The Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook by Erika Shershun draws on somatic psychotherapy to help survivors of sexual assault/abuse work through their trauma and find healing. The author herself is a sexual assault survivor. The book isn’t specifically oriented towards either isolated traumatic incidents or complex trauma, but seems like it could speak to both. It’s set up as a workbook with questions and exercises for the reader, and illustrations are incorporated to demonstrate some of the exercises.
The author explains that trauma isn’t cognitive, it’s biological. Polyvagal theory is heavily drawn upon as the main basis for describing how trauma affects the mind and body. Interestingly (or at least, interesting to me) was that the amygdala didn’t get a single mention. Aspects of the trauma response, such as tonic immobility as part of the freeze response, are described to help survivors understand why they responded the way they did. The brain’s way of handling trauma memories is also discussed.
The book also covers topics like safety, self-compassion, boundaries, and dealing with difficult emotions like anger, guilt, and shame. Mindfulness was presented as a way of creating new neural pathways, and embodiment was described as the antidote to dissociation.
There were some New Age-y bits that were described as though they were literal rather than metaphorical. The author writes that after a serious trauma, “your energy is pulled upwards.” She adds that loss of grounding occurs on a broader scale because “Our culture reveres the brain, so generally our energy is focused higher in the body.” She then tied these metaphorical/spiritual ideas that aren’t literally true into creating an imbalance in the autonomic nervous system. When you mix metaphorical/spiritual with the literal/physiological, you can end up being left with nonsense.
The nonsense continues: “Although not usually the case when healing from sexual trauma, it’s possible to be overgrounded, where your energy is not flowing upward from Earth’s magnetic field.” If that works spiritually, that’s fantastic, but in a book that’s also emphasizing physiology, there needs to be some distinction made.
The author describes ideas about the heart’s electromagnetic fields, rhythms, coherence, and entrainment, all of which seems to come from the company HeartMath, which sounds a bit dubious. She recommends readers get their heart rate variability sensor, which retails on their website for USD 159.
Parts of the book are drawn verbatim from posts on the author’s blog. There’s no mention of this in the book, but I happened to stumble across it while looking to see if the author had any connection to HeartMath.
I reached the end of this book thinking huh, this wasn’t really what I expected. Will some survivors find it helpful? Sure. Will you know from reading the book description whether it will be your thing? Quite possibly not. I think that if people have some familiarity with polyvagal theory and it speaks to them or interests them, this book will probably be appealing. If it doesn’t do much for you, this book probably won’t either.
The Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook is available on Amazon (affiliate link).
I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley.
You can find my other reviews on the MH@H book review index or on Goodreads.
I appreciate how you didn’t totally dispel the author’s work, even though she leaned a bit too much on the new age concepts, which btw would also detract from the book for me as well.
I would have preferred had I know there would be that element going in.
That makes sense. Good job! 🙂
We clicked your link to their heart monitor, and found their pitch is to transform unpleasant states like stress and anxiety into pleasant states like gratitude and ease.
They claim to have 300 studies related to the product, but that doesn’t mean the studies prove or validate their methods or promised outcomes. In fact, the one study they reference that we looked at says in its abstract that the expected increase in psychophysiological coherence (stemming from reduced anxiety) was not present.
Presenting pseudoscience as fact in the book seems dangerous without an introductory orientation or disclaimer. We are open to the intermingling of them to some extent but this book doesn’t sound like it meets our needs for trust, effectiveness, and integrity. Thanks for the review
One of the people on their scientific advisory board is a “planetary healer.” Some planetary healing would be nice, but somehow a scientific advisory board doesn’t seem like quite the right fit for it…
Science-fiction advisory board?
I’m interested in polyvagal theory but not hokey pseudoscience butchering things, and a “recommendation” for what looks to be an overpriced heart monitor.
Plenty of free and okayish smartphone apps, my government just gave every household an oximeter that also measures pulse per minute.
The heart monitor is different from your basic heart rate monitor in that it measures heart rate variability, which polyvagal theory says is important, but the idea of monitoring your HRV just because seems pretty fringe-y. What makes me a bit dubious about polyvagal theory, especially the finer point of it, is that the research is pretty much all Stephen Porges all the time, and without more independent confirmation, the specifics probably shouldn’t be considered as gospel, although this author seems to do just that.
Ooohhh, I see about the heart monitor.
Good point on how most of polyvagal theory is Stephen Porges. He’s probably going to be considered/maybe is already a giant like Bessel van de Kolk, but yeah, independent confirmation from a variety of high quality research is really important to prove it’s indeed a sound theory.
His theory has certainly taken off, and the bigger picture seems to fit very well with what survivors experience, but in terms of the physiological nitty gritty details being solid, I don’t think those can be accepted as a given without more independent confirmation. For example, if heart rate variability is so critically tied into the whole thing, how has that piece not been extensively built upon by a whole pile other researchers? I also question it a bit when people who have no reason to have a background in the physiological nitty gritty, like this book’s author, lean really hard into that aspect of polyvagal theory, as it gives the impression of spouting off what they’ve been taught without knowing quite enough to critically evaluate it. And given the pseudoscience bits, I’m pretty confident the author doesn’t know quite enough.
I agree with you. ❤
Wow, you’re “pretty confident the author doesn’t know quite enough”, how about actually reading the book rather than cherry picking and taking things out of context. How about speaking to the author rather than making assumptions. Please read my rebuttal below.
BTW, I learned about HRV several years before Porges published his first book on Polyvagal Theory. I write about Polyvagal Theory in chapter 2, HRV in chapter 8, you seem to be conflating the two.
I’m the author of the Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook and would like to offer a rebuttal to your review. The book covers many topics you didn’t mention in the review, such as flashbacks, triggers, nightmares, panic, fear, intuition, consent, grief, issues with sexuality, pelvic floor pain, and resilience. The quick mention of topics you chose not to criticize were oversimplified, such as “embodiment was described as the antidote to dissociation”, when there was much more offered on the topic.
Before I go further, a little background about how the book came to be:
Despite years of talk therapy, it took me over two decades to heal from sexual trauma. Seventeen years into therapy my symptoms worsened and I was later diagnosed with PTSD. There were few books on healing from sexual trauma available, especially for those who didn’t experience childhood sexual assault (I later learned that I had but didn’t identify as a CSA survivor at the time).
I realized I had to take healing into my own hands, and began to study somatic psychology, and other modalities trying everything that might help me to heal. It wasn’t until I pieced together these different practices and modalities that I finally began to see my symptoms improve. I’ve been diagnosis and symptom free for years now. The HSTW grew out of my desire to help other survivors get these kind of results, which is why I specialize in working with sexual trauma survivors.
Back to the rebuttal:
You write that “Polyvagal Theory is heavily drawn upon as the main basis for describing how trauma affects the mind and body.” The book has a chapter devoted largely to somatic psychology, and there are practices and mentions of how the body and mind are impacted by trauma derived from somatic psychology throughout the book. Your statement is not accurate.
What would be accurate is that an introduction to Polyvagal Theory is given along with practices to help readers understand why their body responded the way it did, and to recognize which state their autonomic nervous system is in so that they can make an informed decision on how to shift their state.
The company HeartMath was not my only resource in discussing HRV, entrainment, and coherence. Nor did I “recommend readers get their heart rate variability sensor.” I simply informed readers of three options to help improve HRV, which in turn downregulates the sympathetic nervous system. One of those options cost $3. at the time, funny how you didn’t mention that company.
If you consider Eastern Medicine practices that date back 1000’s of years, Somatic Psychology, and Energy Psychology to be New Age-y, I suppose you can put me in that box, although it does not align with my definition of the term. I did not cite science when speaking of energy because science has yet to understand much about energy.
I was speaking about energy in the context of grounding. Toe tapping, a grounding exercise included in the book from Traditional Chinese Medicine, was the first practice that helped me to finally see results. My flashbacks and triggers lessened in frequency, duration, and intensity. This was the first thing to give me hope that I would heal. I’ve seen the same results with many of the survivors I’ve worked with.
I was taught from multiple sources, and have learned from my own observation what I wrote about energy being drawn upward. Overgrounding is covered in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, a well-respected trauma modality. Again, my concern is getting survivors the results they want to see.
You seem to be trying to shame me for using excerpts of my own writing from a few of my blog posts. I’m not the only author to do this, and have no idea why this is an issue for you?
What bothers me most about your review is that it brings on a similar feeling as when I learned a Michigan school district had banned my workbook. Like them, you are discouraging survivors from discovering a resource that could go a long way in helping them to heal. Fortunately, the thousands of survivors and therapists who have actually read the book and incorporated the core practices into their healing journey feel differently.
This book was very helpful for me. I recommend it for all types of trauma as well.