RADICAL TRAUMA HEALING

There is an unprecedented mental health crisis for the LGBTQ+ community. Depression, anxiety, and substance use has skyrocketed and nearly half of LGBTQ+ youth have considered suicide. Yet the options for healing that are specifically created by the queer and trans community for its members are few and far between.

Even the most popular self-help books often lack even a single case study of a queer or trans person or feature little or nothing that speaks to the specific trauma that LGBTQ+ people experience like homophobia, transphobia, "corrective" sexual abuse, institutional injustices, body dysphoria, being dead named, being misgendered, growing up in a religion that sees you as an abomination, among others. Their mental health continues to spiral because this community is not being seen or addressed.

Enter Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik, a highly lauded, queer somatic therapist specializing in treating trauma and PTSD within the LGBTQ+ community, whose popular newsletter, workshops, and Instagram @somaticwitch reaches thousands of people each month. For Gutiérrez-Glik, it is crucial that this community sees themselves reflected in their healing process - time and again, they're being told that it's on them to take care of themselves, to work harder, heal faster, and to do so totally alone, and they are not seeing their stories and their reality reflected in conversations and resources around trauma.

In RADICAL TRAUMA HEALING, Gutiérrez-Glik guides the reader through a process rooted in the neurobiology of how trauma impacts the nervous system, using attachment theory, polyvagal theory, and parts work and an understanding that trauma can come in very different forms: oppression, childhood, intergenerational and even the trauma of modern living. The ultimate goal, according to Gutiérrez-Glik, is for the reader to "come home," which consists of three core experiences: compassion (for oneself and for others), freedom (to be who you are wherever you are), and community (which you connect with both internally and externally).

Gutiérrez-Glik is boldly redefining what self-help should look like in 2023 for Millennials and Gen Z, declaring that trauma can be more than personal, it can be rooted in systemic oppression, and the recovery process might be radical, loud, and angry. It can mean having gender affirming surgery and feeling more at home in your own body, it can be wild and messy on sweaty dance floors at gay bars or in secret sex dungeons. When queer and trans people, people of color, and all of those at the margins can heal and grow from oppression and trauma, it is inherently a political act.

Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik, LCSW is a somatic trauma therapist, specializing in treating trauma, nervous system dysregulation, and PTSD, prioritizing women, survivors, and queer and trans folks. She has been featured in such publications as The New York Times, Well & Good, Vice, Nylon and has thousands of subscribers to her newsletter, Instagram @somaticwitch, and online courses. She is trained in EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Trauma Focused Psychotherapy. Andrea lives and practices at the confluence of the Missouri, Mississippi, and Illinois Rivers on stolen Osage & Sioux land with her wife and their two cats.