2017 IPPY Award Winner
Midwest Book Award Finalist
Much remains hidden as survivors of sexual trauma do the hard work of healing. Naomi Ardea courageously offers a rare, in-depth view into the inner world of a victim finding her way to regain peace and wholeness. The Art of Healing from Sexual Trauma holds Ardea's soulful paintings, soothing photographs, and authentic, compassionate words. Within this memoir of healing moments, Ardea weaves insightful reflections on common trauma healing patterns as well as a practical, nurturing self-care guide for other survivors.
Survivors will find comfort, understanding, and inspiration as they create their own healing path:
-Tools for befriending body and soul through creative expression and body-oriented therapies
-Book layout that is sensitive to survivors with PTSD
-A view of what triggers, dissociation, and violated boundaries look like within one survivor's life and body
-Ideas for bringing simple, low-cost self-care into more moments of the day
-Ways to cultivate inner awareness and intuition as essential healing allies
-Open journaling spaces to strengthen the reader's inner voice
-Tips for choosing conventional and alternative therapies that are trauma-informed
-Visual medicine that offers reflections of the pain and hope of a survivor's journey
Not just for survivors, The Art of Healing from Sexual Trauma benefits and informs loved ones, therapists, and others.
Naomi Ardea is an artist, massage therapist, and mom. She believes in the healing power of connection that we can move toward health and peace by connecting to our bodies, our creativity, our community of support, and our Earth. Naomi is a contributing author in The Ethics of Touch, 2nd edition, by Ben Benjamin and Cherie Sohnen-Moe, a required text at over 250 healing arts schools. She advocates for rigorous ethics education and accountability in alternative healing professions. She also offers workshops to nurture creativity and inner awareness for holistic self-healing. Naomi lives, creates, and plays in the beautiful green landscape of North Carolina.
“Naomi Ardea has taken her own personal journey in healing from childhood and adult sexual trauma and presented it as an example and guide for other people suffering and recovering from the same kind of assault. She generously provides a template and toolkit others may follow.” —Ed Schmookler, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist specializing in the treatment of trauma
“This book guides us into an extraordinary journey through the intimate and interior landscape of reclaiming the fullness of oneself after suffering sexual violation. Naomi Ardea's paintings, photographs and drawings along with her eloquent text offer a path of healing for individuals as well as a map of potential illumination within the greater construct of our culture. Her true and compelling voice speaks to the restoration of the rights and dignity of all living beings.” —Carey Smith, director of the Center for Embodied Education and co-director of Body Therapy Institute
“A courageous and deeply moving self-help memoir...Offering an extraordinary compendium of resources, Ardea shares what she's used along the way both to soothe and protect her vulnerable self and also to release the pain and rage stored in her body and psyche. With the sensitivity of one who has been there, Ardea follows the most intense material with pages of beautiful photos from nature that offer peaceful, meditative resting places. This book is a gift for survivors on their own healing journey as well as for those who know and love someone working to heal such trauma.” —Robyn L. Posin, PhD, psychologist and author of Go Only as Fast as Your Slowest Part Feels Safe to Go: Tales to Kindle Gentleness and Compassion for Our Exhausted Selves
