Books like Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma

01

The Body Keeps the Score

Bessel van der Kolk · Psychology

The Body Keeps the Score is Bessel van der Kolk's account of four decades spent studying and treating trauma, from Vietnam veterans at the VA in the 1970s to survivors of childhood abuse, accidents, and domestic violence.

Shares trauma and healing with Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.

02

When the Body Says No

Gabor Maté · Health

When the Body Says No is Gabor Maté's investigation into how chronic stress and emotional suppression contribute to serious illness.

Both dig into trauma.

03

An Unquiet Mind

Kay Redfield Jamison · Psychology

Kay Redfield Jamison is a psychiatrist and professor who has manic-depressive illness.

A kindred psychology read.

04

Anatomy of the Spirit

Caroline Myss · Health

Anatomy of the Spirit is Caroline Myss's attempt to synthesize three major spiritual traditions — the Hindu chakra system, the Christian sacraments, and the Kabbalistic Tree of Life — into a unified model of human energy anatomy.

Both dig into healing.

05

In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness

Peter A. Levine · Psychology

Peter Levine's central claim is that trauma is not primarily a psychological wound but a physiological one.

Shares trauma and nervous system with Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.

06

The Myth of Normal

Gabor Maté · Health

The Myth of Normal is Gabor Maté's most ambitious book, co-written with his son Daniel Maté.

Shares trauma and healing with Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma.

07

Adult Children of Alcoholics

Janet G. Woititz · Psychology

Adult Children of Alcoholics is Janet Woititz's clinical guide to the lasting psychological patterns that develop in children raised in alcoholic families.

Both dig into trauma.

08

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

Ishmael Beah · Memoir

Ishmael Beah was twelve years old when the Sierra Leone civil war reached his village and he was separated from his family.

Both dig into trauma.

09

Can't Hurt Me

David Goggins · Memoir

Can't Hurt Me is David Goggins's memoir of escaping an abusive childhood, failing military entrance requirements, becoming a Navy SEAL, and then becoming one of the most accomplished endurance athletes in the world — not through talent or privilege but through a deliberate, painful process of forcing himself past every limit he had.

Both dig into trauma.

10

Hunger

Roxane Gay · Memoir

Hunger is Roxane Gay's memoir about her body, the trauma that shaped it, and the world's persistent refusal to accommodate it.

Both dig into trauma.

11

Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body

Roxane Gay · Memoir

Hunger is Roxane Gay's memoir of her body — how it came to be the way it is, what she has thought about it, and what it means to live in a body that the world reads as a problem to be solved.

Both dig into trauma.

12

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Gabor Maté · Health

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is Gabor Maté's book about addiction, written while he was working as a physician in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, one of North America's most concentrated pockets of poverty, drug use, and homelessness.

Both dig into trauma.