Thriving After Trauma addresses readers who have experience trauma or loss due to a variety of experience – whether accident, abuse, or injury. Shari Botwin shows readers, through personal stories, how many who have experienced the worst kinds of trauma have managed to move on and thrive beyond their experiences. Often, those who live through trauma come away with feelings of shame, guilt, anger, and despair. These are common, even normal, responses in the immediate aftermath. Left unaddressed, though, those feelings may develop into substance abuse problems, eating disorders, depression, or anxiety. Learning how to move on, to pick up and live life again, takes effort and guidance. Botwin guides readers through the stories of others who have gone on to live fulfilling, happy lives, and provides tips and tools for healing and moving on. Letting go of the shame, guilt, anger and fear associated with tragic events is crucial to reclaiming a full life. Strategies such as, journaling, mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral restructuring, and healthy relationships to aid in recovery are explored and explained, so readers can adopt those strategies that work best for them. It is not the trauma itself that results in so many people developing self-destructive tendencies and life threatening illnesses. It is the lack of having a way to digest and make sense of the trauma-related feelings that can lead one to mental illness, disconnection, and in some cases, even death. Readers will learn how to live with the trauma versus how to get over the trauma, so they can move forward healthfully and mindfully.

'A week after my 50th birthday and just as our family was about to move home, something happened that changed the way I looked at life. I spoke to others about how they rebuilt their shattered worlds after very different personal traumas, emerging stronger than before. I hope our experiences, together with the latest science on resilience, will help guide all those going through tough times. This book says that it's possible not just to survive them, but to thrive. To rise.' Renowned as a much-loved and highly respected journalist and broadcaster with thirty years' experience, Sian Williams has studied the impact of acute stress for many years and is also a trained trauma assessor. In RISE, she explores the science of resilience and growth after trauma, offers advice from the experts, and learns from those who have emerged from horrific experiences, feeling changed yet stronger, with a new perspective on their life, their relationships and their work. She also documents her own path through breast cancer, with candid and unflinching honesty. Her story provides a narrative thread through a book designed to help others deal with all manner of adversity, including physical or mental ill health; loss of a loved one; abuse and post-traumatic stress. RISE is a deeply researched exploration of trauma, grief and illness, and most importantly resilience in the darkest of days. It is an inspiring and powerful piece of work, full of honesty, warmth and wisdom.

'A week after my 50th birthday and just as our family was about to move home, something happened that changed the way I looked at life. I spoke to others about how they rebuilt their shattered worlds after very different personal traumas, emerging stronger than before. I hope our experiences, together with the latest science on resilience, will help guide all those going through tough times. This book says that it's possible not just to survive them, but to thrive. To rise.' Renowned as a much-loved and highly respected journalist and broadcaster with thirty years' experience, Sian Williams has studied the impact of acute stress for many years and is also a trained trauma assessor. In RISE, she explores the science of resilience and growth after trauma, offers advice from the experts, and learns from those who have emerged from horrific experiences, feeling changed yet stronger, with a new perspective on their life, their relationships and their work. She also documents her own path through breast cancer, with candid and unflinching honesty. Her story provides a narrative thread through a book designed to help others deal with all manner of adversity, including physical or mental ill health; loss of a loved one; abuse and post-traumatic stress. RISE is a deeply researched exploration of trauma, grief and illness, and most importantly resilience in the darkest of days. It is an inspiring and powerful piece of work, full of honesty, warmth and wisdom.

Demonstrates that reclaiming life in adulthood is possible for survivors of childhood abuse. Stolen Childhoods: Thriving After Abuse focuses on how survivors of childhood abuse can finally break their silence and begin the process of recovery by understanding the impact their abuse history has on their adulthood. Filled with real life client conversations, along with her own experiences as a patient, this work helps readers stop reliving past abuse and thrive in their recovery. It demonstrates the tremendous hope that can come from having a witness, and feeling heard and believed. Throughout the book, the reader witnesses how adult survivors of childhood abuse can use relationships with therapists, partners, or supportive family members to combat their feelings of shame and guilt. Botwin walks readers through ways survivors can develop trust with others and move through emotions of fear and grief. She offers examples of learning how to manage traumatic responses in situations that trigger flashbacks, feelings of unsafety, or fears of being unprotected. Offering actionable steps to healing throughout, Botwin helps readers on their journeys to reclaiming their right to live safe, happy, full lives.

Thema Bryant-Davis examines the cultural issues that health-care professionals need to consider in caring for trauma survivors.

God will not waste your pain We have all heard of post traumatic stress, but few of us think about the possibility of post traumatic growth--the positive ways in which we can be transformed by our trauma. Yet this is precisely what can happen when we face our hurts, struggle through the rubble of our broken relationships, and unearth the ways God wants to use our trials to refine and mature us. With compassion born from personal experience and insights gathered from years of counseling others, licensed marriage and family therapist Debra Laaser helps you stop asking "Why me?" and start asking "Lord, what would you have me learn from this?" She offers tangible steps you can take to move beyond daily survival toward a future in which you can thrive. God does not waste our pain. With Laaser's expert guidance, you can experience positive life change not in spite of the hurt, loss, or betrayal you have undergone but because of it.