The Sexual Trauma Workbook for Teen Girls: A Guide to Recovery from Sexual Assault and Abuse

by Raychelle Cassada Lohmann MS, LPC, Sheela Raja PhD

Overview

The Sexual Trauma Workbook for Teen Girls offers healing, real-life stories from survivors and powerful, evidence-based tools to help you reclaim your life after sexual abuse or trauma.

If you’ve been sexually abused or experienced sexual trauma, you may feel confused, angry, ashamed, and unable to move forward emotionally. You're not alone. Like many teens who’ve been abused, you may be tempted to keep the secret locked deep inside and feel uncomfortable discussing your struggles with others. If so, this book can help you find your voice.

This empowering workbook will help you move past your trauma and serve as a comforting reminder that you are strong and resilient. Healing is possible—and with healing, comes victory. In this book, you’ll find true stories from other teen survivors, and in reading the stories you’ll find reassurance in knowing you aren’t alone in your experiences. You’ll also find practical and proven-effective strategies and exercises to help promote emotional healing and reclaim your sense of self.

Sexual abuse or trauma may be a part of your past, but it doesn’t need to define who you are now. This book will help you as you start on the path toward healing so you can move forward with confidence.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626253995
Publisher:	New Harbinger Publications
Publication date:	06/01/2016
Series:	Instant Help for Teens Series
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	265,680
Product dimensions:	7.90(w) x 9.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	13 - 17 Years

About the Author

Raychelle Cassada Lohmann, MS, LPC, is a national board-certified counselor and licensed professional counselor. Lohmann has worked as a school counselor at middle and high school levels, and has helped hundreds of teens deal with feelings of frustration and anger. She has participated in extensive research on anger, and specializes in individual and group counseling for anger management. She is author of The Anger Workbook for Teens and Staying Cool...When You’re Steaming Mad, and coauthor of The Bullying Workbook for Teens. She also writes the Psychology Today blog “Teen Angst,” and is an expert contributor on www.rehabs.com and www.sharecare.com.

Sheela Raja, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist and author of Overcoming Trauma and PTSD. Raja is an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she researches the impact of trauma on health. Raja completed internship and post-doctoral training at the National Center for PTSD in Boston, MA. She is a highly sought-after national and international speaker, a blogger for The Huffington Post, and a frequent contributor to various print and television media outlets.

Table of Contents

Letter from the Authors vii

Activity 1 Knowing When to Get Help 1

Activity 2 Where to Find Help 8

Activity 3 Personal Safety Plan 12

Activity 4 Circle of Support 18

Activity 5 Why Me? 23

Activity 6 Sharing Your Story 28

Activity 7 Taking Care of Yourself 31

Activity 8 Learning to Breathe 35

Activity 9 Sleep 39

Activity 10 Exercise 48

Activity 11 Nutrition and Well-Being 52

Activity 12 Emotional Weil-Being 59

Activity 13 Acceptance 66

Activity 14 Self-Soothing Behaviors 71

Activity 15 Healing through Writing 76

Activity 16 Progressive Muscle Relaxation 80

Activity 17 Engaging in Mindfulness 84

Activity 18 Guided Imagery 89

Activity 19 Life Scripts 94

Activity 20 Choosing Healthy Coping Skills 99

Activity 21 Coping with Nightmares 106

Activity 22 Coping with Flashbacks 110

Activity 23 Overcoming Emotional Detachment 115

Activity 24 Noticing and Coping with Anger 120

Activity 25 Constructive and Destructive Guilt 126

Activity 26 Conquering Shame 131

Activity 27 Identifying Depression 138

Activity 28 PTSD 143

Activity 29 Facing Your Fears 151

Activity 30 Identifying Anxious Patterns 156

Activity 31 Responding to Love and Joy 162

Activity 32 Empowerment through Affirmations 168

Activity 33 Respecting and Nurturing Yourself 173

Activity 34 From Beginning to End-Telling Your Story 178

Acknowledgments 181

Additional Resources 183

Interviews

Lohmann resides in Morrisville, NC; Raja resides in Oak Park, IL.

Editorial Reviews

"A (sadly) necessary, practical tool for young women who've survived sexual abuse and assault.”
—Kirkus review


“Child sexual abuse is one of the most damaging and life-altering experiences a person can suffer. This workbook offers the guidance and support survivors desperately need by providing powerful exercises to help them deal with the associated emotions of shame, fear, sadness, and anger, as well as offering advice and strategies to help them cope with such issues as nightmares and flashbacks. I highly recommend it.”
—Beverly Engel, LMFT, author of It Wasn’t Your Fault and The Right to Innocence


“The Sexual Trauma Workbook for Teen Girls is an amazing book of hope, inspiration, and education from start to finish. With the sharing of different personal experiences and encouragement, this book will help any young teen at any point of their journey to recovery. As a fellow survivor of rape and sexual assault, I wish this workbook had been available for me during my time of need. Although it’s been over twenty years since my rape and sexual assault, this workbook helped me today address and conquer emotions that I thought no longer existed.”
—Tanisha Bagley, survivor of over ten years of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence; advocate for all victims and survivors of rape, sexual assault, and domestic violence; and author of The Price of Love


“This practical and enlightening book is a blessing for teen girls and the adults who support them following sexual trauma. It is filled with research-based wisdom, everyday tools, guidance, and most of all, hope!”
—Marilyn Price-Mitchell, PhD, developmental psychologist and author of Tomorrow’s Change Makers


“In The Sexual Trauma Workbook for Teen Girls, the authors have done a beautiful job of providing a wise, inspiring, uplifting, and comprehensive guide for healing, which can be used alone or as an adjunct to therapy. I love this book. It is comforting and practical, and I will recommend it often.”
—Catherine McCall, MS, LMFT, author of the international best seller Never Tell, is on the judges panel of the United Kingdom Child Sexual Abuse People’s Tribunal, RAINN Speakers Bureau, and a blogger for Psychology Today

From the Publisher

2016-05-04
A licensed professional counselor and a clinical psychologist designed this self-help guide for young women who've survived sexual trauma.Opening with a letter to prospective readers from the authors, a tone of respectful, positive acceptance is set early on in this workbook, which begins generally—providing information on proper nutrition, exercise, and sleep habits—and becomes specific, eventually addressing such topics as depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Each section includes short testimonials from other survivors (referred to by their first names), fill-in-the-blank exercises, inspirational quotes, and "more to do" activities, in which readers are encouraged to put into practice some of the techniques introduced that may help them cope with such experiences as nightmares, shame, negative self-talk, and flashbacks, among others. Clear, concise descriptions of strategies such as grounding, progressive relaxation, changing life scripts, and mindfulness practices are easy to follow, though the authors also make clear that this guide is not meant to replace working with a professional therapist but rather might make a good supplement. Its earnest, directly therapeutic approach also seems likely to be most effective for those who are already in counseling and who may have worked through any sarcastic or self-conscious resistance to the techniques offered.A (sadly) necessary, practical tool for young women who've survived sexual abuse and assault. (Nonfiction. 12 & up)

Kirkus Reviews