Heal the Body, Heal the Mind: A Somatic Approach to Moving Beyond Trauma

Traumatic events can leave mental and physical scars—but these scars don’t have to define you. Heal the Body, Heal the Mind takes trauma survivors on a supportive and healing journey toward well-being. By practicing the somatic exercises and mind-body interventions in this compassionate guide, you’ll learn to move past difficult experiences, restore relationships, and cultivate spiritual awareness.

When trauma occurs, the logical mind is hijacked and physiology takes over in an effort to protect you. This leaves an imprint—your body wants to ensure that nothing like that will ever happen again. Being reminded of a traumatic event can trigger these automatic responses, leaving you feeling paralyzed or unable to take action. This book will help you understand why and how unresolved trauma can infiltrate all aspects of your life, including your mind and body—even when you’re not aware of its influence.

With Heal the Body, Heal the Mind as a gentle guide, you’ll learn about different types of trauma, find helpful assessments, and discover how traumatic experiences—even childhood and incidental traumas—can affect all aspects of your life: your relationship choices, the roles you play in them, your sense of pleasure and desire, and how you approach your career, spirituality, and interactions with others.

Using the combination of mind-body interventions, cognitive behavioral theories, research, case studies, and exercises woven into each chapter of this warm-hearted, relatable book, you’ll begin to address the unresolved trauma held in your body and advance your healing process. So, if you’re ready to move beyond the trauma that’s been holding you back in your relationships, at work, and in your spiritual practice, this guide will show you how.

Susanne Babbel, PhD, is a licensed psychotherapist practicing with a trauma specialty in her private practice in San Francisco, CA. She is a member of the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT), as well as the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy (USABP) and European Association for Body Psychotherapy (EABP). A contributing author for nearly a decade to the Psychology Today online blog, Babbel also writes for magazines and newspapers, appears on radio shows, creates CDs for healing, and co-taught the UC Davis Extension online course on trauma bonding.

Foreword writer Marti Glenn, PhD, is cofounder and clinical director of Ryzio Institute, and founding president of Santa Barbara Graduate Institute. She holds degrees in prenatal, perinatal, somatic, and clinical psychology. Glenn served on the board of directors and chaired several Association for Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health (APPPAH) conferences. She coproduced the documentary Trauma, Brain, and Relationship: Helping Children Heal; and has appeared in What Babies Want; What Babies Know; and Reducing Infant MortalityandImproving the Health of Babies. She conducts training programs and speaks at conferences worldwide.