The following books are often recommended to support clients, families, and caregivers in understanding and navigating experiences related to mental health, trauma, relationships, and personal growth.

Trauma & Healing

What Happened to You? — Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey
The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk (may be activating for some readers)
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving — Pete Walker
Healing Trauma — Peter Levine

Adjustment, Life Transitions & Stress

Transitions — William Bridges
Option B — Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant
Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl

Anxiety & Emotional Regulation

The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook — Edmund Bourne
Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life — Scott Spradlin
Rewire Your Anxious Brain — Catherine Pittman & Elizabeth Karle

Depression & Mood Support

Feeling Good — David Burns
The Upward Spiral — Alex Korb
Lost Connections — Johann Hari

Grief & Loss

It’s OK That You’re Not OK — Megan Devine
The Grieving Brain — Mary-Frances O’Connor
The Invisible String — Patrice Karst (for children and families)
Bearing the Unbearable — Joanne Cacciatore

Children & Families

The Whole-Brain Child — Dan Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson
No-Drama Discipline — Dan Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson
Raising Good Humans — Hunter Clarke-Fields
The Invisible String — Patrice Karst

Teens & Young Adults

Stuff That Sucks — Ben Sedley
The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens — Lisa Schab
Healing Your Grieving Heart for Teens — Alan Wolfelt

Couples & Relationships

Hold Me Tight — Dr. Sue Johnson
The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work — John Gottman
Attached — Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
Set Boundaries, Find Peace — Nedra Glover Tawwab

Diversity, Identity & Cultural Awareness

My Grandmother’s Hands — Resmaa Menakem
The Body Is Not an Apology — Sonya Renee Taylor
What Happened to You? — Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey (also relevant here)
Between the World and Me — Ta-Nehisi Coates

General Support, Relationships & Personal Growth

Set Boundaries, Find Peace — Nedra Glover Tawwab
Attached — Amir Levine & Rachel Heller
The Gifts of Imperfection — Brené Brown
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone — Lori Gottlieb

Recommendations are made thoughtfully and may vary based on individual needs, goals, and clinical context.

These texts represent foundational scholarship and clinical frameworks used in trauma-informed psychotherapy.

My clinical work over the past two decades has included supporting individuals and families impacted by a wide range of traumatic experiences.

This work has reinforced an understanding of trauma as not only an individual experience, but one that is shaped by relationship, environment, systems, and access to safety and resources.

*Please note that the following sections include content related to trauma that may be activating or distressing for some readers.

Foundational Trauma Theory & Complex Trauma

• The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk

• Trauma and Recovery — Judith Herman

• Treating Complex Trauma — Courtois & Ford

These texts establish core frameworks for understanding complex trauma, PTSD, and the long-term impact of chronic interpersonal harm.

Developmental Trauma, Attachment & Early Experience

• Healing Developmental Trauma — Heller & LaPierre

• The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog — Bruce Perry

• Treating Trauma and Traumatic Grief in Children and Adolescents — Cohen, Mannarino, & Deblinger

• Childhood Disrupted — Donna Jackson Nakazawa

These works explore how trauma impacts early development, attachment systems, and relational patterns across the lifespan.

Dissociation, Fragmentation & Severe Trauma

• Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors — Janina Fisher

• Coping with Trauma-Related Dissociation — Suzette Boon, Kathy Steele, & Onno van der Hart

• The Haunted Self — van der Hart, Nijenhuis, & Steele

These texts address dissociation, identity fragmentation, and complex trauma presentations, particularly in survivors of chronic abuse and neglect.

Neurobiology, Somatic Processing & Regulation

• Waking the Tiger — Peter Levine

• In an Unspoken Voice — Peter Levine

• The Body Remembers — Babette Rothschild

These texts highlight the role of the nervous system, physiological responses, and somatic processing in trauma and recovery.

Interpersonal Violence, Power & Survival

• Trauma and Recovery — Judith Herman

• Why Does He Do That? — Lundy Bancroft

• Coercive Control — Evan Stark

These works examine domestic violence, sexual violence, coercive control, and power dynamics, highlighting how abuse is often rooted in patterns of domination, control, and systemic inequality rather than isolated incidents.

Sexual Violence, Incest & Survivor Recovery

• The Courage to Heal — Ellen Bass & Laura Davis

• The Sexual Healing Journey — Wendy Maltz

These texts address the long-term impact of sexual abuse, assault, and incest, supporting recovery, identity repair, and reconnection to the body and self.

Human Trafficking, Exploitation & Survival

• Girls Like Us — Rachel Lloyd

• Human Trafficking Around the World — Stephanie Hepburn & Rita Simon

These works explore commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking, and systemic vulnerability, including pathways into exploitation and long-term recovery needs.

Self-Harm, Suicidality & High-Risk Clinical Work

• Managing Suicidal Risk — David A. Jobes

• Helping Teens Who Cut — Michael Hollander

These texts address self-injury, suicidality, and emotional dysregulation, often in the context of trauma, attachment disruption, and unmet relational needs..

Suicide, Schools & Youth Risk

• Suicide in Schools — Terri A. Erbacher, Jonathan B. Singer, & Scott Poland

• The Violence Project — Jillian Peterson & James Densley

• Why Kids Kill — Peter Langman

These works explore youth suicide, school-based violence, and risk assessment, including prevention, intervention, and systemic response within educational and community settings.

Foster Care, Runaway Youth & System-Involved Trauma

• Three Little Words — Ashley Rhodes-Courter

• Another Place at the Table — Kathy Harrison

These texts highlight the impact of foster care systems, instability, disrupted attachment, and youth survival strategies, including running away and system involvement.

Violence, Crime & Behavioral Understanding

• The Anatomy of Motive — John Douglas

• Inside the Criminal Mind — Stanton Samenow

These works provide insight into violent behavior, criminal thinking patterns, and risk, supporting a broader understanding of trauma, harm, and accountability.

Systemic, Cultural & Intergenerational Trauma

• My Grandmother’s Hands — Resmaa Menakem

• Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome — Joy DeGruy

These texts examine intergenerational trauma, racialized trauma, and the impact of historical and systemic oppression on the body and community.

Trauma, Meaning & Human Experience

• What Happened to You? — Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey

• Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl

These works support a shift toward meaning-making, resilience, and understanding behavior through the lens of lived experience.

Integration

These works reflect an understanding of trauma as both neurobiological and relational, shaped by environment, attachment, and systems of power.

Trauma presents across a wide range of experiences—from interpersonal violence and developmental harm to systemic, institutional, and community-based trauma—and often requires integrative approaches that address safety, regulation, meaning-making, and reconnection.

Effective trauma therapy may draw from multiple modalities, including EMDR-informed approaches, parts-based work, somatic regulation, and attachment-focused interventions, adapted to the complexity of each individual’s experience.

Trauma is not only what happens to a person, but how the mind and body adapt in order to survive.

These texts focus on EMDR therapy and the integration of trauma processing approaches across developmental, attachment-based, and parts-informed frameworks.

My clinical work incorporates EMDR-informed approaches alongside parts-based, somatic, and relational therapies, supporting the reprocessing of trauma in a way that is both structured and individualized.

EMDR with Children & Adolescents

• EMDR with Kids — Jackie Flynn

• EMDR Therapy and Adjunct Approaches with Children — Ana Gomez

These texts address developmental considerations in EMDR, including adaptation for children, caregivers, and family systems.

EMDR & Parts-Based / Integrative Approaches

• Integrating Internal Family Systems into EMDR Therapy — D. Fatter

• Treating Trauma with EMDR and Internal Family Systems — K. Hart

These works explore the integration of EMDR with parts-based models, supporting work with complex trauma, dissociation, and internal systems.

EMDR Practice & Skill Development

• The EMDR Therapist Workbook — E. Jefferson

This resource supports clinicians in developing practical skills, structure, and confidence in EMDR implementation.

Foundational EMDR Texts

• Getting Past Your Past — Francine Shapiro

• Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing — Francine Shapiro

These foundational works outline the adaptive information processing (AIP) model and the structured phases of EMDR therapy.

Integration

These texts reflect EMDR as both a structured, evidence-based trauma treatment model and a flexible approach that can be integrated with attachment-focused, parts-based, and somatic therapies.

EMDR-informed approaches are integrated into my clinical work, supervision, and consultation, particularly in the treatment of complex and developmental trauma.

These texts focus on professional development, therapeutic presence, and the clinical craft of psychotherapy across integrative and evidence-based approaches.

My clinical work draws from multiple modalities, including CBT, DBT, EMDR-informed approaches, parts-based work, somatic frameworks, and relational therapies, with an emphasis on adapting interventions to the needs of the individual.

Foundational Clinical Craft & Therapeutic Presence

• The Gift of Therapy — Irvin Yalom

• The Making of a Therapist — Louis Cozolino

• On Becoming a Person — Carl Rogers

• Love’s Executioner — Irvin Yalom

These works emphasize the importance of therapeutic presence, authenticity, and the relational foundation of effective psychotherapy.

Trauma & Parts-Based Approaches

• Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors — Janina Fisher

• No Bad Parts — Richard Schwartz

These texts explore trauma through parts-based and integrative frameworks, supporting work with dissociation, internal conflict, and complex trauma.

Cognitive & Behavioral Approaches (CBT / DBT)

• Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond — Judith Beck

• DBT Skills Training Manual — Marsha Linehan

These foundational texts provide structured approaches to cognitive restructuring, emotional regulation, and behavioral change, supporting clients in developing practical coping and insight.

Somatic & Body-Based Approaches

• Waking the Tiger — Peter Levine

• The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk

These works highlight the role of the nervous system, body memory, and physiological regulation in trauma and healing.

EMDR & Trauma Processing

• Getting Past Your Past — Francine Shapiro

• EMDR Essentials — Barb Maiberger & Barbara Davis

• Attachment-Focused EMDR - Laurel Parnell

• Tapping In - Laurel Parnell

These texts introduce EMDR-informed approaches to adaptive information processing, attachment repair, and trauma reprocessing.

Narrative, Meaning-Making & Constructivist Approaches

• Maps of Narrative Practice — Michael White

This work explores how individuals construct meaning through story, supporting re-authoring, identity development, and alternative narratives.

Depth, Existential & Insight-Oriented Approaches

• Man and His Symbols — Carl Jung

• The Drama of the Gifted Child — Alice Miller

These texts explore unconscious processes, identity development, and deeper psychological patterns that shape human behavior.

Gestalt & Experiential Approaches

• Gestalt Therapy Verbatim — Fritz Perls

This work emphasizes present-moment awareness, experiential processing, and authenticity in the therapeutic encounter.

Common Factors & Evidence-Based Practice

• The Heart and Soul of Change — Mark Hubble, Barry Duncan & Scott Miller

This text highlights the role of common factors, therapeutic alliance, and outcome-informed care across modalities.

Integration

These works reflect an integrative approach to psychotherapy that values both evidence-based practice and relational depth, recognizing that effective therapy requires flexibility, attunement, and ongoing clinical reflection.

Clinical craft is developed over time through the integration of theory, lived experience, supervision, and deliberate practice.

Effective therapy is not defined by a single model, but by the clinician’s ability to thoughtfully integrate approaches in service of the person in front of them.

These texts inform clinical supervision, professional identity development, and leadership within behavioral health systems.

My approach to supervision is grounded in reflective practice, trauma-informed care, and developmental growth, supporting clinicians in building both clinical competence and professional identity over time.

Foundational Supervision & Reflective Practice

• Clinical Supervision in the Helping Professions — Hawkins & Shohet

• The Reflective Practitioner — Donald Schön

These works emphasize the importance of reflection-in-action, critical thinking, and the ongoing development of clinical judgment.

Trauma-Informed Supervision & Nervous System Awareness

• Nurturing Resilience — Kathy Kain & Stephen Terrell

This text highlights the role of the nervous system in both client work and clinician sustainability, informing supervision that attends to regulation, capacity, and presence.

Leadership, Team Dynamics & Organizational Functioning

• The Ideal Team Player — Patrick Lencioni

• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team — Patrick Lencioni

• The Making of a Manager — Julie Zhuo

These works explore leadership, communication, and team dynamics within organizations, recognizing that clinical work occurs within systems that shape both effectiveness and burnout.

Recommended Reading for Clinicians in Supervision

The following texts are often helpful for clinicians engaged in supervision, supporting the development of clinical thinking, self-reflection, and professional identity.

For Clinical Thinking & Case Conceptualization

• The Reflective Practitioner — Donald Schön

• Case Formulation in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — Jacqueline B. Persons

For Developing Clinical Identity

• Clinical Supervision in the Helping Professions — Hawkins & Shohet

• The Gift of Therapy — Irvin D. Yalom

For Trauma-Informed & Nervous System Awareness

• Nurturing Resilience — Kathy Kain & Stephen Terrell

• The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk

For Ethical Practice & Professional Responsibility

• The NASW Code of Ethics, ACA Code of Ethics, AAMFT Code of Ethics

• The Courage to Be a Therapist — Rollo May

For Systems Awareness & Sustainable Practice

• The Burnout Challenge — Christina Maslach & Michael Leiter

• Trauma Stewardship — Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

These texts support a model of supervision that extends beyond case review, incorporating reflective dialogue, skill development, ethical practice, and systems awareness.

Supervision is not only a requirement for licensure, but a critical space for developing clinical voice, professional identity, and sustainable practice over time.

My clinical supervision and consultation work integrates these frameworks, offering a structured and reflective space for clinicians to deepen their practice, strengthen documentation and decision-making skills, and navigate the complexities of working within behavioral health systems.

These works explore grief as a multifaceted human experience shaped by relationship, identity, trauma, and meaning-making across the lifespan.

My clinical work has included supporting individuals and families across a wide range of grief experiences, including end-of-life care, anticipatory grief, traumatic loss, caregiver burden, and complex bereavement, as well as facilitating grief groups and working with individuals navigating both expected and sudden loss.

This work is further informed by training in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy (TF-CBT) for traumatic grief and EMDR-informed approaches, recognizing that grief is not only emotional, but also neurological, relational, and deeply embodied.

Foundational Grief Theory & Clinical Practice

• Grief Counseling and Grief Therapy — J. William Worden

• Ambiguous Loss — Pauline Boss

These works provide foundational frameworks for understanding grief as an adaptive process, including tasks of mourning and the impact of unresolved or unclear loss.

Contemporary Perspectives on Grief

• It’s OK That You’re Not OK — Megan Devine

• The Wild Edge of Sorrow — Francis Weller

These texts expand the conversation around grief, emphasizing the importance of validation, ritual, and cultural context in the grieving process.

Meaning-Making & Existential Perspectives

• Man’s Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl

This work explores the human capacity to create meaning in the face of suffering, loss, and profound life disruption.

Traumatic Loss & Complicated Grief

• Treating Trauma and Traumatic Grief in Children and Adolescents — Judith Cohen, Anthony Mannarino, & Esther Deblinger
  (TF-CBT model for traumatic grief)

These approaches address grief that is complicated by trauma, including sudden, violent, or unexpected loss, where the nervous system and memory processes are significantly impacted.

Clinical Scope of Grief Work

Grief is not a singular experience. It may include:

• End-of-life and anticipatory grief
  (supporting individuals and families facing terminal illness, including medical decision-making and death with dignity)

• Caregiver grief and role transition
  (emotional, physical, and identity-related impacts of caregiving and loss)

• Medical and prolonged illness-related loss
  (e.g., cancer, chronic illness, progressive conditions)

• Sudden and traumatic loss
  (e.g., accidents, suicide, unexpected death)

• Child and adolescent loss
  (both loss experienced by children and the loss of a child)

• Ambiguous and unresolved loss
  (where closure is unclear or unavailable)

• Pet loss and attachment-based grief
  (recognizing the depth of relational bonds beyond human relationships)

These works and clinical approaches reflect an understanding of grief as both a deeply personal and relational process, shaped by context, attachment, and lived experience.

Grief work often requires attending not only to emotional expression, but also to trauma processing, meaning-making, and the reconstruction of identity in the aftermath of loss.

Client & Family-Recommended Reading

The following books are often helpful for clients, caregivers, and families navigating grief. These selections are developmentally appropriate and can support emotional expression, understanding, and connection outside of session.

For Adults

• It’s OK That You’re Not OK — Megan Devine

• The Grieving Brain — Mary-Frances O’Connor

• Option B — Sheryl Sandberg & Adam Grant

For Children & Families

• The Invisible String — Patrice Karst

• The Memory Box — Joanna Rowland

• When Dinosaurs Die — Laurie Krasny Brown & Marc Brown

• The Goodbye Book — Todd Parr

Grief is not something to resolve, but something to be carried, integrated, and witnessed over time.

These works explore burnout, vicarious trauma, and the systemic conditions that shape the wellbeing of helping professionals.

Rather than framing burnout solely as an individual issue, this body of work reflects a broader understanding of how organizational systems, productivity culture, and structural constraints contribute to chronic stress, emotional exhaustion, and workforce instability.

Burnout & Organizational Systems

• Burnout — Emily Nagoski & Amelia Nagoski

• The Burnout Challenge — Christina Maslach & Michael Leiter

These texts examine burnout as both an individual and organizational phenomenon, highlighting the role of workplace structure, demand, and culture in shaping professional sustainability.

Vicarious Trauma, Secondary Trauma & Caregiving

• Trauma Stewardship — Laura van Dernoot Lipsky

• The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk

These works explore the impact of prolonged exposure to others’ suffering, including vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue, and the ethical responsibility of sustaining oneself in helping roles.

Mind-Body Stress & Chronic Strain

• When the Body Says No — Gabor Maté

• The Myth of Normal — Gabor Maté

These texts examine how chronic stress, emotional suppression, and environmental demands contribute to long-term health and psychological outcomes.

Rest, Resistance & System Critique

• Rest Is Resistance — Tricia Hersey

• Laziness Does Not Exist — Devon Price

These works challenge dominant cultural narratives around productivity, reframing rest as both biological necessity and social resistance within systems that prioritize output over wellbeing.

Systems, Power & Institutional Impact on Care

• The Revolution Will Not Be Funded — INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

• Dying for a Paycheck — Jeffrey Pfeffer

These texts examine how institutional structures, funding systems, and workplace expectations contribute to burnout, inequity, and harm within helping professions.

These works support a view of burnout that extends beyond individual coping strategies, recognizing the role of systems, culture, and power in shaping the conditions under which helping professionals are asked to care for others.

Sustainable practice requires not only skill and self-awareness, but also critical engagement with the environments in which care is delivered.

These texts explore how social systems, inequality, power structures, and culture shape mental health, trauma, and human development.

My approach to clinical work is deeply informed by a sociological lens developed through formal training in sociology and social work, including coursework in social stratification, social problems, sociology of politics, gender studies, and societal context of practice.

This foundation shaped an understanding that individual distress cannot be separated from the broader systems in which people live—systems that influence access to safety, resources, identity, and opportunity.

In addition to academic training, my thinking has been influenced by critical, philosophical, and liberation-oriented perspectives, including the work of authors such as Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and other scholars examining power, inequality, and institutional systems. These perspectives continue to inform how I conceptualize both trauma and resilience.

Foundational Texts

• Suicide — Émile Durkheim

• Caste — Isabel Wilkerson

• A Theory of Justice — John Rawls

• The Sociological Imagination — C. Wright Mills

• The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life — Erving Goffman

• The Second Shift — Arlie Hochschild

• The Feminine Mystique — Betty Friedan

Structural Inequality & Social Determinants of Wellbeing

• Evicted — Matthew Desmond

• The Spirit Level — Richard Wilkinson & Kate Pickett

• Medical Apartheid — Harriet A. Washington

• The New Jim Crow — Michelle Alexander

• Nickel and Dimed — Barbara Ehrenreich

• Bowling Alone — Robert Putnam

• Bobos in Paradise — David Brooks

Critical & Historical Perspectives (Influential Reading)

• A People’s History of the United States — Howard Zinn

• Manufacturing Consent — Noam Chomsky

• This Is an Uprising — Mark Engler & Paul Engler

• Stupid White Men — Michael Moore (or another of his works if you prefer)

• Freedom Is a Constant Struggle — Angela Y. Davis

• Power in Movement — Sidney Tarrow

These works provide a framework for understanding how systems of power, policy, and inequality intersect with mental health, shaping both vulnerability to trauma and access to healing.

This perspective informs a clinical approach that attends not only to internal experience, but also to context, environment, and lived reality—including the impact of poverty, discrimination, violence, and systemic barriers.

Clinical work is not only relational and psychological—it is also contextual, shaped by the systems in which people are asked to survive, adapt, and make meaning.

Examples of therapeutic tools used in trauma-informed care include:

• Grounding and stabilization techniques
  (e.g., 5-4-3-2-1 sensory exercise, orienting to present safety, breath regulation)

• Emotional awareness and identification tools
  (e.g., feelings wheels, emotion mapping, identifying primary vs. secondary emotions)

• Structured self-reflection and cognitive processing prompts
  (e.g., thought tracking, meaning-making, narrative exploration)

• Coping skill frameworks for anxiety and distress regulation
  (e.g., DBT-informed distress tolerance, behavioral activation, regulation sequencing)

• Boundary development and interpersonal effectiveness tools
  (e.g., assertive communication frameworks, values clarification, relational pattern mapping)

• Parts-based and self-compassion practices
  (e.g., identifying internal parts, increasing Self-leadership, reducing internal conflict)

• Psychoeducation tools to support insight and integration
  (e.g., nervous system education, trauma responses, attachment patterns)

These tools are not intended to be used in isolation, but as part of a thoughtful, developmentally-informed therapeutic process that supports emotional awareness, self-regulation, and psychological flexibility over time.

Coming Soon: Practice-Based Resources

Handouts, worksheets, and structured tools from The Practice Library™ are in development and will be available in future releases.

These materials are designed to:

• Bridge the gap between clinical knowledge and practical application

• Support both therapists and clients in session and between sessions

• Reflect real-world use in therapy, supervision, consultation, and clinical training

Many of these tools are also integrated into my clinical supervision, consultation, and training work with therapists, where they are adapted to support skill development, clinical decision-making, and sustainable practice.

Washington

• WAC 246-809(Licensure: LMHC/A, LMFT/S, LICSW/A)

• WAC 246-341(Behavioral Health Agencies)

• RCW 18.225 (Behavioral Health Professions)

• RCW 71.05 (Involuntary Treatment Act)

• Washington State supervision requirements by license

Idaho

• Idaho Administrative Code IDAPA 24.15.01(Board of Social Work Examiners)

• Idaho Code Title 54 (Social Work Licensing)

• Idaho Telehealth Access Act (Title 54-5701 et seq.)

Ethics, Federal Regs, & Standards

• NASW Code of Ethics

• AAMFT Code of Ethics

• ACA Code of Ethics

• NBCC Code of Ethics

• ACES Best Practices in Clinical Supervision

• HIPAA (Privacy & Security Rules)

• 42 CFR Part 2

• HITECH Act

• CMS Documentation Guidelines

• Medical Necessity Standards

• APA Telepsychology Guidelines