Visionary Somatics: Embodied Resilience in the Age of Trauma

Moving beyond endless trauma loops. An empirical, mythic, and expressive roadmap to restoring biological vitality, play, and somatic regulation.

Inside the Book

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Trauma treatment has become traumatizing. Healing can be alive.

Conventional trauma work keeps people circling their pathology — reactivating the wound without ever restoring the vitality of the nervous system that carries it.

Visionary Somatics presents body-oriented healing as one continuous lineage: shamanic tradition, early psychoanalysis, and contemporary neuroscience read as a single body of knowledge. Dr. Tierney pairs hard clinical evidence with imagination, touch, and play — the parts of the work that make a body want to live in itself again.

What You'll Take Away

01 The whole field, in one volume A comprehensive overview of somatic psychology — from its roots in shamanic healing and early psychoanalysis through modern neuroscience and trauma research.

02 Protocols you can practice Trauma resolution methods including the Visionary Somatics Trauma Re-Sequencing Process, written for clinicians and for individuals working on their own healing.

03 A literacy for your own body How to recognize and work with the body’s rhythms, meet defensive patterns without forcing them, and support the integration of traumatic memory.

From shamanic roots to trauma neuroscience

Origins Shamanic healing Ritual, rhythm, and symbol — the oldest technologies for moving a body out of shock.

Early 20th c. Psychoanalysis & Reich Character armor, breath, and touch: the moment analysis turned back toward the body.

Late 20th c. Somatic psychology Experiencing, bodywork, and expressive arts converge into a clinical discipline.

Now Neuroscience & trauma studies Polyvagal theory and interoception give the older traditions their physiological account.

Thirty years of practice, in one map

Each modality is treated on its own terms, then placed in relation to the others.

Polyvagal theory Somatic Experiencing Reichian bodywork Craniosacral biodynamics Myofascial release Osteopathic principles Psychodrama Expressive arts Active imagination Dreamwork Breathwork Dance & movement Family constellations Interoception Anthropology of magic

The eight facets of embodied resilience

The Trauma Re-Sequencing Process

A step-by-step method for resolving defensive shock without putting a person back through it. Contemporary neuroscience sets the pacing; imagination, touch, and collaboration carry the work — so integration happens at the speed the body can hold.

The fastest way through pain is aliveness. Visionary Somatics, Facet 08

Who It's For

Clinicians & bodyworkers Psychotherapists, somatic practitioners, and coaches who want a framework that holds neuroscience and imagination in the same hand.

Students & trainees Used as a spine for coursework in somatic psychology, including Dr. Tierney’s neuroscience teaching for practitioners at CIIS.

Readers doing their own work Anyone who has cycled through trauma treatment and wants a path that ends in aliveness rather than management.

Dr. Brian Tierney, PhD

Somatic psychologist, international lecturer, and professor of Neuroscience for Somatic Practitioners at CIIS. Host of the Boundless Body podcast, Dr. Tierney has spent over two decades researching the intersection of clinical neuroscience, expressive arts, and body-oriented therapy.

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On sale February 9, 2027

Pre-orders go through Healing Arts Press, an imprint of Inner Traditions. Reserving a copy now helps the first print run reach the practitioners who need it.