This evolving bibliography lists books that while not top rated/best-selling, survivors have found useful in understanding relational trauma/Complex PTSD and recovery.
Updated March 30th, 2023
Workbooks & Recovery Tools
Engel, B. (2015). It Wasn't Your Fault: Freeing Yourself from the Shame of Childhood Abuse with the Power of Self-Compassion. Oakland, California: New Harbinger Publications.
Engel, B. (2020). Escaping Emotional Abuse: Healing from the Shame You Don't Deserve. Oakland, California: New Harbinger Publications.
McClintock Greenberg, T. (2022). The Complex PTSD Coping Skills Workbook: An Evidence-Based Approach to Manage Fear and Anger, Build Confidence, and Reclaim Your Identity. New Harbinger Publications: Oakland, CA.
Neff, K. & Germer, C. (2018). The Mindful Self-Compassion Workbook. New York, NY: The Guildford Press.
Schwartz, A. (2020). A Practical Guide to Complex PTSD: Compassionate Strategies to Begin Healing from Childhood Trauma. Emeryville, California: Rockridge Press.
Schwartz, A. (2020). The Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook: Practical Mind-Body Tools to Heal Trauma, Foster Resilience and Awaken Your Potential. Eau Claire, WI: PESI Publishing.
About Relational Trauma
Courtois, C. (2020). It’s Not You, It’s What Happened to You; Complex Trauma and Treatment. Dublin, Ohio: Telemachus Press.
With It's Not You, It's What Happened to You: Complex Trauma and Treatment, Dr. Christine Courtois has simplified her extensive and, until now, quite scholarly work geared toward understanding and developing the concept of "complex trauma," and the assessment and treatment thereof. A universally acknowledged leader in this emerging psychotherapeutic field, Dr. Courtois provides here an abbreviated and easy-to-read explanation of what complex trauma is, how it develops, the ways in which it manifests, and how it can effectively be dealt with.
DeYoung, P. (2021). Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: A Relational/Neurobiological Approach. New York, NY: Routledge.
Chronic shame is painful, corrosive, and elusive. It resists self-help and undermines even intensive psychoanalysis. Patricia A. DeYoung’s cutting-edge book gives chronic shame the serious attention it deserves, integrating new brain science with an inclusive tradition of relational psychotherapy. She looks behind the myriad symptoms of shame to its relational essence.
Lanius, R., Vermetten, E., & Pain, C. (Eds.) (2010). The impact of early life trauma on health and disease: The hidden epidemic. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
There is now ample evidence from the preclinical and clinical fields that early life trauma has both dramatic and long-lasting effects on neurobiological systems and functions that are involved in different forms of psychopathology as well as on health in general. To date, a comprehensive review of the recent research on the effects of early and later life trauma is lacking. This book fills an obvious gap in academic and clinical literature by providing reviews which summarize and synthesize these findings. Topics considered and discussed include the possible biological and neuropsychological effects of trauma at different epochs and their effect on health. This book will be essential reading for psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, mental health professionals, social workers, pediatricians and specialists in child development.
About Intergenerational Transmission of Relational Trauma
Miller, M. (2018). The True Drama of the Gifted Child: Alice Miller the Real Person
The "True" Drama of the Gifted Child is a biography of my mother, the famous childhood researcher and psychologist, Alice Miller. Although internationally renowned for her books on parental child abuse, I suffered significant abuse during my childhood. This book describes how trauma is passed on intergenerationally and how my mother passed her unresolved war trauma on to me.
