trauma-informed approaches that meet you where you are. Overcoming Your Childhood Trauma walks through grounding, boundaries, emotional regulation, tools I now rely on daily. The tone is gentle but clear...
Overcoming Your Childhood Trauma: Trauma-Informed Therapy Techniques and Exercises to Support Deep Healing
Sometimes healing starts with finally acknowledging the parts of you that got frozen in time. Your Hurt Inner Child helped me recognize those wounded place, and gave me tools to care for them. Kate Golinski keeps it grounded and real, offering practi...
Your Hurt Inner Child: Healing Childhood Trauma as an Adult
Reading Small Wonders was the first time EMDR felt approachable to me. Joan Lovett explains how this therapy works without overcomplicating it, using real stories of healing to show what’s possible. While I wasn't able to do EMDR due to an eye disord...
Small Wonders: Healing Childhood Trauma With EMDR