Recovering from a traumatic past can be difficult, and at times incredibly lonely. Memories of trauma can result in you feeling shattered, isolated, and misunderstood. When that happens, you need resources that validate your experience and help you understand the imprint trauma can leave behind. You also need hope. With over 35 years of clinical practice, Dr. Heiman offers a guidebook of successful strategies to help manage your inner world more peacefully and effectively. We cannot control others in our outside world, but we can gain control of our inside world. If we are more peaceful inside, we can be more at peace in and with the world around us.
Dr. Marsha Heiman is a licensed clinical psychologist who provides treatment, training, and supervision in Metuchen, New Jersey. In her private practice, she specializes in trauma, abuse, dissociation, and vicarious traumatization.
Dr. Heiman was a long-standing member of the NJ Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect, as well as the Governor's Advisory Council Against Sexual Assault. Through grants and other funding, she has created several educational programs on trauma for the NJ Division of Youth and Family Services, Court Appointed Special Advocates, and mental health facilities. For over twenty years, she was the Clinical Director of The Child Sexual Abuse Case Consultation Program, a New Jersey statewide project dedicated to training therapists dealing with sexually abused children and their families. In addition, Dr. Heiman is an Approved Consultant and Certified Therapist in a specialized trauma treatment known as Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing (EMDR).
She made her debut in the writing industry with her book, Learning to Live in Harmony with Ourselves: A Primer for Trauma Survivors and Those Who Dissociate. The book is about understanding the impact of trauma, the role of dissociation following traumatic events, and coping mechanisms to deal with the aftermath of trauma. Trauma is a part of life. At times we can transform traumatic events in ways that help us grow, while at other times, we are frozen and stuck, still living with the lasting effects. This book allows us to see that there is a way out of our distress. All of us have constant internal chatter and a range of fluctuating emotions and reactions. We all need to develop healthy strategies to deal with our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations to develop more internal harmony, regardless of what has happened to us.
In this guide, Dr. Heiman offers current thinking about trauma and dissociation and shares concrete strategies to manage the impact of trauma. Although this book is written primarily for individuals who have survived trauma and the therapists who treat them, it is a general guide for living a more tranquil life. If we live peacefully within and outside ourselves, without judgment, but with compassion and kindness, then we pave the way for growth and change.