The PTSD Workbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Trauma Recovery

Healing from trauma is not a straight line — and it is not something you should have to navigate without support.

The PTSD Workbook: A Comprehensive Guide to Trauma Recovery is a full-color, evidence-informed workbook designed to help readers better understand trauma responses, recognize patterns, build practical coping skills, and move toward greater stability, self-awareness, and healing.

Written by licensed clinical social worker Avis D. Lawrence, LCSW, this workbook combines accessible psychoeducation with guided reflection, practical exercises, and visual tools that help make complex trauma concepts easier to understand and apply.

Inside, you’ll explore:

• the science of trauma and PTSD
• the window of tolerance
• grounding and stabilization
• somatic awareness and body-based responses
• sleep, rest, and nightmares
• dissociation and flashbacks
• identifying triggers
• shame and self-compassion
• anger and the trauma response
• stuck points and core beliefs
• challenging unhelpful thoughts
• relationships, trust, and connection
• post-traumatic growth
• progress check-ins, journaling, and reflection tools
• trauma-type resources and guided exercises

This workbook was created for survivors of many forms of trauma, including childhood and family trauma, intimate partner violence, community violence, workplace harm, sexual assault, medical trauma, racial and identity-based trauma, and secondary trauma experienced by caregivers and first responders.

Each chapter is designed to help you slow down, make sense of what you are experiencing, and build practical ways to support your nervous system and emotional well-being. The workbook is meant to be used at your own pace and revisited as needed — not rushed through like a checklist.

The PTSD Workbook is not about forcing yourself to “move on.” It is about understanding what happened, how it affected you, and what can help you move forward with greater compassion, clarity, and choice.

You do not have to heal all at once.
You only have to begin where you are.