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Somatic Practices For Trauma: A practical intro to somatics and trauma, with practices to help heal your nervous system, release physical and emotional pain and create a loving mind-body connection.
Reconnect with Your Body. Regulate Your Nervous System. Recover Your Sense of Self.
Trauma doesn’t just live in your mind. it lingers in your body, shaping how you feel, move, and live. Somatic Practices for Trauma, written by Lucy Foster-Perkins and Rachel Fearnley, co-founders of The Whole Health Project, is your gentle trauma recovery guide to understanding and healing those hidden wounds, especially for those recovering from emotional pain, nervous system dysregulation, or past abuse.
This isn’t just another entry among books on trauma. It's a compassionate, body-based roadmap designed to help you reconnect with your body and find calm, one accessible step at a time.
Grounded in neuroscience and infused with warmth, this body based healing guide offers practical tools to heal your nervous system, release chronic stress, and cultivate a lasting mind body connection. Whether you’re new to somatic work or a wellness practitioner seeking trauma aware tools, Lucy and Rachel’s clear, jargon-free approach meets you where you are, no overwhelm, no complex theory, just real healing.
What You’ll Understand How Trauma Lives in the Body – Learn why trauma is stored in the nervous system, not just the mind and what that means for healing chronic stress and healing trauma.Recognize Nervous System States – Identify signs of shutdown, freeze, hypervigilance, and dissociation so you can respond rather than react.Reconnect Safely Through Awareness – Explore how tuning into body signals can help you build trust with your body, gently and sustainably.Explore Breath, Movement, and Stillness – Use breathwork, grounding, and emotional release tools to support your journey. Ideal for those beginning with somatic exercises for beginners.Build Your Routine Without Overwhelm – Whether you’re structured or freeform, you’ll learn how to develop a consistent somatic rhythm through self healing practices.Avoid Common Pitfalls – Gain insight on how to safely bring somatic work into personal healing or professional mental health therapy practice.
What’s 9 short, digestible chapters that you can explore at your own paceClear, non-clinical explanations of key somatic principlesOver a dozen guided practices including breathwork and meditation for stress, mindful movement, and supportive touchDownloadable 2-week journal and access to audio recordings to deepen your practice
If you’ve been searching for a compassionate, research-informed, and truly approachable way to regulate your nervous system, this book will help you rediscover safety, clarity, and connection from the inside out. Whether you're just beginning or have read countless books on trauma, this resource offers something fresh and empowering.
From nervous system resets to emotional balance and the ability to own your anxiety, it's also a supportive tool for long-term stress relief, stress management, and sustainable natural healing. If you're passionate about growth, it's a meaningful addition to your self improvement journey.
Click “Add to Cart” now and begin your journey toward lasting transformation, with the help of Somatic Practices for Trauma .
Trauma doesn’t just live in your mind. it lingers in your body, shaping how you feel, move, and live. Somatic Practices for Trauma, written by Lucy Foster-Perkins and Rachel Fearnley, co-founders of The Whole Health Project, is your gentle trauma recovery guide to understanding and healing those hidden wounds, especially for those recovering from emotional pain, nervous system dysregulation, or past abuse.
This isn’t just another entry among books on trauma. It's a compassionate, body-based roadmap designed to help you reconnect with your body and find calm, one accessible step at a time.
Grounded in neuroscience and infused with warmth, this body based healing guide offers practical tools to heal your nervous system, release chronic stress, and cultivate a lasting mind body connection. Whether you’re new to somatic work or a wellness practitioner seeking trauma aware tools, Lucy and Rachel’s clear, jargon-free approach meets you where you are, no overwhelm, no complex theory, just real healing.
What You’ll Understand How Trauma Lives in the Body – Learn why trauma is stored in the nervous system, not just the mind and what that means for healing chronic stress and healing trauma.Recognize Nervous System States – Identify signs of shutdown, freeze, hypervigilance, and dissociation so you can respond rather than react.Reconnect Safely Through Awareness – Explore how tuning into body signals can help you build trust with your body, gently and sustainably.Explore Breath, Movement, and Stillness – Use breathwork, grounding, and emotional release tools to support your journey. Ideal for those beginning with somatic exercises for beginners.Build Your Routine Without Overwhelm – Whether you’re structured or freeform, you’ll learn how to develop a consistent somatic rhythm through self healing practices.Avoid Common Pitfalls – Gain insight on how to safely bring somatic work into personal healing or professional mental health therapy practice.
What’s 9 short, digestible chapters that you can explore at your own paceClear, non-clinical explanations of key somatic principlesOver a dozen guided practices including breathwork and meditation for stress, mindful movement, and supportive touchDownloadable 2-week journal and access to audio recordings to deepen your practice
If you’ve been searching for a compassionate, research-informed, and truly approachable way to regulate your nervous system, this book will help you rediscover safety, clarity, and connection from the inside out. Whether you're just beginning or have read countless books on trauma, this resource offers something fresh and empowering.
From nervous system resets to emotional balance and the ability to own your anxiety, it's also a supportive tool for long-term stress relief, stress management, and sustainable natural healing. If you're passionate about growth, it's a meaningful addition to your self improvement journey.
Click “Add to Cart” now and begin your journey toward lasting transformation, with the help of Somatic Practices for Trauma .
142 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 27, 2025
23 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 25, 2025
This book was described in a previous review as “comprehensive”. For the record, this is a 140 page book written in fairly large print, that does not touch at all on some useful practices and tools. It is in no way comprehensive. Not even close. To be fair to the authors, I don’t expect they would claim it to be. From a theory point of view it's very basic but then I assume this is written primarily for trauma clients rather than practitioners - and from that point of view, the theory part is perfectly adequate.
The reality is that there are a handful of meditation exercises and a handful of breathing exercises and these are all decent. As for other Somatic practices - there is nothing here that was not covered in the first year of my Somatic Experiencing training. It’s all very basic. If you come from a specialist trauma background with any depth, rather than a short course or a more broad therapy background, then this is best viewed as something to lend to clients rather than expecting it to add much, if anything, to your practice.
On that matter, I have one serious concern - the advice on exercises to do for intense hyperarousal. Most of these are poor and one is “try screaming into a pillow or punching it to release stored energy, frustration, or anger”. Such things may help someone to feel temporarily more relaxed because of the physical energy expended in the process but in the long term is not helpful. They can easily take people outside of their window of tolerance, and when that happens then traumatic memories and emotions are not properly processed and in some cases it can lead to re-traumatisation.
It can also link anger, when present, and aggression in the brain, resulting in getting stuck in a cycle. If done at all, it needs to slowed down and done with a sense of being grounded and with connection to the body, the environment and connecting to emotions and memories present. Encouraging people to just hit pillows to release stored energy is just plain bad.
I want to assume the authors were going for the first part - expend energy and thus induce relaxation. But without qualification and mentioning serious drawbacks, it's a genuine concern. 'Pillow punishment' as a therapeutic tool is very outdated. There are also ways of dealing with this level of activation that are more effective and without risk, but were not mentioned. If it were not for this I would have given it maybe three stars (at a push). But as such I wouldn't want to lend it to clients without first discussing this section with them, addressing concerns and going through far better alternatives.
For the record too - Pendulation is not as the authors state "a technique developed by trauma therapist Peter Levine". It's actually a term created by him to describe the inherent rhythm of the nervous system to move between expansion and contraction (the first year handouts even state :"Note: Pendulation is not the same as making a conscious shift of attention from one thing to another"). Shifting attention is a technique used to help encourage Pendulation. To be fair - 80% of the internet gets that wrong, and so do some students until they are corrected on it, as it's a nice term. But if people are going to write a book, it would be nice to actually be accurate.
The reality is the book is not very good - despite all the five star reviews on Amazon. Given how many glowing reviews on Amazon mention the authors by forename, I can't help wondering if many of these leaving them know the authors personally/were trained by them in their breathwork courses - and have an inherent bias or were asked to review (the book even asks readers to leave a review) - since objectively I can't see that they in anyway reflect the books actual quality. In the end I wouldn't lend it to clients as there a far better publications on the subject. And please stop with the pillow pounding. It's not the 1970s anymore and we know more about trauma and memory now.
P.S. Worth adding that this book has no bibliography. No reference to any other publications - books, articles, research. Nothing. That doesn't mean that much of the information is not of value, but it's an indication of it's overall quality. It also appears to be self-published. I don't believe an actual publisher would touch it.
The reality is that there are a handful of meditation exercises and a handful of breathing exercises and these are all decent. As for other Somatic practices - there is nothing here that was not covered in the first year of my Somatic Experiencing training. It’s all very basic. If you come from a specialist trauma background with any depth, rather than a short course or a more broad therapy background, then this is best viewed as something to lend to clients rather than expecting it to add much, if anything, to your practice.
On that matter, I have one serious concern - the advice on exercises to do for intense hyperarousal. Most of these are poor and one is “try screaming into a pillow or punching it to release stored energy, frustration, or anger”. Such things may help someone to feel temporarily more relaxed because of the physical energy expended in the process but in the long term is not helpful. They can easily take people outside of their window of tolerance, and when that happens then traumatic memories and emotions are not properly processed and in some cases it can lead to re-traumatisation.
It can also link anger, when present, and aggression in the brain, resulting in getting stuck in a cycle. If done at all, it needs to slowed down and done with a sense of being grounded and with connection to the body, the environment and connecting to emotions and memories present. Encouraging people to just hit pillows to release stored energy is just plain bad.
I want to assume the authors were going for the first part - expend energy and thus induce relaxation. But without qualification and mentioning serious drawbacks, it's a genuine concern. 'Pillow punishment' as a therapeutic tool is very outdated. There are also ways of dealing with this level of activation that are more effective and without risk, but were not mentioned. If it were not for this I would have given it maybe three stars (at a push). But as such I wouldn't want to lend it to clients without first discussing this section with them, addressing concerns and going through far better alternatives.
For the record too - Pendulation is not as the authors state "a technique developed by trauma therapist Peter Levine". It's actually a term created by him to describe the inherent rhythm of the nervous system to move between expansion and contraction (the first year handouts even state :"Note: Pendulation is not the same as making a conscious shift of attention from one thing to another"). Shifting attention is a technique used to help encourage Pendulation. To be fair - 80% of the internet gets that wrong, and so do some students until they are corrected on it, as it's a nice term. But if people are going to write a book, it would be nice to actually be accurate.
The reality is the book is not very good - despite all the five star reviews on Amazon. Given how many glowing reviews on Amazon mention the authors by forename, I can't help wondering if many of these leaving them know the authors personally/were trained by them in their breathwork courses - and have an inherent bias or were asked to review (the book even asks readers to leave a review) - since objectively I can't see that they in anyway reflect the books actual quality. In the end I wouldn't lend it to clients as there a far better publications on the subject. And please stop with the pillow pounding. It's not the 1970s anymore and we know more about trauma and memory now.
P.S. Worth adding that this book has no bibliography. No reference to any other publications - books, articles, research. Nothing. That doesn't mean that much of the information is not of value, but it's an indication of it's overall quality. It also appears to be self-published. I don't believe an actual publisher would touch it.
June 27, 2025
A great handbook for any facilitator!
This was something I was looking for to deepen practices in my group work and a handbook like this will no doubt be useful as a reference for working with trauma.
This was something I was looking for to deepen practices in my group work and a handbook like this will no doubt be useful as a reference for working with trauma.
August 13, 2025
I’m a trauma therapist and this is an invaluable book for practitioners to deepen their knowledge and understanding for themselves and their clients, and also for people with lived experience of trauma.
This comprehensive book breaks down the different types of trauma, with vignettes. I found the inclusion of systemic trauma helpful, which some trauma books leave out.
‘Somatic Practices for Trauma’ thoroughly explores how we can use the body-mind to safely release what the body has held onto after trauma. Using movement, breathwork, and self compassion to return home to your body and feel safe there once more, as trauma disrupts our ability to do so. It’s a non-judgemental and non-pathologising view of how our health is affected through trauma, and how we can gently loosen its grip and find healing.
The accompanying audio practice files which talk you through the exercises are really helpful, and great for different learning styles.
This comprehensive book breaks down the different types of trauma, with vignettes. I found the inclusion of systemic trauma helpful, which some trauma books leave out.
‘Somatic Practices for Trauma’ thoroughly explores how we can use the body-mind to safely release what the body has held onto after trauma. Using movement, breathwork, and self compassion to return home to your body and feel safe there once more, as trauma disrupts our ability to do so. It’s a non-judgemental and non-pathologising view of how our health is affected through trauma, and how we can gently loosen its grip and find healing.
The accompanying audio practice files which talk you through the exercises are really helpful, and great for different learning styles.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews