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This page is not a replacement for therapy or professional medical help. For immediate support, call RAINN at 800.656.HOPE (4673) to be connected with a trained staff member from a sexual assault service provider in your area. If you are in crisis, call 911.
Included are ways to find a good therapist, therapy for trauma, basic therapy and self-help resources, and media we like that has helped with our own trauma and learning.
Trauma can effect our physical, emotional, spiritual, and social health. You are not alone if you forget minutes, hours, or days after experiencing a traumatic event. You are not alone if you are lashing out, hiding away, or just unable to function like you normally did. However, your brain has the ability to be rewired if you get support and are in healing, healthy relationships with those in your community and support network. We will continue to add free therapy and peer support resources on this page as they are created.
How To Find Good Therapists:
Therapy is often inaccessible or may be retraumatizing and unhelpful for many different reasons. We believe that the medicalization of mental health has erased many issues that cannot fit into a diagnosis, such as the complexities of trauma. In order to ensure you find the best therapist for you, it is important to "screen" them with questions about their identities or ability to relate to identities, how they work to dismantle oppression within their profession, and what types of mental health practices do they have. Setting expectations and boundaries with your mental health professionals will ensure you are on the right path for healing.
It must also be recognized that mental health practitioners, especially psychiatrists, have a history embedded in racism, sexism, classism, and overall violence -- closely tied to that of the police. They have the power to institutionalize those with mental health issues without looking at the root of their problems. Please be aware of who are seeking help from.
List of Websites Better than Psychology Today
Inclusivetherapists.com find a provider by identity, lived experience, spirituality, etc.
Joinviolet.com for queer-competent mental health providers
Asianmhc.com for APISAA folks
Nqttcn.com for queer and trans therapists of color
Low-cost/free therapy and peer support
Peer Support Space provides a variety of group and individual peer support for a plethora of mental health or identity-based needs
The Loveland Foundation provides financial assistance to Black women and girls seeking therapy
Open-Path Collective Offers therapists who charge $30-$60 per session
Giveanhour.org for free therapy w limited sessions to healthcare workers and military personnel
Betterhelp and Talkspace
Virginia Statewide Hotline for Domestic Violence: 1-800-838-8238
ASK YOUR PROSPECTIVE THERAPIST! Many offer services on a sliding scale.
Credit to @drhanren on Tiktok. Check out our other social media recs below.
What Is an Anti Racist Therapist?
"Finding the right therapist is key to better mental health. Finding an inclusive, culturally competent and anti racist therapist is even more important.
So what is a culturally competent therapist? These are the surprising mental health benefits of seeing an inclusive, anti racist therapist that you should know."
How to Find a Good Therapist | Tips and Advice
How you show up in therapy is how you show up in life. Therapy is definitely not a one-size-fits-all experience and the experience will also vary! I'm sharing my own experience + my tips on how to find the RIGHT therapist for you!
Therapy For Trauma:
How to Process Trauma [EMDR techniques]
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing or EMDR Therapy is a powerful technique for fully processing trauma and taking back control of your emotions, behavior, and thoughts. In this interview discussion, Dr. Judy and MedCircle host Kyle Kittleson discuss:
What it means to fully process a memory of trauma
Why we sometimes don't fully process trauma
EMDR therapy explained: how an EMDR therapy session actually helps
How EMDR is different from other types of psychotherapy and treatments like Somatic Experiencing therapy
What bilateral stimulation entails and how it helps process trauma
How EMDR can result in trauma healing and how processing trauma through a trauma therapy like this can empower you to live a better life
Trauma and the Nervous System
"Somatic Experiencing is an approach that uses a body up approach to working with trauma, PTSD, Stress, Anxiety and depression.
Trauma can get trapped in the body when the body is stuck in chronic hyperarousal, in her book- Moving through Trauma, Ilene Smith shows how we can heal trauma by working with the body's deep wisdom."
Trauma and the Nervous System: A Polyvagal Perspective
This video was developed to give a basic introduction and overview of how trauma and chronic stress affects our nervous system and how those effects impact our health and well-being
Basic Therapy/Self-Help Resources:
The videos below are from mental health professionals and advocates speaking on ways to work towards healing and finding ways to get in control of your emotions. **Disclaimer*** these are not a replacement for therapy or professional medical help.
Feeling Anxious and Out of Control?
Name 5 things you can see, smell, feel, taste, and hear. This will help bring you to the present moment and be in touch with your surroundings. The more often we spend noticing whats around us, the less time we spend in our heads.
Write 10 things you are grateful for. I.e. the delicious meal you ate, the warmth of the sun. When we feel out of control our mind goes anywhere but the present moment. Being able to connect directly with your surroundings helps ground you and remind you that your thoughts and emotions are not in control of your life.
Make a list of 20 things you love about yourself. Maybe you can't fill out all 20 the first time, but loving yourself exactly as you are can help with the healing process -- especially when your autonomy has been taken away from you.
Stuck in a negative thought pattern? From PT
Try RAINS to lessen the effects on your emotional state and re-route them to more neutral feelings.
R = Recognize. Recognize the emotions or thoughts that are troubling you. Notice them without judgment. Naming them can also help shrink them to manageable size: "Story of how my friends will all desert me." "Worry about my son again." "Despising self for how I acted." Just noticing and naming the passing parade of your thoughts, feelings, and sensations can provide some immediate relief. "Oh, so that's what's on my mind." You may even notice that your painful feelings disappear after a while. "This too shall pass" can become words to live by.
A = Acknowledge, Accept, Allow. The next step is to acknowledge your distress and accept it as your present reality. Accepting the pattern does not mean you like it; it only means that you are able to put these unpleasant mental contents front and center, rather than allowing them to strum unconsciously under the surface of your mind. You might say to yourself, for example, "Yes, I'm worried about money again."
I = Inquire, Investigate. At this stage of the process, you can use your natural curiosity to delve more deeply into your distress. You can ask yourself: What triggered this current bout of distress? When have I felt this way before? What thoughts, feelings, and sensations are connected to these feelings? How realistic is my thinking? Are there actions I could take to help myself or another person? What do I need?
N = Non-identification. Your painful thoughts, feelings, and sensations are not you. Instead of identifying with them, you can mentally "step to the side" and watch them scroll by like a newsfeed.
S = Self-compassion. Self-compassion means offering yourself some friendliness, generosity, and sympathy. It is not self-pity; rather, it is a recognition and acceptance of your humanness, your imperfection, and your suffering. It is empathizing with yourself the way you might for your best friend or love partner. You might say to yourself, "It's hard for you when you feel so self-critical," for example.
Grounding Exercises
"A simple grounding exercise for managing anxiety and triggering the parasympathetic response. This simple activity can help you feel calm by giving you a practical way to use your 5 senses to remind your brain that you are actually safe. Grounding skills are more effective than coping skills for anxiety because they provide a longer-lasting and more sustainable way to resolve anxiety, actually re-training your nervous system to be calm, instead of just avoiding thinking about anxiety.
These Grounding Exercises for Anxiety can be helpful for Panic Attacks, Anxiety Attacks, PTSD, and work well with both Children and Adults."
Rewiring the Anxious Brain
"You can rewire your brain to be less anxious through a simple- but not easy process. Understanding the Anxiety Cycle, and how avoidance causes anxiety to spiral out of control, unlocks the key to learning how to tone down anxiety and rewire those neural pathways to feel safe and secure.
In this video, I teach three essential things you need to understand about anxiety, three steps to facing and overcoming anxiety, and how the brain can actually change (rewire) it's structure, function, and chemistry when you change how you think and act."
Healing When There is No Justice
Dr. Ramani explains what to do in the aftermath of narcisstic emotional abuse when you cannot get justice. Emotional and verbal abuse is often not recognized as a serious violence, and survivors know the pain it leaves behind. We need to reframe our way of thinking: Instead of seeing it as the perpetrator never getting a consequence, view it as winning your freedom from their gaslighting, dehumanization, violence, etc. You have the power to heal.
What To Do If You Can't Stop Ruminating About A Narcisstic Relationship
Rumination is an obsessive thought pattern that disrupts your daily life. It is often because someone wants to understand why something happened. In the aftermath of a narcissisitc relationship, one may keep wondering what they did wrong and the ways they could fix it. Often, it is unfixable, as we can't control the actions of others but have to face the burden of trauma. We can only move forward away from fear, shame, obsession, and pain.
Reactive Abuse: The Abused Abuser
"Darren Magee discusses the term 'Reactive Abuse', a common manipulation tactic employed by toxic people. A manipulation tactic of victim blaming narcissists often use to avoid responsibility and portray themselves as the victim, 'the abused abuser' It can leave victims asking 'am I the abuser here?' This video looks at what Reactive abuse is (blame shifting, victim shaming, gaslighting)."
If you are feeling ashamed about the way you acted as a survivor within an abusive relationship, please don't blame yourself. While you must take accountability for your actions and work to change your behaviors, remember that people will act out as far as their boundaries are pushed. You were doing what you needed to do to survive.
Comprehensive google doc including content such as:
CPTSD and Borderline Personality Disorder,
attachment theory and trauma,
Trauma Informed Parenting and Education,
Polyvagal Theory and Somatic Healing,
Structural Dissociation,
Domestic Violence and Abuse Resources,
Research on Schizophrenia, culture, and mental illness symptom variation and Court Bias and Misogyny
You can find Kina Penlope talk about these resources on her TikTok @complexptsdrecovery and checkout her linktree here
Look below for our other TikTok and Social Media Recommendations.
What is CPTSD? (Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
Pete Walker in his own words about CPTSD:
"CPTSD is a more severe form of Post-traumatic stress disorder. It is different from it by five of its most common and troublesome features: emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, a vicious inner critic and social anxiety are the most noticeable feature of CPTSD."
Because CPTSD is not in the DSM-V, many therapists do not diagnose it or even have knowledge of it. Often, trauma is labeled as a personality disorder such as Borderline Personality Disorder and Schizophrenia, especially in BIPOC communities. In therapy, we must advocate for ourselves and ensure that our therapists are treating us with unbiased information. Check videos above to find a culturally competent and trauma-informed therapist.
Healing Through Restorative/Transformative Justice
Building Accountable Communities // Part 1
"Accountability is a familiar buzz-word in contemporary social movements, but what does it mean? How do we work toward it? In this series of four short videos, anti-violence activists Kiyomi Fujikawa and Shannon Perez-Darby ask and explore: What does it look like to be accountable to survivors without exiling or disposing those who do harm? On October 26, 2018, Kiyomi and Shannon will join us for an online discussion exploring models of building accountable communities. This conversation will be framed by audience questions and moderated by Mariame Kaba."
Self-Accountability Video Here
People Who Do Harm are Not Monsters
How To Support Harm Doers in Accountability
Transformative justice practitioners understand that taking accountability is an active process. It involves harm doers choosing to be responsible for their behavior and actions. Therefore, how can we support people who cause harm in taking accountability for their actions?
In this video, people with years of experience facilitating processes between survivors of harm and people who have caused harmed talk about what it really takes for people to embrace accountability.
Course on Restorative Justice created by graduate students at George Washington University in collaboration with UVA Survivors. We DO NOT wish RJ to be co-opted by institutions and organizations trying to create the illusion of good politics. It must be followed in all its tenets and concepts, and its Indigenous roots recognized and respected. ***We recommend that this course be done in multiple sittings, as it is comprehensive and covers the many ways RJ can be applied in our communities.***
Media We Like
***Disclaimer: none of these resources are replacement for professional medical help***
TikTok
@ismatu.gwendolyn mutual aid and revolutionary love political education
@arguablysomaya anarchist, communist political education
@rythealee conscious parenting and trauma recovery
@cptsdtherapist alternative therapy (EMDR, bottom-up, coherence) education
@patrickteahantherapy childhood trauma education
@wagatwe Black anti-rape feminist theorist who talks about an array of social justice issues. Her website.
@drhanren Asian Psychologist who talks about all things therapy and mental health
@5hahem Black, gender-queer licensed therapist with accessible teachings on mental health + more
@micheline.maaolouf licensed therapist with accessible knowledge covering anxiety and trauma
@nova.starchild Intersex woman, Lesbian, Autistic creator and activist
@dvcccpa the Domestic Violence Center with healthy relationship/sex/intimacy teachings
@truthheals Black licensed therapist who talks about an array of mental health and societal topics
@hausofqueer "content by queer poc, for poc"
@pidgeo_n Intersex activist working to end intersex surgery
@crutches_and_spice Black Disabled activist who talks about ableism and the intersections of race and class among many things
@professorangeladavis clips of some of Davis' teachings
@theartiemack Black, Deaf, Queer scholar shares his daily life and teachings
Ericka Hart @ihartericka
@comprehensiveconsent
@peersupportspace
@dandelion.hill
@interruptcrim
@connectwithoumou
Dr. Mariel Buque @dr.marielbuque she talks about healing intergenerational trauma
@metoomanyvoices
@decolonizemyself
@anarchistbitches
@mia.mingus
@wagatwe
@traumaandco
@traumaawarecare
@decolonizingtherapy
@radicalroadmaps
Podcasts (please send us more!!):
Stuck Not Broken: Mental health podcast through the lens of the groundbreaking Polyvagal Theory from Dr Stephen Porges. Hosted by Justin Sunseri, a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in CA. (On Spotify and other apps too)
After: Surviving Sexual Assault: "Catriona Morton talks to fellow survivors of sexual assault and abuse about what happened to them and how they cope now." Listen on Apple, Spotify.
Maintenance Phase: "Every Tuesday, Mike and Aubrey debunk the junk science behind health & wellness fads, and decode their cultural meaning." Amazing podcast for understanding fatphobia and its cultural, social, medical, political, and econonomic effects for folks of all sizes.
Books:
The Happiness Trap;
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving;
The Body Keeps the Score,
Anger: Wisdom for Cooling the Flames;
Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents
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