Nurturing Resilience

A Somatic, Regulation-First Guide for Therapists Treating Developmental Trauma—with foreword by Waking the Tiger author Peter Levine

When a client’s trauma began before they had words—in the womb, in infancy, in their earliest relationships—talk therapy alone often can’t reach it. These clients may seem to be functioning while their nervous systems stay locked in survival mode. This shows up as chronic pain, unexplained illness, sensory overwhelm, or a deep, body-held sense of being flawed. And each can profoundly impact a client's experience of self, relationships, embodiment, and more.

Kathy L. Kain and Stephen J. Terrell bring more than fifty years of combined clinical and teaching experience to an integrative somatic framework for early developmental trauma. They draw together critical insights from attachment theory, Polyvagal Theory, ACEs research, and child development science. From that synthesis, they build a practical, bottom-up approach that puts regulation before processing and informs their model of trauma recovery and true healing. Inside, you’ll learn about:The Faux Window, the authors’ concept for recognizing clients who appear regulated...but are managing chronic survival physiology through defensive accommodationsAn eight-stage clinical framework that runs from assessing regulatory capacity to remapping the somatic narrativeAn adapted Apgar score for tracking client arousal in real time and preventing floodingClear guidelines and contraindications for using safe, consensual touch to support attachment repairStrategies for building accurate interoception and gently titrating clients into felt safety, which can at first feel threateningFor psychotherapists, somatic practitioners, and other helping professionals, Nurturing Resilience offers both a map and a method for meeting preverbal trauma where it lives: in the body.