Restoring Your Wounded Heart: A Catholic Approach to Healing Trauma

Healing trauma is possible--even when your wounds feel too deep to name.

Relational pain, anxiety, and the lingering effects of past and present trauma can sometimes make God's promises feel distant. Even though many Christians come to understand God's redeeming love through scripture and Church teaching, they often struggle to experience that love personally in the midst of emotional wounds.

In Restoring Your Wounded Heart: A Catholic Approach to Healing Trauma, licensed marriage and family therapist Brya Hanan offers a compassionate, trauma-informed path toward healing through faith, psychology, and spiritual renewal.

Building on the heart-centered wisdom of her best-selling debut Befriending Your Inner Child, Hanan integrates insights from trauma therapy, neurobiology, scripture, and Catholic spirituality to help readers understand how trauma affects the heart--and how God gently restores what has been wounded.

This practical and hopeful guide will help you

• understand how trauma impacts the mind, body, and soul;
• recognize the wounds hidden beneath anxiety, shame, and relational pain;
• discover trauma-informed practices for emotional and spiritual healing;
• reclaim the truth of God's love in the midst of suffering;
• see how Christ is present in every chapter of your story; and
• begin the journey toward healing trauma and restoring your heart.

With emotional warmth and pastoral wisdom, Hanan invites you to untangle the knotted threads of your story and encounter God's healing presence--even in your most painful memories.

You'll learn to recognize God's faithful hand in your life, and you'll discover how he has been at work all along, redeeming your trauma, restoring your wounded heart, and leading you toward true and lasting wholeness.

"Healing trauma is difficult," Hanan writes. "It is uncomfortable. It feels vulnerable, unarmed, and exposed. But it is here in the letting go that we share in Christ's Resurrection. It is here that we are transformed, and we live in the fullness of truth where the Enemy has no hold, and trauma no longer triumphs."

If you are longing for trauma healing, emotional restoration, and deeper faith, Restoring Your Wounded Heart offers a gentle and trustworthy guide for the journey.

Brya Hanan is a Catholic licensed marriage and family therapist, a certified family trauma specialist, and the director of Catholic Inner Child Work. She is the creator of the Spirit-Led Inner Child Work model, an integrative approach that blends trauma-informed care, nervous system awareness, parts work, and Catholic spirituality to support deep healing and restoration.

Hanan is licensed to practice in multiple states and leads a growing team of coaches and practitioners who extend this work through education, accompaniment, and formation. Her work focuses on helping individuals encounter God in wounded places, restore embodied safety, and rediscover their God-given wholeness.

Hanan is the author of the award-winning book Befriending Your Inner Child: A Catholic Approach to Healing and Wholeness and God Whispered Gently, a children's book she wrote about her own inner child. Through writing, workshops, and digital resources, she equips readers to move toward integrated healing in mind, body, and soul.