Dr. Christy Gibson is a family physician and trauma therapist, a 2x TEDx speaker, a social media educator and author.
She is a thought-leader in trauma psychology and a vocal advocate for policies that keep people safe. Known as @tiktoktraumadoc on TikTok, Dr. Gibson is a sought-after WHO-approved social media educator with a following of 130,000+. She has created a residency program in health equity, formed the Global Familymed Foundation for international work, and Safer Spaces Training, a start-up that helps organizations become trauma-informed.
A skilled facilitator and speaker, she engages in building individual and community resilience. Her writing creates the woven narrative between her interests – wellbeing, trauma recovery, and the power of story. Her first book, The Modern Trauma Toolkit, was released in 2023 through Hachette Go (US) and John Murray (UK). This one-on-one interview shares Dr. Gibson’s background and experience writing the book.
Tell us about The Modern Trauma Toolkit.
We all experience trauma. Pandemics, weather-related disasters, sometimes even childhood abuse. But trauma is not the event, it’s your body’s response to that event, which means it can be shifted.
In The Modern Trauma Toolkit, I draw from my work with people suffering from stress and societal challenges, along with my studies of brain-based and body-based approaches to wellbeing, to offer practical and effective mental health advice that readers can personalize and practice. The book describes new theories in brain biology, such as the polyvagal theory and epigenetics, and explains how you can remodel your brain to achieve post-traumatic growth. The book also focuses on how particular communities face inequitable stressors, empowering readers to identify and harness their unique and cultural strengths.
Readers will gain access to over forty activities that will nurture their healing journey, including:
Iffirmations: Reimagine affirmations to plant seeds of possibility
The Container: Create your box of shame and leave it behind
Havening: Discover the body’s three areas that are best suited to self-soothing
Solutions Studio: Catalyze change at the systems level using design thinking
Part of the goal of these offerings is to have readers notice how they feel before, during, and after each of the activities. They are designed to be playful and welcoming rather than a prescription.
Ultimately, while this book is about trauma, it’s also about post-traumatic growth. It’s about redefining our experience by what’s possible, by what’s right, and by the beauty and potential and innate wisdom that lives within each of us.
What inspired you to write The Modern Trauma Toolkit?
The confluence of the personal and professional experience led me to write The Modern Trauma Toolkit.
I am a family doctor with a master’s in medical education. I’ve studied trauma with the greatest minds in the world, from Gabor Maté to Ruth Lanius to Bessel van der Kolk.
My learning comes from patients who shared their stories; from communities, like the refugee clinic where I’ve heard about the most horrifying betrayals and torture that humans can inflict on one another; from the people who emerged from the other side, persevering with a faint flicker of hope for a better future.
I created a residency training in health equity, where student doctors learned how to work with populations of people who face oppression. I learned about overcoming pain of the past through many patients that have been generous with their stories at the community health centers where I’ve had the privilege to work.
At the addiction clinic, I help people understand that their drug use was a response to the discomfort in their nervous system, responding to traumas that they hold in their body. Once the shame breaks open and allows the light of self-compassion, that’s where I learn how much expansion, how much transformation, is possible.
I learned from being a mental health creator on TikTok. As a therapist, I know that creativity and performance art can heal trauma and the healing on TikTok is awe-inspiring. I see beautiful communities supporting one another through shared experiences and simply caring.
Overall, my early experiences in global health and medical education along with twenty years of clinical experience led me to use accessibility to trauma-education as a tool of healing. Now, I combine my love for storytelling and post-traumatic growth to help patients live and thrive.
What is one message you would like readers to remember?
Trauma and toxic stress responses are natural ways your mind and body are trying to protect itself. Through the lens of self-compassion and curiosity, I hope this book helps you adopt a strength-based approach to trauma, teaching you practical tools you can use to begin to heal.
Purchasing the Book
The Modern Trauma Toolkit: Nurture Your Post-Traumatic Growth with Personalized Solutions has received positive reviews from well-known experts, authors, and reviewers around the world. Harvard Psychiatrist Dr. Jeffrey Rediger writes, “The Modern Trauma Toolkit is the most compassionate, welcoming, and practical book on trauma recovery that I have seen. It is now my first recommendation to many who have suffered trauma.” In addition, neuropsychologist and author, Jen Wolkin, PhD writes, “The Modern Trauma Toolkit is by far the most well-organized, socially conscious, approachable, and actionable book on trauma healing I’ve ever read…run, don’t walk,ֶ to buy this book for you and anyone you know who wants to get back into the driver’s seat of their life.”
The book is available for sale on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple iBooks, Kobo, Nook and Google Play. Readers are encouraged to purchase their copy today: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Trauma-Toolkit-Post-Traumatic-Personalized/dp/0306831066
To connect with Dr. Gibson and learn more about her work, visit: www.ChristineGIbson.net or her book site, https://www.ModernTrauma.com. You can also find her on Facebook, X and TikTok.
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