People keep asking me about books they could read to educate themselves about cPTSD, DID, therapy or self-help options. The truth is that I myself have only read a very limited number of books and not all of them were helpful. I will share with you a list of books that I personally consider worth the time and money. You might find value in different literature.

 

 

Books about cPTSD

The body keeps the score – Bessel van der Kolk

This offers an overview of the development of the trauma diagnoses and the history of treatment approaches up to what is thought of as useful today. It is very good at explaining the physical component of PTSD and introduces a great variety of interventions that can give you ideas for further research

 

Trauma and recovery – Judith Herman

Offers a similar overview about the history of trauma, but from a distinct and very valuable point of view. It goes deeper into understanding cognitive and emotional patterns in survivors and phase-oriented therapy and offers a good addition to „the body keeps the score“.

 

Growing beyond survival – Elisabeth Vermilyea

This is a solid self-help book with the basic exercises and worksheets to learn them. It is very practical, tested and tried. Find the full book review over here.

 

 

Finding Solid Ground Program Workbook – Schielke, Brand, Lanius

Workbook for the new DID program for stabilization that is currently being tested. It focuses on symptom management, regulation, replacing toxic coping, and chronic suicidality. Because it has almost no parts work in it at all I put it in the cPTSD section because it will mostly help with the cPTSD side of DID. It is ideal for the beginning of the stabilization phase if you have lots of symptoms and no stability. Full review

 

 

The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy – Deb Dana

I have struggled with myself about where on this list I should put this book. It is written for Ts and some of the interventions are only possible to practice together with your T (who obviously should have read the book!). You will find a scientific introduction to arousal states and regulation as well as a considerable list of exercises that will help to come out of dysregualtion and develop self-regulation skills.

 

Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors – Janina Fisher

Currently the best book on working with structural dissociation in complex PTSD. Lots of explanations and structured tools on how to approach parts, an important read for everyone involved. Full review

 

 

Nurturing Resilience – Kathy Kain

What if early trauma impacted our development and led to a lasting injury in our ability to connect with other people and regulate ourselves? That is the question Kathy Kain is exploring. This book explains why we are the way we are, that it makes sense in the context of our trauma. Our nervous system developed differently. I think this is one of the best books to learn about developmental trauma.

 

 

The Mind-Body Stress Reset – Rebekkah LaDyne

This introduction to stress release and regulation covers basics of body work, the foundations of grounding and self-regulation. The exercises are small, gentle and practical, ideal for learning how to naturally regulate thoughout the day.

 

 

Truth and Repair – Judith Herman

An impactful analysis of the way society manages and fails to manage its responsibility in stopping sexual abuse. You learn about issues in society that foster the abuse of power, what society should do to make a difference and take responsibility, things that have been tried and how that worked out, and different approaches for the treatment of abusers and prevention. It paints a vision of justice and change. This is a mighty and impactful read and my favorite of 2023.

 

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Books about DID (and sub-forms)

 

The ISSTD guidelines for the treatment of DID

This is a 74 page document you can find here. Every DID patient and therapist should know this. It is the shortest summary of basic understanding of DID and the best way to treat it you can get. And it is for free.

 

The haunted Self – van der Hart, Nijenhuis, Steele

This book covers the theory of structural dissociation you and your T need to understand. It is not possible to treat DID safely without this knowledge and it makes therapy easier for patients if they understand what is happening with them. Find the full book review over here.

 

Coping with trauma-related dissociation – Boon, Steele, van der Hart

This is a practical workbook for patients and therapists that explains a lot of difficulties and offers exercises that can be done for self-help or within a therapy setting, even in a group. You can’t just read this book once, you have to work with it.

(„Treating trauma-related dissociation“ is a book specifically for DID Ts by the same authors, but you won’t find any good patient information here.)

 

Unshame – Carolyn Spring

A personal collection of conversations from therapy that approach the topic of shame from a bunch of different angles. Written by a person with DID, this feels very close to inside realities and emotionally relatable. It is not a textbook. That doesn’t make it less impactful. Following the process of someone else who learned how to overcome shame is incredibly encouraging and hits close to home.

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For complex DID (RA/MC)

Becoming yourself – Alison Miller

Mind-control is not covered in most DID literature. This book was written for survivors and gives step by step instructions for de-programming your system. If there is no trustworthy T available this can be done by yourself.

(„Healing the unimaginable“ is the therapist book by the same author. She advises survivors not to read it and stick to the survivor book. This will protect you from getting confused what is your own memory and what you might have picked up from her writing.)

 

The Tombs of Atuan – Ursula Le Guin

In this rather unusual fantasy novel a girl who was raised to become high priestess of a cult finds her way into the free world. We can observe the different steps it takes to challenge a belief system that we learned to be true without having to deal with topics of abuse at the same time. Parts of a system will go through this when they get in contact with the world outside the system and abuser group.

 

 

Organized sexual abuse – Michael Salter

There is a lot of crazy stuff out there about organized abuse. This book is sober and introduces facts, studies, the history of the topic over the decades, the psychology of abusers and the reports of survivors based on a qualitative study. It does a good job of demystifying different froms of organized abuse. Full review

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I have learned my most important lessons from books that were not about trauma, but about relationships, communication, boundaries and raising children. They are at the foundation of the creative interventions I developed for myself and for the way I do DID SystemWork.

 

Keep your love on – Danny Silk

This is a book about being a powerful person (opposed to a victim mentality), about being proactive with love, communicating well, even in difficult situations and boundaries. It is kept very simple and offers small but powerful concepts that help with relationships within the system and with other people. It is written by a christian author but it isn’t extremely heavy on religion and can be used by anyone. This is at the core of what we call SystemWork.

 

Loving our kids on purpose – Danny Silk

Same author as „Keep your love on“, but specifically for raising powerful children (or Littles). It is heavier on theology but the lessons about being unpunishable and avoiding power struggles within the system when dealing with younger parts are invaluable for us.

 

Boundaries – John Townsend, Henry Cloud

As the title says this book is all about boundaries, how to find out where your own boundaries are, how to communicate them and how to protect them from self-sabotage, manipulation and abuse. The authors have a christian background and use bible references for examples a lot.

 

Nonviolent communication – Marshall Rosenberg

This book teaches a way to communicate within a DID system and/or with other people in a way that is vulnerable and creates connection. It can help to confront and solve problems in relationships and in every day life. It can also help to be more aware of personal needs, our own and those of others.

 

Man’s search for meaning – Viktor Frankl

Part of this book is about life in a nazi concentration camp and about surviving. But more than that it is about finding meaning in life by integrating pain and trauma and growing from there. It can create hope and a new perspective that makes people rise above their pain and become someone who is deep, balanced and wise.

 

The fearless organization – Amy Edmondson

Meant for companies and organizations but just as valid and helpful for DID systems this book explains how to create an atmosphere within a system that is built on safety and being unpunishable. It is especially valuable for dominant parts who try to prevent failure through control and intimidation and quiet parts who are too scared to speak up. Systems with a strong hierarchy of few parts who get to decide and many parts who have to obey can experience a paradigm shift.

 

The Power of Fun: How to feel alive again – Catherine Price

Ignore how annoying and discouraging the first chapter sounds. This book introduces something like a recipe for a more enjoyable life. Concepts that lead to a sense of ‘having true fun’ are broken down into steps and tasks that we can influence. Even if we shoot for the moon, this will help us to at least land between the stars. If we don’t reach ‘true fun’ we can still reach Flow or a sense of Community. Whatever we get out of this, it can improve our quality of life.

 

 

I personally do not read books where survivors share their own abuse story. I am not interested in getting triggered. I cannot find comfort in reading other people’s healing stories because mine is different and it ends up meaning very little to me. I am also concerned that what I read might mix with my memories and I might not believe my own recovered memories if they are similar to something I read. That is why I will not give you any book recommendations for biographical books.

 

 

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When reading I sometimes stumble over books that are not really for patients but they could offer very practical help for therapists. I know that there are quite a few Ts reading this blog and so I decided to add them here too. (Please note that if these were great for patients I would have listed them above.)

 

Books for therapists

Treatment of Dissociative Identity Disorder – Techniques and Strategies for Stabilization by Colin Ross

This is a booklet written for clinicians to give them practical first steps when they just learn to work with DID. It helps with diagnosing and the most important SystemWork interventions that are needed for a DID system in crisis.

 

EMDR and Dissociation: The Progressive Approach – A. Gonzalez & D. Mosquera

An introduction on how to use EMDR for structural dissociation, including important changes to the standard protocol that are needed to keep clients safe and EMDR tools that help to increase communication and cooperation. Without knowing all this it is not safe to treat DID patients with EMDR.

 

The Trinity of Trauma – Ellert Nijenhuis

Book 1 is an in-depth analysis of the history and definition of the concepts of trauma and dissociation. It is a thorough meta analysis that reads like an encyclopedia at times, but it is absolutely essential for clinicians to know these foundations and know them well. Book 2 introduces the most effective way to work towards integration. Treat this like your bible. It is irrelevant how expensive it is. Ts need this understanding to treat their DID patients properly.

 

 

 

I am currently reading one trauma book a month. If I find something valuable I will add it to the list.