Victoria, Australia

Top

Resources

Family Drug Support, Australia. Supporting individuals and families experiencing drug addiction.

Books on trauma

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk, published 2014. This is by far the best book published on trauma that we have found. The author is both a practicing psychiatrist and a researcher who has been at the forefront of this field for the last few decades. Just as importantly, he is a kind, decent and humble human being – and that shines through his writing. This book lays the ground for understanding the mind-body (somatic) basis of trauma. It also lays out the approaches to healing which have proved successful. As an added bonus, it’s very well written with lots of stories (case histories) to illuminate the theory and research. Very highly recommended!

Healing Trauma: A Pioneering Program for Restoring the Wisdom of Your Body by Peter A. Levine is a much shorter book (94 pages) and audio CD which takes the reader through Levine’s Twelve-Phase Healing Trauma Program. The author has worked for over 40 years in the fields of trauma and stress and has pioneered a somatic approach to healing trauma. This book doesn’t spend much time on understanding the theory behind the practices although there is enough to get you started. For more background and stories, we recommend Levine’s book Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.

Also by Peter Levine is his more recent book (2015) Trauma and Memory – Brain and Body In Search for the Living Past – A Practical Guide for Understanding and Working with Traumatic Memory, which is excellent for exploring the interactions between trauma and the various kinds of memory. This can be particularly useful for people struggling with questions around whether they can trust their memories (and other people’s memories) and the quest for “what really happened?”

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Herman M.D. is another classic work on the subject (first published 1992) and brings in a feminist perspective alongside the science and theory.

Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden, Kekuni Minton and Clare Pain is another relatively recent book (2006) emphasising the importance of working with the body. The style is much more academic than the previous two books mentioned.

It Didn’t Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle by Mark Wolynn, published 2016. One of the most surprising and exciting recent discoveries in the life sciences is the whole field of epigenetics. This shows that stuff which happens to us and the way we think and feel about it impacts our genes. And those changes in our genes can then get passed on to future generations. This book explores how trauma can get passed down the generations and show up in our lives, and the clues which help us discover when this might be happening. The author is Director of the Family Constellation Institute in San Francisco. See this article by Mark Wolynn for a more in-depth overview of the book:

Sexual trauma resources

Sexual assault services throughout Australia – a directory of links to support services in every state for survivors of sexual assault, including people going through the re-surfacing of memories of childhood sexual abuse and incest.

The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis was first published in 1988 and is now in its 4th edition. Though not without flaws (read the Wikipedia article on the book!) it is still a very valuable resource for women survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and for their partners and family members, as it is packed full of stories from other survivors which can help to normalise what we can expect on the journey of healing. Ultimately it is an empowering book, though we’d recommend reading it alongside The Body Keeps the Score for a more complete understanding of trauma and its healing. Much of what is written here also applies to male survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

Back On Track – Men talking about Childhood Sexual Assault is a short documentary produced by the South Eastern Centre against Sexual Assault. This is valuable because there are not so many resources for male survivors of sexual trauma despite the large numbers of men affected. Men often find it difficult to be vulnerable or to prioritise their own emotional needs. It can be particularly valuable for men to find other men with whom they can talk openly about their pain and their experiences.

Vagina: A New Biography by Naomi Wolf is not specifically about sexual trauma, but is nevertheless very valuable because of its detailed explanations of the the vast neural network that is the female Pelvic Nerve, the connections between it and a woman’s consciousness and the impact of trauma. You can get a good idea of what’s in the book and why it’s worth reading from this article on Brainpickings.org: The Psychology of Stress, Orgasm and Creativity.

Shamanism

“What is Shamanism? And what is Shamanic Healing?” – A great introduction to these topics can be found in this interview with Michael Harner titled “Shamanic Healing: We are not alone“.

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies
Founded by Dr Michael Harner, author of The Way of the Shaman and Cave and Cosmos. Harner is a key figure in the revival of shamanic practice in the West. He started out as an academic anthropologist, studying indigenous tribes in South America, and then became trained as a shaman in two of those tribes. Faced with the challenge of passing on what he had learned to a Western audience who did not live in a shamanic culture he developed “Core Shamanism”.

The Foundation for Shamanic Studies – Asia
The more local (to Australia) branch of the Foundation for Shamanic Studies. Links to courses in the Asia Pacific region (including Australia).

The Way of the Shaman: The Work of Michael and Sandra Harner from Foundation for Shamanic Studies on Vimeo.

Shamanic Drumming downloads

A good place to start is Michael Harner’s Shamanic Journey, Solo and Double Drumming, on the Sounds True website. There are also downloads from Sandra Ingerman such as Soul Journeys which include rattles, as well as many others.

Books on Shamanism:

The Way of the Shaman by Michael Harner: – the seminal book on shamanic practice and one of the best places to start.

Cave and Cosmos by Michael Harner: – published 20 years after The Way of the Shaman, this draws on the experiences of the thousands of students who have explored the cosmos while in a shamanic state of consciousness and is a good guide to the territory

Shamanism and Spirituality in Therapeutic Practice by Christa McKinnon: – another excellent introduction to Shamanism written by a trained psychologist and academic and practicing therapist. Probably the best work that we’ve come across for integrating shamanic practice into a holistic psychotherapeutic approach.

Shamanism: Awaken and Develop the Shamanic Force Within, by Christa McKinnon is her more recent book, following on from the success of Shamanism and Spirituality in Therapeutic Practice. This is another excellent book written more for the lay reader in the Hay House Basics series.

Coyote Medicine and other books by Lewis Mehl-Madronna. Mehl-Madronna practices integrative medicine drawing on his Lakota and Cherokee traditions as well as western psychiatry. Coyote Medicine is a great introduction to his approach as it is a semi-autobiographical account of his journey through medical school, seeing all too clearly the limitations of Western Allopathic medicine while beginning to explore his Native American heritage. He comes regularly to Australia to conduct various training workshops. Let us know if you wish to be informed of future trainings.

Aboriginal Men of High Degree by A.P. Elkin. Sadly there are few written resources for those wishing to explore the Australian indigenous shamanic traditions. This book is both a product of its time (it was first published in 1945) but also not of its time in that the author, an anthrologist, had a genuine respect and awe for the seemingly irrational and miraculous experiences of the Aboriginal shamans he writes about.

Articles on Shamanism

The Shamanic View of the World by Christa McKinnon

An Indigenous Approach to Healing Trauma by Jonathan Davis