Sidran Book Collection
Content focused on trauma-informed care
In Collaboration
The titles below are now available through the Traumatic Stress Institute with the help of our printing partner, Levellers Press.
Links here will lead to their website to complete your purchase.
Sidran Institute Press is now part of the Traumatic Stress Institute
The Sidran Institute Press, established in 1990, was the publishing division of the Sidran Institute. Specializing in practical tools for healing and for teaching, the Press produced resource materials for use by professionals, paraprofessionals, survivors, and survivors’ friends and family. These titles will still be published under the Sidran Institute Press name, but are now available through the Traumatic Stress Institute with the help of our printing partner, Leveller’s Press.

Trauma-Informed Treatment: The Restorative Approach
Author: Patricia D. Wilcox, LCSW
This book is the centerpiece of TSI’s Restorative Approach® (RA) training, a trauma-informed alternative to traditional “point and level” systems for child congregate care settings.
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It answers the question: “Now that I understand how trauma affects children, what should I actually do on Monday?”
RA, rooted in attachment theory and the principles of restorative justice, translates what we know about trauma, the brain, and how children heal into specific strategies that all treatment providers can use.

Growing Beyond Survival
Author: Elizabeth Vermilyea
This self-management workbook teaches skills that empower survivors to take control of and de-escalate their most distressing trauma-related symptoms.
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Beginning with a clear explanation of trauma and its effects, Growing Beyond Survival then supplies a toolkit of growth techniques for survivors. It includes many worksheets, mindfulness practices, visual arts exercises, and journal prompts. Vermilyea also provides sleep strategies, tools to develop self-awareness, and emotion management techniques, then suggests action plans for various types of situations by combining these tools.

Ethics in Victims Services
Author: Melissa Hook
A skill-building resource that will help victim assistance providers think through common and complex ethical dilemmas as they develop, using a decision-making framework.
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Readers have the chance to assess their personal values, moral orientation, and personal bias to consider how these elements influence the decisions they make in the workplace. Exercises in ethical decision-making allow individuals and groups the benefit of forethought: the chance to practice the process through which common dilemmas are solved in a workshop environment.
Marti Anderson of the Crime Victim Assistance Division in the Iowa Attorney General’s Office praised the book for “successfully communicating the core ethics of the victim rights and service field…it is a must-read whether one has been in the field for one month or 30 years.”

Managing Traumatic Stress
Through Art: Drawing from
the Center
Authors: Barry M. Cohen, M.A., A.T.R.,
Mary-Michola Barnes, M.A., A.T.R.,
& Anita B. Rankin, M.A.
This workbook offers everyone – regardless of previous experience or artistic talent – to manage symptoms of traumatic stress in a creative, life-affirming way.
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Three art therapists have collaborated to produce this unique workbook designed especially for trauma survivors. Managing Traumatic Stress Through Art introduces inventive ways to understand, manage, and transform the aftereffects of trauma. It was created to inspire survivors to explore the aftermath of traumatic stress as it affects self-image, relationships with others, and functioning in the world.
The 26 projects in this book encourage creative growth and help to establish a sense of personal safety, while exploring and honoring feelings of anger, fear, shame, and sadness. The art experiences are broad enough to be of value to survivors of a wide variety of traumatic experiences, ranging from childhood abuse to accidents to disabling mental illness.
Highly recommended for both client use and workshop participants.

Restoring Hope and Trust: An Illustrated Guide to Mastering Trauma
Authors: Lisa Lewis, Ph.D.,
Kay Kelly, MSW, LSCSW, & Jon G. Allen, Ph.D.
Understanding how childhood trauma overwhelms adult well-being is the cornerstone of this accessible explanation of trauma, its effects, and strategies for healing.
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A product of the authors’ combined 25 years of work with groups of trauma patients at the Menninger Clinic and the Heritage Mental Health Clinic, this is a compact volume based on a ten-session course that brings old and new understanding together in the psychoeducational approach.
Co-author Lisa Lewis notes the importance of learning new strategies for dealing with past trauma: “Too often patients want to jump into the processing [of trauma] before they have found healthy ways of regulating their emotions. It’s important to be able to talk about the emotions, but to not be overwhelmed by them. We want the details to eventually bleach out and become more like other memories of what has happened in a persons’ lifetime….Our goal is to rob the trauma of its power.”
Many practical strategies for healing are included, such as normalizing symptoms in a way that will help survivors and their loved ones feel less alone.

Risking Connection®: A Training Curriculum for Working with Survivors of Childhood Abuse
Authors: Karen W. Saakvitne, Ph.D.,
Sarah Gamble, Ph.D., Laurie Anne Pearlman, Ph.D., and Beth Tabor Lev, Ph.D.
This original curriculum was written for adults and grew out of a successful lawsuit by consumer survivors in the State of Maine whereby a consent decree required…
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…the development of a curriculum and training program for public mental health workers about trauma-sensitive services.
Research in the field of traumatology demonstrates that many of our most difficult-to-treat, suicidal, and self-injuring patients have histories of childhood trauma. The tenet of this curriculum is that understanding the psychological consequences of early trauma – as well as utilizing state-of-the-art treatment practices – will result in mental health care that is more clinically effective.
Since its initial publication, the RC curriculum has been adapted to a wide variety of professional groups, including child-serving professionals, foster parents, faith leaders, domestic violence professionals, and primary care physicians.

Risking Connection® in Faith Communities: A Training Curriculum
for Faith Leaders Supporting Trauma
Authors: Jackson Day, M.Div., M.P.H.,
Elizabeth Vermilyea, M.A.,
Jennifer Wilkerson, M.S., & Esther Giller, M.A.
This adaptation of the Risking Connection® curriculum focuses on the healing role that clergy of all denominations can play in the lives of their congregations’ trauma survivors.
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Many clergy are not confident in their ability to support people affected by trauma in congregational settings, and yet trauma is a common human experience. This book will help clergy understand the nature of psychological trauma, how it affects people, and how faith leaders can help. Particular attention is paid to the spiritual impact of trauma.
The curriculum (which can be used by an individual or as part of a workshop or continuing pastoral education), does not attempt to turn clergy into therapists. Rather, the material helps clergy learn about growth-promoting relationships, how to access and more productively use the internal resources we have, and to enhance those resources through greater self-awareness.
Whether serving as a pastor, rabbi, priest, imam, religious or lay leader, you are a crucial resource to your community. This book can better equip you to support the needs of those affected by trauma in your midst.

Secondary Traumatic Stress: Self-Care Issues for Clinicians, Researchers & Educators
Edited by: B. Hudnall Stamm, Ph.D.
As our knowledge of traumatic stress grows, so does our awareness of the high cost of caring. This book brings together founders and experts on the concept of secondary traumatic stress.
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Beginning with the assumption that caring for people who have experienced highly stressful events puts the caregiver at risk for developing similar stress-related symptoms, this book brings together some of the best thinkers in the trauma field to write about the prevention and treatment of Secondary Traumatic Stress, and in a personal way explores our ethical obligations to each other, to our communities, and to future trauma research.

The Wisdom of the 5 Messengers: Learning to Follow the Guidance of Feelings
Author: Kerry Paul Altman, Ph.D.
We often have misguided and unrealistic ideas about what feelings are and what they offer, tending to view them as something to be managed or controlled.
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Yet their transient nature makes this impossible. In fact, our effort to control or deny our emotions is the surest way to remain their servant, while listening to the guidance these messengers offer is our best hope for peace of mind. The Wisdom of the Five Messengers offers not only a fresh perspective on feelings, but offers practical strategies to rediscover emotional truth and the contentment that follows healthy choices and self-acceptance.

The Way of the Journal: A Journal Therapy Workbook for Healing
Author: Kathleen Adams, M.A.
Therapist and author Kathleen Adams, M.A. teaches her trademark ten-step “quick and easy” approach to using reflective writing as a therapeutic process.
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Adams created this method while working with patients at a national treatment center in order to provide sexual abuse survivors and dissociative clients with ways to maximize structure, balance, and permission while minimizing overstimulation and overwhelming feeling.
In a well-designed workbook format, The Way of the Journal teaches 10 fundamental journalkeeping skills that are helpful for those in treatment for a variety of emotional difficulties, and that are of particular benefit to people with dissociative diagnoses. It includes a Resource chapter that includes journal therapy interventions for common clinical situations.

Multiple Personality Disorder from the Inside Out
Edited by: Barry M. Cohen, M.A., A.T.R.,
Esther Giller, M.A., and Lynn W.
In this unique book, persons with Dissociative Disorders and their significant others address the complex issues of diagnosis, therapy, and maintaining personal relationships.
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Now in its 12th printing, this book has helped thousands of people who have or who know someone who has a dissociative disorder.
Contributions by 146 individuals diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder and the people with whom they share their lives have been gathered into an accessible and practical volume for therapists, clients, and lay readers interested in how to better be supportive of individuals who suffer with dissociative diagnoses. Many will find that the book validates their own experiences and feelings, as it explores the post-diagnosis journey.
Winner of the prestigious 1991 Distinguished Achievement Award given by the International Society for the Study of Multiple Personality and Dissociation

Essence of Being Real: Relational Peer Support for Men & Women Who Have Experienced Trauma
Author:
The Sidran Institute
This second edition offers trauma survivors a way to explore their experiences, receive support, and work through the stigma often associated with needing help to heal.
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The Essence of Being Real is based on the Risking Connection® program. Its goal is to provide a blueprint for mutual peer support groups in which participants are willing to risk being “real” in community with each other – for each person to be honest about who they are, where they are, and what they need. In these support groups participants learn ways to share their process, to dilute the aftereffects of trauma, and to replace problematic reactions with something healthier.
It includes a roadmap for organizations and individuals to create Being Real groups by developing these three skills:
- How to observe, follow, and lead (the role requirements of a participant in a group)
- How to address challenging moments in a group as a leader and a follower
- How to plan and deliver an effective meeting when it is your turn to lead