Library Guides: Trauma-informed Resources: Home

What Is Trauma?

In a brief presentation, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Bessel van der Kolk, MD, explains the causes and effects of trauma. The author of best-selling novel The Body Keeps the Score, Van der Kolk discusses the interweaving of poverty, racism and political factors with the experience of trauma. [7:48]

According to the Centers for Disease Control, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood. Trauma can also be caused by growing up in an unsafe or unstable environment. ACEs are connected to

Experiencing abuse or neglect
Witnessing or experiencing violence
Being exposed to adults with substance use or mental health problems
Experiencing instability due to parental separation or incarceration

The examples above are not a complete list of adverse experiences. Many other traumatic experiences could impact health and well-being. This can include not having enough food to eat, experiencing homelessness or unstable housing, or experiencing discrimination.

How to Be Trauma-Informed: Inside and Outside the Classroom
Michele Gordon Johnson, Cuesta College faculty in Child Development & Family Studies created this slide presentation to accompany the professional development discussion.

Anti-racist and Trauma-informed

Being Anti-Racist is Central to Trauma-Informed Care
This article argues that "systems and organizations must shift beyond performative action toward the fundamental transformation of becoming anti- racist and trauma-informed. This resource offers actionable principles and strategies that organizations can implement to make this move toward fundamental transformation. The authors are making a case for radical healing, starting with revisiting how we got to this precipice as a nation."

Library eBooks

The Body Awareness Workbook for Trauma by Julie Brown Yau
This cutting-edge guide offers simple skills for connecting and calming the body, balancing emotions, and rewiring old patterns of reactivity for better self-regulation. The mind-body approach in this book is designed to guide readers away from trauma and toward posttraumatic growth.
Relationship, Responsibility, and Regulation by Kristin Van Marter Souers; Pete Hall
Drawing from their extensive experience working with schools, students, and families throughout the country, the authors explain how to create a culture of safety in which everyone feels valued, important, and capable of learning.
Damaged: Childhood Trauma, Adult Illness, and the Need for a Health Care Revolution by Robert Maunder and Jonathan Hunter
Childhood adversity that is severe enough to be harmful throughout life is one of the biggest public health issues of our time, yet health care systems struggle to even acknowledge the problem. In Damaged, the authors call for a radical change, arguing that the medical system needs to be not only more compassionate but more effective at recognizing that trauma impacts everybody's health, from patient to practitioner.
Trauma-Informed Yoga: a Toolbox for Therapists by Joanne Spence
Although many forms of trauma treatment rely solely on talk therapy as a means of healing, we cannot "talk out" every issue related to trauma. Indeed, trauma is stored in the body and the brain and must be treated as such. Drawing from over 20 years of teaching and clinical practice, Spence masterfully weaves together the ancient wisdom of yoga with modern neuroscience and clinical practice in an accessible and compassionate manner. This how-to toolbox will arm you with knowledge and with powerful, yet simple, mind-body activities that reduce suffering and increase well-being.

Trauma Support Resources

Cuesta Student Health Center

The Student Health Center offers in-person and telehealth therapy services, referrals to local organizations, brief screenings online, wellness workshops, and a variety of digital tools that students can explore on our website 24/7.

SLO County Behavioral Health

The Youth Mental Health Services Division of the Behavioral Health Department provides a range of services for children and youth affected by mental illness, trauma, and environmental stress. These services include individual and family therapy, rehabilitation, case management, and psychiatric care.

Library books on the shelf

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. A pioneering researcher transforms our understanding of trauma and offers a bold new paradigm for healing in this New York Times bestseller.
My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem
In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. My Grandmother's Hands paves the way for a new, body-centered understanding of white supremacy--how it is literally in our blood and our nervous system.