Erika Shershun does a phenomenal job of educating readers about the nature of sexual trauma, the science behind it, and the gentle inquiry and practices needed to heal. I've been looking for a book like this for quite some time to refer clients to. And I'm supremely glad that this book now exists in the world. I highly recommend this very accessible workbook!

A great book that really helped me get my head around some of my trauma. Sometimes it's easier to shy away from it, whereas this helped me forgive myself.

Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook: Somatic Skills to Help You Feel Safe in Your Body, Create Boundaries, and Live with Resilience by Erika Shershun is exactly what I have come to expect from New Harbinger Self-Help Workbooks – excellence! Shershun does an amazing job with this extremely difficult topic. Highly recommend. #HealingSexualTraumaWorkbook #NetGalley

I have always had difficulty with self-help workbooks. In theory, they should be helpful, relevant, and easy to follow. In practice however, finding trauma workbooks that are a good fit for me has been a real problem. For that reason, I approached “Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook: Somatic Skills to Help You Feel Safe in Your Body, Create Boundaries, and Live with Resilience” with trepidation. Could a 208 page workbook really help you accomplish all of those things? I had serious doubts, but I’m happy to report that with Erika Shershun’s expert assistance, I learned more about myself and accomplished more than I ever expected. There are a lot of self-help workbooks out there for victims of sexual trauma but none of them are quite like this one. That’s both because of the author’s writing style and the fact that unlike authors of other workbooks for sexual trauma survivors, she takes a more holistic view of both the manifestation of sexual trauma as both a psychological and somatic condition. Both a gifted therapist and writer, Shershun thoroughly explains and flawlessly integrates concepts of responses to sexual trauma and how they manifest not only cognitively and emotionally but also in one’s body, including dissociation, boundary setting, empowerment, and self-compassion. The workbook manages to be both thorough and easy to follow. Shersun thoroughly explains each exercise and the concepts they are designed to address, including helpful case studies as as examples. I have started working through many trauma workbooks in the past but for various reasons just couldn’t relate to them. However, this book was different. Shersun is not only a therapist but is herself a sexual trauma survivor. I’ve never met the author, but while I was working through the exercises and reading her words, I felt like she was someone who really “got it” to the point that it was almost like having a personal coach guiding me through the healing process.

This was a very interesting, insightful and useful read!

While it obviously doesn't substitute therapy and getting help for our trauma, I think it could be a useful tool for someone that just needs something more to work on it (especially if you like the structure of having small exercises and questions throughout to help you progress in your read). This wasn't my first time trying out a workbook for anxiety and mental health issues and I think this was brilliant in its structure and way of presenting information.

This is quite an insightful read. I appreciated the various angles of trauma management that were tackled e.g dealing with difficult emotions. There are other aspects that were a bit lost on me though especially on spirituality. I still have no idea on what the 'energy talk' was all about. Overall, now what I was expecting but I still benefitted a lot from reading this book.

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 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.



I received a reviewer copy from the publisher through Netgalley.

I recommend that you get the paper copy of the book so that you can fill it out physically. I would recommend this book to read with your therapist. I think it is a very good tool for trauma therapists. As a trauma survivor with PTSD, I thought the workbook was helpful.

Worthwhile tool for anyone working on healing sexual traumas. I have been struggling with my own trauma for a while, and this really set me up with a starting place. Thank you for creating this.

Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook by Erika Shershun is a very personal and intense book. Very well researched.

I really struggle with self help style books, so a 3 star rating is actually a really good one. Sadly I know way too many people who would benefit from reading this book. It took me awhile to get through, in order to absorb the exercises and reflect on the information the author shared.

I will say that the book wasn't quite what I was expecting. With "Workbook" being in the title, I thought it would be more self reflective than it was. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it did contribute to perhaps a less than stellar rating. Some of the exercises felt a little repetitive, but I do feel that overall they are beneficial to those who are struggling with trauma.

I was a little nervous about this being a workbook (like an independent form of therapy, it calls on you to engage in a way that can sometimes be uncomfortable), but ultimately I found it to be more than worth my mental energy and vulnerability. Erika is like a gentle guiding counsellor, sharing her personal story along with clinical experience and lots of research. For me it felt like the perfect balance, because for the most part I enjoyed learning about underlying processes and research findings, but even when some of the science went over my head I felt like she explained it in a way that made sense to me in my body, like a real person rather than a textbook. I practice yoga regularly, and it was really interesting to see some of the reasons why it can be helpful beyond stretching and strengthening. It’s not necessarily talked about that way in the book, but there were a lot of poses or actions, breathing exercises, etc. that were similar to what I do in yoga.

I love that she goes beyond the research to provide easy-to-remember exercises (nothing too overwhelming or time-consuming), and I’ve already been putting some of them into practice. Still, I plan to get my own copy as a reference because it’s a lot to take in and work through. But more than anything, Erika’s kind voice along with the science and her experience made me feel things in a way that might have seemed logical before in my head but didn’t really get through when it came to myself. About how freezing up is a survival strategy and why. About why memories of trauma aren’t straight-forward and why you might not have all the answers but you can feel it in your body. For me this book was beyond impactful and I can’t recommend it enough.

Very powerful book for a very complex mental health topic. As a working professional, this book was easy to read, heavily researched, and gives an impact that every refresher needs to have. I will Definitely be following up with this author more.

I received this book for an honest review from netgalley #netgalley

This book has helped me greatly I thank you for putting it on netgalley.

I seriously wish I'd won this in a physical giveaway... The cover is attractive, and this is the first book on this part of my trauma that has ACTIONABLE advice along with the facts. I know so many people who would benefit, but I wish this was coming out sooner than July.

Also, very attractive cover. Clean, simple, soothing.


Review on Goodreads:
I love every bit of this.

Sadly, I know so many people who will find this book helpful. While I love the more scientific books that go into the science and psychology of trauma (which is referenced throughout this book), most of them offer extremely vague recommendations of what to do. They are great for explaining what's happening in our minds and bodies, but the advice we get is to engage or practice:
*Yoga (not all instructors are trauma informed, so it can be triggering)
*Mindfulness (fine line next to toxic positivity, and often ignores the problems)
*EMDR/Brainspotting/HypnoTherapies (which are not accessible to everyone, and certainly not at any time of day)

Here, Erika Shershun offers real, actionable, accessible recommendations to help work through these issues. While I do HIGHLY recommend seeking therapy and practicing yoga, this workbook offers extremely simple advice, and lots of journal prompts, which I find very helpful in working through complicated emotions and reactions.


The notes, questions and writing exercises throughout this book offer a great way to reconnect with the body and identify and work through emotions. Sometimes, just being able to identify and understand our reactionary tendencies, what triggers us and the surrounding emotions can be a struggle. Trauma has a major affect on the body and mind and changes the way we process so many of our daily queues. Stopping to reflect of how we're feeling and why takes some effort.

Throughout this workbook, there are short explanations of the affects on the body including the effects of trauma on the vagal nervous system, and how to identify the types of reactions were having. Erika gives the scientific breakdown in short, easily digestible explanations. Then she gives actionable recommendations to help RIGHT NOW, that isn't simply "imagining" your problems away, "embracing your scars" or any other type of toxic positivity techniques that only make you feel worse later.

There are several journaling prompts, meditations, affirmations, and breathing/physical movement exercises to help identify, sort out and/or release/ease the feelings and combat triggers. The workbook includes links to download the worksheets as well, so you can continue to use the resources over and over.

One thing I particularly appreciate, aside from actionable advice that can be started immediately, without any additional experts or equipment, is how the examples are handled. While there are many examples of traumas from specific people given, I did not find them triggering. The details, while awful, where laid out in a fairly scientific way, focusing on the facts of the incident(s). For me, this seemed far less triggering than other resources which have given first-hand accounts, going into details about the thoughts and feelings during the attack/abuse.

While this book is specifically geared towards sexual trauma, the exercises can truly be used for releasing many types of trauma, using EMDR practices, mindfulness and meditation, exercises you'll see in trauma-informed yoga classes. Moreover, there are sections for advice on handling not only triggers, but FLASHBACKS. She discusses disregulation and disassociation, the guilt and shame that are often misplaced and struggles with intimacy that occur later, when we aren't expecting it.

Overall, this is a workbook I highly recommend. I appreciate the opportunity to read this on Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. I am so grateful for this opportunity for my own healing, and to have another resource to offer to others in need. Now excuse me while I go suggest this to everyone I can who might need this.

Created by psychotherapist Erika Shershun, "Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook: Somatic Skills to Help You Feel Safe in Your Body, Create Boundaries, and Live with Resilience" is a step-by-step guide to overcoming the psychological effects of sexual trauma.

As you can probably guess from the book's title, Shershun draws on the mind-body techniques of somatic therapy in developing this workbook. As she makes apparent early in the workbook, Shershun also draws upon her own healing experiences and the work that she did to overcoming the psychological effects of her own sexual trauma.

While "Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook" is noted as being a "step-by-step" guide, I couldn't help but feel throughout the workbook that it's best utilized by someone a little more advanced in the healing journey and truly ready to address mind-body techniques. While some survivors do, in fact, do this early in the journey others find it to be a later stage of healing. While I, like Shershun, have my own experiences with sexual assault and also spent time working in the mental health field (in my case crisis intervention), I at times felt like the language utilized in the workbook may not be easily understood by those early in a healing journey or those unfamiliar with therapeutic language. I also found that this language issue, on occasion, altered the tone of the workbook as Shershun altered between light self-revelation to warm encourager to what could likely be considered a more sterile clinical approach. There are, of course, places for all of these in the therapeutic relationship but it comes off differently with the written word.

While Shershun doesn't necessarily say, to her credit, that "Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook" is primarily targeted toward women it's worth noting that, as I recall, all of the examples she provides in the workbook are of women. This isn't inherently bad, of course, because most statistics acknowledge greater numbers of women experience sexual trauma. It may come into play, however, because of the subtle nuances needed with male survivors of sexual trauma. I think there's much here for male survivors in terms of mind-body, but I'd say the language around these exercises is definitely more targeted toward female survivors. As someone who presents workshops for disabled survivors of sexual assault, I also couldn't help but wish this issue had been addressed somewhere within the book.

It may sound like I'm being particularly negative around the book - that's far from my intention as should be evidenced by my 4-star review. Having experienced life as a male and disabled survivor of sexual trauma, I perhaps am more in touch with the broad spectrum of sexual trauma and I aspire to inclusivity within healing works. However, there's no denying that Shershun has crafted a valuable workbook of practical, safe to explore exercises within one's personal network of friends and home. While these types of workbooks are ideally suited to those with healthy supportive and/or therapeutic relationships, the simple truth is that not all survivors of sexual trauma choose to or have access to these types of relationships and this workbook provides "at your pace" guidance for healing skills one can explore at home.

For the most part, Shershun chooses her self-revelation well and offers glimpses into her own journey without making the "Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook" ultimately about her. While much of this type of work I've done, it's valuable work that can be revisited whenever new challenges along the healing journey arise. Generally speaking, Shershun makes it clear that while this is a step-by-step guide, sometimes our healing journey calls us to move a few steps ahead or behind. Only once did I find her contradicting her own guidance in that she encouraged people to not move forward as "we're not ready for that yet" despite earlier having stated we could work ahead if we felt ready or a need for a particular step or area of work.

"Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook" is a valuable tool for the healing toolbox that will be an important aid for survivors of sexual trauma. While all survivors can benefit from work around mind-body, especially in the area of sexual trauma, those who embrace the mind-body journey will likely most resonate with Shershun's work here.

This is a resource I will undoubtedly refer to again. In fact, I plan to read through it again at a survivor's pace rather than for the contemplation of review. This is a book I want to see if I can lean into more fully as I incorporate Shershun's knowledge and wisdom into my continued healing journey of healthy integration of my mind and body and my life experiences including sexual trauma.