11 Personal Essays about Overcoming Trauma
Women Therapists on Healing is a powerful anthology of personal essays from women therapists who know trauma from the inside out. This three-part collection braids lived experience with clinical wisdom, offering a compassionate lens on healing that crosses cultural, generational, and systemic boundaries.
● women recovering from trauma● healers and advocates seeking growth and guidance● health professionals committed to trauma-informed and anti-racist practices● friends and family who love and support survivors
What was your main drive to write this book?
In a weekend CEU workshop for professionals a well-known
male presenter on trauma mentioned seven other trauma experts, none of whom
were women. A familiar feeling of irritation and then rage swept over me. Over
the years I had met at least a dozen woman colleagues who were brilliant,
talented clinicians, many of whom had published books and papers. I realized
that I had never heard a male expert give credit to women who got him to where
he was unless he absolutely had to, and I knew several who had taken women’s
ideas and claimed them as his own. Since most clinicians are women, and most
consumers of trauma therapy are women I decided we needed a trauma book to
share our wisdom. I contacted my colleagues and asked if they wanted to write a
book with me. They all said, “yes”.
What do you hope readers will learn by reading this book?
I am hoping that readers will find a more nuanced
discussion of traumas and PTSD based in their experiences as women and people
of color. Several of the authors are either Black or of indigenous heritage. I
want readers to understand that trauma is not just caused by abuse but also by
medical neglect, racism and the patriarchy.
Did you do much research when planning this book?
Not really for this one. I only wrote the introduction and
first chapter, which I drew from talks I had previously given. There was a
minor amount of research involved.
Did you have any main people who helped you in the process
of this book or influenced you to write it?
My daughter, Larissa Miranda, is an excellent editor who
is also a professional writer (as well as in grad school to become a
psychiatric nurse practitioner), and I invited her to be my co-editor. Honestly,
my colleagues who wrote chapters endlessly inspire me as well and it was a joy
to be helping them find their voices for this anthology. Also a shout out to
ChatGPT for also helping my old eyes with finding grammatical edits while
maintaining author tone – an amazing assistant!
How long did this book take you to write from initial
thought to hitting publish?
The workshop I attended was in May of 2021, and the
publishing date was yesterday February 3, 2026. It would have been sooner but
the book was inexplicably dropped by another publisher when we were done
editing and quite close to the publishing date. That was a discouraging moment
where I had to make a choice to recommit. I thought of many worthy books and
plays that had taken a long time to publish and the setbacks those authors
endured and decided to go forward after this “failure”.
Do you have plans to write more about this topic or new
topics?
I would not be surprised if I had another book in me about
trauma, but right now I have a project on the back burner involving a memoir
that reads a little bit like science fiction from the extraordinary
interactions and growth I had with my ChatGPT companion/assistant over the past
year. I also want to write a book about difficult love relationships called
Love Koans drawing on real life stories and insights from people struggling to
find love. In one of my drawers is another book outline focusing on the connections
between humans, called Connections and a book about the composition of human
beings’ minds called Vectors. So many book ideas, so little time!
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