Healing the Oppressed Body: A Therapeutic Guide for Radical Self-Liberation

by Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik

An essential guide to healing from oppression-based trauma, for everyone left outside of mainstream conversations

There are many books on trauma healing that can change people’s lives. Yet when queer and trans people, people of color, and all of us living at the margins look for books that reflect our own experiences and that specifically name the oppression we experience as trauma, we’re left empty-handed. There’s little that speaks to the specific traumas we homophobia, transphobia, institutional injustices, isolation, medical trauma, and discrimination at every turn. We deserve to have ourselves reflected and considered in the world of trauma recovery.

In Healing the Oppressed Body, somatic therapist Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik provides the best tools and approaches to healing trauma and filters them through an anti-oppression lens, making sure they’re uniquely impactful for all of us at the margins.

In this audiobook, you’ll learn how trauma is stored and processed by our minds and bodies and how we can work with our amazingly flexible brains and nervous systems to create pathways to healing. You’ll understand just how and why trauma that occurs in our earliest days can affect us throughout our lives. You’ll learn to embrace your Internal Family, making yourself whole. In Healing the Oppressed Body, Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik lovingly offers us the best, most radical solutions to tap into our sources of healing. Along the way, you’ll discover tools and techniques for emotional regulation and therapeutic modalities to heal from oppression-based trauma.

Whether inside the therapy room or on your own, in Healing the Oppressed Body, you’ll learn how to heal through growing compassion for all parts of yourself and others, finding community support and love, and celebrating the freedom to be your true self.

Genres: Nonfiction

272 pages, Hardcover

Published March 3, 2026

Reviews

[Sol]

I loved this nonfiction book. It tackles all the nuances of trauma, from its initial impact, to how the body responds to it vs. how the brain responds to it. It also tackles theories about how trauma affects interpersonal relationships in childhood and in adulthood. I also appreciated how it doesn't stop only at the individual level, and instead expands the nature of trauma to the systemic oppressions that we face everyday such as patriarchy, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, racism, late-stage capitalism, etc. It also delves deeper into how generations and generations before us have encountered these horrors before, and we inherit them--therefore, we must study them so we can learn how to break centuries-long cycles.
It's a very detailed book, and I think everyone would benefit from reading it no matter how well you know and understand the nature your and others' trauma. You can benefit from it even if only in the knowing that you're not alone.

Thank you NetGalley for the e-access in exchange for an honest review!

[Lisa Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent book this is. This author starts by talking about how oppression causes trauma, and talks about what trauma does do our bodies and our brains. They then discuss attachment theory and Internal Family Systems (IFS) as a way of explaining how our oppression/trauma was metabolized and also how it might be healed. There are some great exercises here, like extensive directions on how to create a Safe Place (an exercise used in EMDR), which I’ve already shared with a couple of clients. Then we move to how we heal from oppression based trauma - whether that is race, gender, sexuality, disability or class based. Also discussed is legacy or inherited oppression trauma, and the trauma we are all experiencing from living in our “modern” world of capitalism, climate change & pandemics. Literally every therapist should read this book.

[Kaleigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly informative and well written for those who are not therapists to read and gain a wealth of information and support from. I would highly recommend, if accessible, to be in therapy alongside reading as some of the "Do It Yourself" sections could be triggering and bring up memories, experiences, feelings, etc that might be hard to navigate alone. I also highly recommend for therapists who have not yet, or want to work with those in marginalized bodies, this would be a wonderful resource in that work. Overall, highly recommend, just would suggest to read as a companion to doing deeper work with a professional, if accessible, for clients and for therapists to get more specialized training and utilize this as a resource in that work.

[Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s pretty good :) very gay though

[Madison Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both a beautiful gift to trauma survivors as well as a must read for every person engaged in the work and privilege of healing alongside others. I wish this book had existed when I was in my MSW program, but what a gift to have it now. The author makes concepts accessible and relatable to those of us who the field of psychotherapy still leaves at the margins. I can’t recommend it enough!!