Holistically Treating Complex PTSD: A Six-Dimensional Approach: Guidance for Therapists, Coaches, and Other Helpers to Repair the Damage and Arrested ... ... Suffered by Childhood Trauma Survivors

by Pete Walker

My latest book is textbook-like, as it is a guide for psychotherapists and other helpers to learn my multidimensional approach to effectively treating the childhood trauma that is commonly at the roots of Complex PTSD. This book reorganizes and greatly expands the material of my earlier books. It emphasizes the crucial importance of relational psychotherapy in healing the fear and distrust that most survivors have of all other people. It can deeply aid therapists to mend the damage and arrested development that survivors experienced as traumatized children in the “care” of abusive and/or neglectful parents or other caretakers.

Many therapists have gratefully conveyed to me that the map, perspective, and tools herein for healing complex trauma aids their clients to identify, repair and evolve six key dimensions of their damaged and arrested development. These dimensions are the Relational, Behavioral, Cognitive, Emotional, Somatic, and Spiritual layers of their as-yet unmanifested innate Intelligence.

This damage and developmental delay can be remediated when therapists and/or other supportive people use the guidance and techniques that are fleshed out in this book. Such practice has helped many of them to become highly effective, trauma-informed therapists.

The psychoeducational approach herein helps survivors see that their symptoms are normal child reactions to abnormal upbringings that are steeped in abuse and neglect, danger, and lovelessness. Numerous trauma survivors tell me that my books are especially beneficial because they are almost immediately helpful, de-shaming, relieving and comforting.

Therapists can learn how to greatly aid survivors by helping them to see that, as children, they were helpless to recognize and defend themselves from being traumatized. With the therapists' help and compassion, this knowledge then aids them to develop self-compassion for their lifelong suffering.

When therapists successfully midwife the rebirth of survivors’ innate self-compassion, they can then expand it into helping them reclaim their instincts of healthy self-protection. This can then be used against their early brainwashing of being indoctrinated with a self-hating inner critic that viciously blames for all their suffering. Many survivors have embraced my model because it guides them to develop their arrested, instinctual trauma-healing self-kindness and self-protectiveness.

The fact that I am a CPTSD survivor myself with a good deal of recovery enables me to enrich this book with illustrative vignettes of what can and cannot aid their recovery. Over and over, survivors tell me that my vulnerable self-disclosure calms and de-shames them, teaches them therapeutic self-help techniques, and increases their motivation to work at recovering.

Genres: Psychology

464 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 6, 2024

About the author

Pete Walker is a "general practitioner" who has a private practice in Berkeley, California, in the serene Claremont Hotel neighborhood. He has been working as a counselor, lecturer, writer and group leader for thirty-five years, and as a trainer, supervisor and consultant of other therapists for 20 years.

Pete Walker is a "general practitioner" who has a private practice in the Rockridge neighborhood of the San Francisco East Bay Area. He specializes in helping adults who were traumatized in childhood, especially those whose repeated exposure to abuse and/or neglect left them with the symptoms of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [Cptsd].
source: http://www.pete-walker.com

Pete has also experienced Complex PTSD.

Reviews

[Nolan Christensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read as part of the research I've been doing on trauma and healing.
I listened to this book through Libby in Audiobook format. The reader was consistent and professional.

Pros: A very blunt and honest appraisal of trauma, what it does to people, and how to cope with it. Does not sugarcoat the reality of the situation, does not offer magical solutions or theories as responses to real-world problems. Presented ways to keep track of what one is struggling with and the various tools to be used to address them.

Cons: Could be rather dry at times. Could get lost in the point of a paragraph now and again- word count could be trimmed to keep it tighter. Obviously, simply reading the book won't make someone better, so the individual needs to show up with willingness to enact what the author presents.

All in all, an in-depth look at precisely what it claims in the title.

Would recommend to anyone struggling with trauma/ptsd or looking to better understand how their mind is coping with past pains.

Would read again.

[Courtney]

Note to self: I bought this on Audible with high expectations because I loved two of his other books on CPTSD. I listened to five hours of it, I think, and part of the reason I didn't enjoy it was due to a writing preference. I strongly dislike when authors constantly reference other chapters or overviews of what is coming up, etc. But besides that, things weren't landing for various reasons.

I also have experienced tons of trauma beyond childhood (PTSD), so I would love to find a helpful resource on navigating both.

I hope Tim Fletcher and Nate Postelthwait write books on complex trauma. They are also wonderful resources. I'd much rather read a book than listen to podcasts and YouTube videos.