Client resources

Resources for Anxiety & Depression

Books:

Mind over mood by Denis Greenberger & Christine Padesky, (1995)

Discover simple yet powerful steps you can take to overcome emotional distress - and feel happier, calmer, and more confident. This book helps readers use cognitive-behavioral therapy - one of today's most effective forms of psychotherapy - to conquer depression, anxiety, panic attacks, anger, guilt, shame, low self-esteem, eating disorders, substance abuse, and relationship problems.

Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by Dr. David Burns (1999)

An explanation of the principles of cognitive behavioral therapy, and detailed ways to improve a person's mood and life by identifying and eliminating common cognitive distortions, as well as methods to improve communication skills. Exercises are presented throughout the book to assist the reader in identifying cognitive distortions and replace them with healthy beliefs.

Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Depression by William J Knaus and Albert Ellis (2012)

This Cognitive Behavioral Workbook for Depression is a highly effective tool for overcoming depressive thoughts and behaviors, supported by evidence-based techniques. This workbook guides readers through worksheets and exercises to assess their depression and acquire skills for recovery. It also offers insights on preventing relapse, featuring twenty-five expert tips to jump-start healing. It empowers individuals to break free from negative cycles, manage stress, and sustain positive changes, making it a vital resource in psychological well-being.

The 10 Best-ever Anxiety Management Techniques by Margaret Wehrenberg (2012)

Addressing physical, emotional, and behavioral symptoms, Margaret Wehrenberg draws on basic brain science to highlight the top ten anxiety-defeating tips. Everything from breathing techniques and mindful awareness to cognitive control and self-talk are included-all guaranteed to evict your anxious thoughts.

The self-Esteem Workbook by Schiraldi G.R (2001)

Discover your inherent worth and break free from self-criticism. Chapters on compassion, forgiveness, and brain plasticity reveal how self-esteem can be boosted through self-care practices like sleep, exercise, and nutrition. This updated bestseller equips you with the tools to cultivate self-love and live a happier life.

Stop Walking on Eggshells by Paul Mason and Randi Kreger (2009)

This book offers essential guidance for those dealing with loved ones suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD). It provides updated research and strategies to understand BPD, establish boundaries, and manage relationships effectively. Learn to assert your needs, defuse conflicts, and ensure safety while fostering stability and peace in your life.

Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder by Marsha M. Linehan (1993)

This book is a guide to teaching four sets of skills: interpersonal effectiveness, emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and mindfulness. It details precisely how to implement DBT behavioral skills training procedures. It provides everything clinicians need to implement the program in skills training groups or with individual clients. Included are lecture notes, discussion questions, exercises, and practical advice on dealing with frequently encountered problems. This book features over three dozen reproducible client handouts and homework sheets.

I Hate You, Don't Leave Me: Understanding the Borderline Personality by Jerold J. Kreisman, Hal Straus (2010)

An exploration of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), a condition marked by intense mood swings and unstable relationships. With symptoms like identity issues, outbursts, and fear of abandonment, BPD affects millions of people. Jerold J. Kreisman and Hal Straus provide essential insights and practical advice for sufferers and their families, offering clarity and strategies to manage this challenging disorder.

Websites:
https://www.nami.org
https://sashbear.org/en
thewellnesssociety.org/free-tools/
https://www.gottman.com/
www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/
https://bouncebackontario.ca
https://www.bigwhitewall.ca
anxietycanada.com
https://www.cci.health.wa.gov.au
https://moodgym.com.au
http://www.camh.ca
http://www.dbtselfhelp.com
https://5lovelanguages.com/learn

Apps:
Mindfulness Coach
Take a break! Guided meditation
The Worry box
Optimism
Relax Melodies
eCBT
Guided Mind
iSleep Easy
Psychscope
Thought Diary
Smiling mind
White Noise Lite
Pzizz
Mindshift
Self-Help Anxiety SAM
Breath 2 relax
Adult Colouring Book
Medisafe Medication Reminder
BoosterBuddy
Catch it

Podcasts:

Resources for Trauma

Books:
Trauma Is Really Strange, by Steven Haines (2015)
This comic explains trauma and its effects on the brain and body. When a traumatic event occurs, we often dissociate, and our bodies halt normal functions. Using engaging artwork, cat and mouse metaphors, scientific insights, and humor, the narrator explores how trauma confuses the brain and impacts the body. The book discusses trauma resolution, emphasizing the importance of altering the body'ss physiology. It describes techniques like Trauma Releasing Exercises, which help the body release deep-seated stress and trauma through shaking and tension release.

Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving, by Pete Walker (2013)
An overview of the tasks of recovering, and an illumination of the silver linings that can come out of
effective recovery work. It is also a map of the recovery process and contains a great many practical tools and techniques for recovering from CPTSD.

Getting Past your Past, by Francine Shapiro (2013)
Shapiro, the creator of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), explains personality development and why we often get stuck in unhelpful patterns. Using examples and exercises, readers can understand themselves and others, improve relationships, break emotional barriers, and overcome limitations. The book, written in an engaging and humorous style with real-life stories, simplifies brain science and offers techniques used by top performers. It encourages readers to move beyond unconscious reactions and take control of their lives. Reviews from experts highlight its effectiveness.

The Body Never Lies by Alice Miller (2006)
Psychoanalyst Alice Miller explores the long-term effects of childhood abuse on the body, linking experiences of humiliation and rage to adult illnesses like cancer and stroke. Using patient cases and the lives of literary figures like Virginia Woolf and Franz Kafka, she argues against forgiving abusive parents, urging society to reject harmful childrearing beliefs.

Trauma and Recovery, by Judith Herman (1997)
Revolutionizes the understanding and treatment of trauma. Herman's research connects private traumas, like rape, with public ones, like terrorism, emphasizing the social context of psychological trauma. The book's new afterword discusses its impact and evolving perspectives. Drawing on research in domestic violence and literature on combat veterans and political terror victims, it uses personal accounts and literary references to present a comprehensive view of trauma, making it a powerful and influential work.
Free online version can be found at:
https://beyondthetemple.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/herman_trauma-and-recovery-1.pdf

I Can’t Get Over It, by Aprodite Matsaki (1996)
Explores the widespread impact of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on not only soldiers but also survivors of various traumas such as crime, accidents, rape, family violence, sexual abuse, and natural disasters. Addressing trauma survivors directly, the book explains PTSD and the healing process. It helps readers identify PTSD, manage anger, grief, and survivor guilt, recognize related issues like depression and substance abuse, identify triggers for flashbacks and anxiety, cope with others' insensitivity, and regain a sense of empowerment and hope.

The body keeps the score, Brain, Mind and the Body in the Healing of Trauma, by Bessel van der Kolk (2015)
Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent over three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity. Based on Dr. van der Kolk’s own research and that of other leading specialists, The Body Keeps the Score exposes the tremendous power of our relationships both to hurt and to heal—and offers new hope for reclaiming lives.

Websites:
https://www.emdria.org/about-emdr-therapy/
www.ptsd.va.gov/gethelp/coping_stress_reactions.asp

Apps & Podcasts:
Mindfulness Coach
www.bahealing.com/podcast
The healing trauma podcast

Resources for Parenting

Books:
Differently Wired by Deborah Reber (2018)
Addresses the struggles of "differently wired" kids - those with ADHD, dyslexia, Asperger’s, giftedness, anxiety, and other neuro-differences. These children often face a world that doesn’t support or understand
them, and their parents grapple with finding the right resources and dealing with societal expectations. Drawing from her experiences with her twice-exceptional son, Reber offers hope and practical advice through 18 paradigm shifts, or "tilts". She encourages parents to reject societal pressures, embrace their child's uniqueness, and build a supportive environment. The book is both a guide and a strategy for parenting exceptional children.

Raising Human Beings by Ross W. Greene Ph.D. (2017)
Offers a new approach to parenting by balancing children's individuality with parents' desire for influence. Greene advocates for collaborative problem-solving instead of traditional discipline methods like timeouts and punishments. He provides clear, practical guidelines to help parents address issues like homework, hygiene, and screen time, fostering better relationships and empowering both parents and children. The book encourages understanding and validating children, aiming to create a more harmonious and effective parenting dynamic.

The Explosive Child by Ross W Greene PhD (2014)
Addresses the challenges of parenting "behaviorally challenging" children, who may react to frustration with extreme behaviors like screaming, hitting, or withdrawing. He argues that traditional terms and diagnoses are often unhelpful and inaccurate. Instead, Greene emphasizes understanding the root causes of these behaviors through a compassionate, research-backed approach. He acknowledges that adopting new strategies can be difficult but insists they lead to more effective and empathetic responses. The book aims to help parents, caregivers, and educators feel more confident and hopeful in managing these
children's difficulties.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber (2012)
This bestselling classic offers practical insights and proven methods for improving parent-child communication and building strong, lasting relationships. It provides strategies to handle children’s negative emotions effectively, express feelings without conflict, foster cooperation, set boundaries with kindness, encourage self-discipline without punishment, discern between constructive and unhelpful praise, and resolve family conflicts peacefully. Praised globally for its down-to-earth and respectful approach, the book enhances relationships with children, making parenting less stressful and more fulfilling.

The incredible Years by Carolyn Webster-Stratton (2006)
All children misbehave for a variety of reasons, sometimes simply to test how far they can go or to get the attention they crave. Other children are more difficult to parent than others because they are impulsive, hyperactive, inattentive, or delayed in some aspect of their development. This invaluable handbook provides parents with guidelines to help prevent behavior problems from occurring; and also with strategies to promote children's social, emotional, and academic competence. This is a parenting guide for parents of children ages two- to eight years old.

Children Are from Heaven by John Gray (2000)
Introduces a practical parenting system focused on positive reinforcement over punishment. Drawing on his acclaimed relationship expertise, Gray emphasizes nurturing children's desire to please by rewarding rather than punishing. Central to his approach are five key messages: acceptance of differences, learning from mistakes, expressing emotions, striving for more, and respecting parental authority. This compassionate method aims to cultivate resilient, confident children while fostering harmonious parent-child relationships.

Connected Parenting by Jennifer Kolari (2009)
Draws on over two decades as a child and family therapist to advocate for a compassionate approach to parenting. Rejecting traditional discipline in favor of empathy and understanding, Kolari teaches parents how to navigate challenging moments without defensiveness. The book offers practical strategies to set effective limits, reduce children's anxiety, resolve conflicts over routines and homework, and maintain composure in difficult situations. Through heartfelt advice and real-life success stories, Kolari presents a transformative blueprint for fostering peaceful, loving connections within families for the long term.

Helping your Anxious Child by Ronald Rapee (2008)
Addresses the challenges of childhood anxiety disorders like phobias, separation anxiety, and OCD. Written for parents, the book offers updated techniques rooted in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), exposure therapy, and mindfulness. It provides practical tools to help children manage fears and worries, including "detective thinking" to challenge irrational thoughts, gradual exposure to anxiety triggers, and development of social skills. The book includes links to downloadable resources for parents and an activity book for children, fostering active participation in anxiety management.
Free online version can be retrieved from
https://www.mjfamilyservices.ca/home/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Helping-Your-Anxious-Child_-A-Step-by-Step-Guide-for-Parents-PDFDrive-1-1.pdf

Websites:

Apps & Podcasts:

Resources for Bereavement , Grief & Loss

Books:
Understanding Your Grief by Alan D. Wolfel (2004)
Explaining the important difference between grief and mourning, this book explores every mourner's need to acknowledge death and embrace the pain of loss. Also explored are the many factors that make each person's grief unique and the many normal thoughts and feelings mourners might have.

The Grief Recovery Handbook by John W. James , Russell Friedman (2017)
The Grief Recovery Handbook explores how unresolved grief can hinder long-term happiness and offers a proven program for healing. Drawing on personal and diverse experiences, the authors provide specific actions to move beyond loss and regain vitality. The latest edition includes new guidance for dealing with the loss of faith, career and financial issues, health changes, and the impacts of growing up in an alcoholic or dysfunctional home, equipping readers with practical tools to address their grief and find renewed happiness.

Making Loss Matter by Rabi David Wolpe ( 2000)
In Making Loss Matter, Rabbi David Wolpe, blending theological insight with poetic sensitivity, examines how we can transform both subtle and overwhelming losses into sources of strength rather than despair. Wolpe offers a fluid narrative on finding meaning in grief and overcoming feelings of helplessness, guiding readers to use their suffering as a path to resilience and understanding.

It's OK That You're Not OK by Megan Devine (2017)
A refreshing approach to grief, drawing from her dual experiences as a therapist and as someone who lost her partner to accidental drowning. She challenges the cultural expectation of returning to a "happy" normal and instead advocates for integrating grief into life. Through stories, research, and mindfulness practices, Devine offers guidance on managing grief without trying to "fix" it, emphasizing that grief should be honored as a mystery rather than a problem to solve. This book provides compassionate support for those grieving and those supporting them.

Moving Through Grief by Gretchen Kubacky (2019)
Offers practical strategies for overcoming pain using acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). This guide provides effective techniques to help you embrace all aspects of your experience, including the painful ones, and commit to actions that enhance your life. Whether dealing with the loss of a loved one, health, or livelihood, it includes creative exercises and tools—like values, committed action, and cognitive defusion—to help you rediscover joy and make meaningful progress in your healing journey.

Websites:
http://www.mygrief.ca/
https://www.aftertalk.com/
https://www.centerforloss.com
https://www.jagvillage.com/
https://www.stjosephshospice.ca/
https://grief.com

Apps & Podcasts:
Grief Refuge
mygriefangels.org
Lilies

Resources for Addictions & Recovery

Books For Clients:
Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz (1997)
Draws on ancient Toltec wisdom to identify self-limiting beliefs that cause unnecessary suffering and rob us of joy. He presents a powerful code of conduct with four agreements that can quickly transform our lives, leading to greater freedom, true happiness, and love.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Dr. Gabor Mate (2009)
Offers a holistic and compassionate approach to understanding addiction, rooted in his two decades of
medical experience and work with addicts in Vancouver. This bestseller reframes addiction as a result of childhood trauma and societal factors rather than a personal failing. Maté combines real-life stories with cutting-edge research to argue against contemporary addiction policies and advocates for self-compassion and thorough self-understanding as keys to recovery.

Daily Reflections by Alcoholics Anonymous (1990)
A collection of daily reflections on quotations from AA Conference-approved literature, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, and As Bill Sees It. Written by members of the AA Fellowship from their own experiences in sobriety, the book offers daily insights that focus on the Three Legacies of Alcoholics Anonymous: Recovery, Unity, and Service. It serves as a tool for daily meditation, group discussions, and an introduction to AA literature.

Twenty-Four Hours a Day by Richmond Walker (2011)
is a classic work of meditation, thought, and prayer. Reprinted in 2011 from the 1954 edition, this book offers daily spiritual guidance and wisdom to help individuals in their recovery journey. Geared toward members of Alcoholics Anonymous, it provides inspiration and support for anyone seeking personal growth and spiritual upliftment. Each day of the calendar year features a thought, meditation, and short prayer, much of it based on the Big Book and other AA literature.

Tweak by Nic Sheff (2007)
offers a raw and harrowing account of his journey through addiction to methamphetamine and his ultimate path to recovery. Starting with his first drink at age eleven, Nic chronicles his descent into regular use of pot, cocaine, Ecstasy, crystal meth, and heroin. Despite believing he could quit anytime, a violent relapse in
California shatters this illusion. With unflinching honesty, Nic details the mental and physical depths of his addiction, his struggles with his past, family, substances, and himself, ultimately providing a compelling and hopeful tale of recovery.

The 5am Club by Robin Sharma (2018)
introduces a transformative morning routine developed over twenty years to help clients achieve peak productivity, health, and serenity. Through an engaging story about two struggling individuals who find
mentorship from an eccentric tycoon, Sharma reveals how early rising has led to remarkable accomplishments for many. The book details strategies for starting mornings like geniuses and business titans, a formula for inspired early waking, methods for self- renewal, and tactics to avoid digital distractions. The 5am Club is a guide to mastering productivity and living a fulfilled life.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle (1997)
guides readers on a transformative journey into the present moment, encouraging them to leave behind the analytical mind and ego. From the first page, Tolle connects readers to their indestructible essence "the
eternal, ever-present One Life" beyond birth and death. Using simple language and a question-and-answer format, he makes this challenging journey accessible. A word-of-mouth phenomenon, this extraordinary book has the power to radically improve readers' lives by helping them experience the profound benefits of living in the Now.

The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie (1990)
a unique daily meditation book for those dealing with codependency. Drawing from her own experiences and recovery reflections, Beattie offers daily thoughts and inspirations to guide readers. She emphasizes the importance of taking responsibility for one’s pain and self-care, reminding readers that each day is an opportunity for growth and renewal.

The Resilience Factor by Karen Reivich & Andrew Shatte (2002)
offers seven proven techniques to enhance resilience, essential for a happy, healthy life. It is demonstrated
that resilience is a skill that can be learned and improved. Readers will first assess their resilience levels with a questionnaire and then learn to overcome self-criticism, navigate crises, cope with grief and anxiety, improve relationships and physical health, and bolster optimism. This book provides tools to thrive amidst life's challenges and is poised to become a classic in self-help literature.

Books For Family Members:

Codependent No More by Melody Beattie (1986)
offers a compassionate exploration of codependency, where individuals lose themselves while trying to help others. This book helps readers understand that they can only change themselves and that self-care is the first step to healing. Through life stories, personal reflections, exercises, and self- tests, Beattie provides practical guidance for breaking old patterns, setting healthy boundaries, and ending unhealthy relationships. It offers a clear path to freedom, hope, and happiness.

One Day at a Time by Al Anon Family Group (1978)
Is designed to support individuals affected by someone else's alcoholism. Each day features a reflective thought and inspirational message aimed at helping readers cope with the challenges of living with an alcoholic. The book offers practical advice, emotional support, and encouragement to foster personal growth and resilience, guiding readers toward healthier attitudes and behaviors.

Beautiful Boy by David Sheff (2009)
Is about the author's journey through his son's addiction to methamphetamine. As David Sheff recounts his family's struggle with the devastating effects of substance abuse, he provides an intimate look at the pain, hope, and resilience that define their experience. The book offers a powerful exploration of addiction from both a personal and a broader perspective, capturing the complex dynamics of love and loss while highlighting the challenges and triumphs of recovery.

Where to Draw the Line by Anne Katherine (2000)
Is a practical guide for establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries in various aspects of life. This book offers tools and insights to protect personal integrity, balance one's needs with others' demands, and foster personal growth. Through real-life case studies and practical advice, it helps readers navigate relationships, self-care, and everyday decisions to strengthen and uphold their boundaries effectively.

Rebuilding Relationships in Recovery by Catherine Patterson-Sterling (2004)
Introduces the Triple R Healing Model to help individuals and their loved ones transform the impact of addiction into opportunities for personal and relational growth. This guide offers a five-stage process for healing relationships affected by addiction, covering realizing addiction’s impact, starting the healing process, eliminating unhealthy patterns, understanding recovery’s effects, and reconnecting. Suitable for those in recovery and their families.

The Family Recovery Guide by Stephanie Brown, Andrew Liotta, Virginia Lewis (2000)
Is for family members of someone trying to overcome an addiction. The book teaches how to sustain supportive relationships with the recovering addict without undermining the focus and determination he or she needs to beat addiction and build a healthy life.

It Will Never Happen to Me! by Claudia Black (1987)
Is meant to help the reader understand the roles children in alcoholic families adopt, the problems they face in adulthood as a result, and what they can do to break the pattern of destruction.

Don't Let Your Kids Kill You: A Guide for Parents of Drug and Alcohol by Charles Rubin (2007)
Offers crucial advice for parents struggling with their children's drug or alcohol misuse. It emphasizes the importance of saving themselves from being dragged into the destructive patterns of their children. The book combines spiritual and practical teachings to help parents achieve a healthy balance through letting go, while also providing strategies to safely distance themselves and recognize genuine requests for help. It includes real-life anecdotes and quotes from parents who have faced similar challenges.

Websites:
www.connexontario.ca/en-ca/
www.westovertreatmentcentre.ca/
www.addictionresource.net/
www.aasarnialambton.com/
www.smartrecovery.org/
www.al-anon.org

APPS:

Podcasts:

Let’s Talk Addictions & Recovery -Hazelden Foundation
Busy Living Sober – E. Chance
Armchair Expert – Dax Shepard
That Sober Guy – Shane Ramer
Addiction Podcast –Point of No Return
Recovery Unscripted -by Foundations Recovery Network

For Family Members:

Love over Addiction – Michelle Anderson
Lisa Inside Addiction
Addiction Support Podcast – Melissa Sue Tucker

Faith based Resources

Books
Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life by Henry Cloud and John Townsend (2017)
The book explores the ten essential laws for establishing healthy limits in relationships to foster greater health and happiness. Includes a chapter on managing boundaries in the digital age, online dating, single
parenting, and the workplace, providing readers with practical strategies to maintain balance and control in various aspects of their lives.

Holy Noticing by Charles Stone (2019)
This book teaches readers how to cultivate mindfulness through a Christian perspective, focusing on becoming more present in everyday life. The book offers practical guidance for reducing stress, improving engagement with God, and recognizing Christ’s presence in each moment. Using the BREATHe model,
Dr. Stone reclaims the ancient Christian practice of holy noticing, emphasizing its roots in biblical tradition and its benefits for living a more attentive and spiritually enriched life.

Simplify by Bill Hybels (2013)
The book addresses the overwhelming pace of modern life that often leads us to focus on work rather than what truly matters. He argues that simplifying life involves more than physical decluttering—it requires a deeper, spiritual uncluttering to realign with God’s purpose and build a meaningful legacy. Hybels provides practical steps to help readers clear mental and emotional clutter, prioritize essential values, and live a life grounded in what truly counts.

You'll Get through This by Max Lucado (2013)
offers practical guidance for overcoming life's challenges. Drawing from the story of Joseph in Genesis, Lucado illustrates that even in the darkest times, God is present and can redeem our struggles. The book emphasizes finding hope in hardship, relying on community support, and trusting in God's ability to restore and transform our lives. With a compassionate tone, Lucado reassures readers that they can navigate adversity with faith and resilience.

Battlefield of the Mind by Joyce Meyer (1997)
explores the power of thoughts and their impact on our lives. Meyer argues that the mind is a battleground where we confront negativity, doubt, and fear. Through practical advice and biblical wisdom, she provides strategies to overcome mental obstacles, develop a positive mindset, and align thoughts with God’s promises. The book offers tools for transforming one's thinking to achieve spiritual and emotional well-being.

The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman (2015)
reveals that people express and receive love in five distinct ways: Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch. Chapman argues that understanding and speaking
your partner's primary love language can strengthen relationships and enhance emotional connection. Through practical examples and advice, the book helps readers identify their own and their partner’s love languages, aiming to improve communication and deepen intimacy.

Journey of the Soul by Bill and Kristi Gaultiere (2021) The healthy Christian life is one of continuing spiritual, emotional, and relational growth. But so many of us feel stuck or stagnated at one stage of the journey. It's not always clear to us where or why we are stuck, making it difficult to take the next step on our journey of the soul.

Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazarro (2014).
Emotionally Healthy Spirituality is for those desiring to take steps in their Christian life and discipleship, to break free from bondage to the past and experience healing.

The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer (2019)
Jesus invites all of us to take up the “easy” yoke. He has-on offer to all-an easy way to shoulder the weight of life with his triumvirate of love, joy, and peace. What if the secret to a happy life―and it is a secret, an open one but a secret nonetheless; how else do so few people know it? what if the secret isn’t “out there” but much closer to home? What if all you had to do was slow down long enough for the merry-go-round blur of life to come into focus? What if the secret to the life we crave is actually easy?

Apps:

Websites:
mentalhealthgracealliance.org
hope4mentalhealth.com/about/our-purpose
www.agapechristiancounseling.org/resources
www.calminggrace.com
https://www.celebraterecovery.ca/
freshhope.us
soulshepherding.org

Resources for First Responders

BOOKS

RELENTLESS COURAGE by Dr. Shauna Springer and Sergeant Michael Sugrue (2022)
Sugrue bares his soul to help save his fellow brothers and sisters in the first responder community, and openly shares the mindsets, private struggles, losses, and personal betrayals that led him to become suicidal at one time. He shares how he healed and what kinds of programs and resources were most helpful in bringing him out of his darkest valley. Each chapter includes a wealth of original, game-changing insights on trauma from nationally renowned psychologist, Dr. Shauna Springer, one of the world’s leading experts in psychological trauma and healing.
For example:

What are some of the worst traumas a first responder can face?
What kinds of experiences after trauma can make its impact even worse?
What is the difference between telling our story to heal and sharing about trauma in a way that deepens the trauma further?
Does evil exist, or are all of us just reacting to our own unaddressed trauma?
How can any of us come back from the places where hope seems to have abandoned us?

Together, Sugrue and Springer tell the story that has been hidden in plain sight and provide perspective, truth and wisdom to help mend the divide between first responders and those they serve, and to help us all heal from our own traumas.

A FIRST RESPONDER VOICE by Cynthia Hamilton Urquhart (2021)
As First Responders, we need to understand that what we do is different, unusual, exceptional. In fact, it is extraordinary. And because we live these extraordinary lives, we can expect to have extraordinary struggles and carry extraordinary burdens, that can result in the need for extraordinary care.This journal can be the first step in your mental health journey. A safe place to help you figure things out. This is not a daily entry journal that will overwhelm you. This is different.

MINDFULNESS FOR WARRIORS by Kim Colegrove (2020)
This book is about empowering first responders to reduce stress and build resiliency. First responders have the incredibly difficult job of running toward danger while the rest of us run away. No training prepares them for what they see and endure. Kim Colegrove understands what it’s like to watch someone go through that. After 30 years in law enforcement, her husband took his own life. This agonizing experience opened Kim’s eyes to the desperate need for an effective form of stress-relief and support for first responders.

EMOTIONAL SURVIVAL FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT by Kevin Gilmartin (2002)
A guide for officers and their families.

I LOVE A COP by Ellen Kirschman (2018)
Police families are brave, resilient, and proud-and they face remarkable challenges, sometimes on a daily basis. Now thoroughly updated for today's turbulent times, this is the resource that cops and their loved ones have relied on for decades. Trusted expert Ellen Kirschman gives you practical ways to manage the stress of the job and create a healthy, supportive home environment. The third edition features the latest information, new stories from police families, two new chapters, and fully updated resources. Dr. Kirschman acknowledges the tough realities of life on the force and offers frank, realistic suggestions for handling everyday relationship dilemmas as well as serious issues like trauma, domestic violence, and alcohol abuse. Whether you read this book cover to cover or reach for it when problems arise, you will find no-nonsense guidance to help your family thrive.

Agencies and online supports

Boots on the Ground - peer support phone line for first responders and frontline workers
1-833-677-2668 (BOOT)
https://www.bootsontheground.ca/

COPLINE - peer support phone line for police officers
1-800-267-5463 (COPLINE)
https://www.copline.org/

WOUNDED WARRIORS CANADA - resources for families, individuals, couples, and trainings for first responders
1-888-706-4808
https://woundedwarriors.ca/

FIRST RESPONDERS FIRST - PTSD toolkit and resources for first responders
https://www.firstrespondersfirst.ca/

BADGE OF LIFE CANADA - peer support for first responders
[email protected]
https://badgeoflifecanada.org/about-us/

WINGS OF CHANGE - peer support for first responders
[email protected]
https://www.wingsofchange.ca/home

MINDFULNESS TOOLKIT - mindfulness toolkit for law enforcement
https://www.theiacp.org/sites/default/files/257860_IACP_Mindfulness_Toolkit_p5.pdf

Handouts:

The Feelings wheel.pdf
File Size:	913 kb
File Type:	pdf

Mental Health Self-Management Resources

Resources for Anxiety & Depression ​Books:

Resources for First Responders

Handouts:

Video Resources:

EMDR/ Trauma recovery:

Stress Management /Relaxation Strategies:

Overcoming Depression and Anxiety:

Communication:

Addictions:

Parenting:

Resources for Anxiety & Depression

Books: