Where Wounds Live is a ground breaking collection of articles that takes you deep into the landscape of trauma — not to dwell there, but to find the way through.

Drawing on her background as a nurse, midwife, and trauma practitioner, Dr. Sam Mishra (hc) brings both clinical precision and hard-won personal experience to some of the most pressing and rarely spoken-about challenges of our time. From the long shadow of narcissistic abuse and the silenced reality of male sexual assault, to addiction, body image, grief, generational trauma, and the quiet revolution of somatic healing — this book leaves no wound unexamined.

Spanning 67 articles across ten powerful themes, Where Wounds Live refuses to simplify what is complex or sanitise what is painful. Instead, it offers something rarer: honest, compassionate, and deeply human understanding. Whether you are navigating your own recovery, supporting someone who is, or working on the frontline of trauma care, these pages will challenge what you think you know — and illuminate what you may never have considered.

This is not just a book about surviving trauma. It is a guide to understanding where it lives inside us, and what it takes to truly come home to ourselves.

“In Where Wounds Live, Dr. Sam Mishra (h.c.) delivers a profound and symphonic exploration of the human spirit’s capacity to endure and rebuild after the devastating impact of trauma. This collection of 67 articles is far from a standard clinical manual; instead, it serves as a deeply personal homecoming for the wounded healer and anyone navigating the aftermath of abuse, loss, or systemic failure. Drawing from her own lived experience—including the heart-wrenching loss of her children and her personal journey through domestic abuse - Dr. Mishra bridges the gap between medical science and holistic healing with rare authenticity. She rejects the sterile, detached perspective of traditional therapy in favour of a "Language of Safety," reframing traumatic symptoms not as signs of "brokenness," but as the body’s adaptive survival strategies.

Where Wounds Live is ultimately a transformative guide that honours the whispers of the body before they become screams, offering a lantern to those walking through the fire, and proving that the self waiting on the other side has not just survived, but fundamentally and beautifully rearranged.”

- Alessandro Franchina - Business Writer and Adviser, Published Poet,

“Where Wounds Live is not just a collection of articles, it is a deeply compassionate guide through the often unspoken realities of trauma and recovery. Dr. Sam Mishra brings together clinical insight, lived experience, and courageous honesty to illuminate the hidden ways trauma shapes our lives, relationships, and sense of self. In a world where trauma is often misunderstood or minimized, this book stands as both a mirror and a map. It helps readers recognize their own stories while offering language, frameworks, and hope for healing.

Where Wounds Live is more than a book, it is a resource, a companion, and for many, a turning point.”

— Heidi Richards Mooney - Publisher, WE Magazine for Women | Author, The Expectant Author Series

Dr. Sam Mishra’s Where Wounds Live is one of those rare books that doesn’t just inform you — it stays with you. As someone who has interviewed authors from all walks of life on the UK Talk Radio Breakfast Show, I can tell you this is not a lightweight, surface-level read. It goes into places many people avoid talking about, and it does so with honesty, intelligence, and real compassion.

What impressed me most is that Dr. Mishra writes from both professional experience and personal understanding. That combination gives the book real authority. You can feel that these subjects are not being approached from a distance or treated like academic theories.

Whether she’s discussing narcissistic abuse, addiction, grief, body image, generational trauma, or the often-overlooked subject of male sexual assault, there’s a sense throughout the book that the reader is being understood rather than judged.

The structure of the book works very well too. With 67 articles spread across ten themes, you can dip into different sections depending on where you are emotionally or what subject speaks to you most.

Some chapters are challenging, and they should be. Trauma is complicated, messy, and deeply personal. What this book does brilliantly is refuse to oversimplify any of it.

I also think the sections on somatic healing are particularly interesting because they introduce readers to the idea that trauma isn’t just something we think about — it can live physically inside us as well. That’s an area more people are beginning to understand, and this book explains it in a very human and accessible way.

This isn’t a book full of clichés or quick-fix solutions. It’s thoughtful, grounded, and courageous. It feels written by someone who genuinely wants to help people make sense of what they’ve lived through and begin moving forward.

If you work in care, support someone dealing with trauma, or you’re trying to understand your own experiences a little better, Where Wounds Live is a powerful and important read.

Reviewed by Geoff Carter, host of the UK Talk Radio flagship Breakfast Show.

If we know where the wounds live, we can begin to heal. This powerful collection is a lifetime of work, and if it can serve and soothe even one person, the world will be better for it. Surely it will serve so many.  

- Sierra Melcher, Author  and CEO of Red Thread Publishing. 

What if the very things that broke you were always meant to make you?

Beautifully Broken is a raw, compassionate, and deeply practical guide to becoming who you were always meant to be — not despite your wounds, but through them.

Drawing on three decades of clinical practice as a trauma practitioner, nurse, midwife, and transformational coach, Dr Sam Mishra (h.c.) weaves together the neuroscience of trauma, depth psychology, somatic wisdom, and her own unflinching personal story to offer a roadmap for genuine, lasting change.

This is not a book about quick fixes or toxic positivity. It is an honest reckoning with the unconscious patterns, personality archetypes, and relational wounds that quietly shape our lives — and a step-by-step journey through the inner landscape most of us spend a lifetime avoiding. From shadow work and inner child healing, to trauma bonding, the Drama Triangle, and the Hero's Journey, each chapter moves you closer to the most authentic and empowered version of yourself.

Organised around the same transformational framework that has changed hundreds of lives in Dr Mishra's acclaimed workshops, Beautifully Broken meets you exactly where you are — and walks with you toward who you are capable of becoming.

Because you were never broken beyond repair. You were always becoming.

The sequel to Where Wounds Live.

'Having read Where Wounds Live, I was eager to read Dr. Sam Mishra’s follow-up, and it did not disappoint. While the first book helped me understand the lasting impact of trauma, grief, addiction, and family dynamics, this book feels like the next step—it doesn't just explain why we think and behave the way we do, it helps us begin to change it.

Drawing on the Transformation Workshops, Dr. Mishra gently guides readers through practical exercises that encourage honest self-reflection and a deeper understanding of the patterns that keep us stuck. What I appreciated most was how compassionate and accessible the book is. It never feels overwhelming or judgmental but instead offers hope and practical ways to move forward.

Whether you're carrying unresolved trauma, struggling to break free from unhealthy cycles, or simply wanting to understand yourself better, this book provides a safe and empowering place to begin. It's a valuable companion for anyone ready to heal, grow, and create lasting change. I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to move forward with greater self-awareness and confidence.'

Carlie Evans - Author

"What struck me first when reading Beautifully Broken, is the honesty of the frame. Dr. Sam Mishra opens not with theory but with a dedication to "the little girl who was handed a verdict instead of a future." This isn't written at a safe distance from pain — it comes from her own history and her work as a trauma practitioner. Clients can tell when someone is theorising about resilience versus someone who has rebuilt themselves. This reads like the latter.

I liked how the material moves from concept into practice. Chapters on Conscious Commitment, the Drama Triangle, Inner Child, and Shadow cover familiar ground, but the somatic, felt-sense work threaded through is genuinely useful. Writing a commitment with the dominant and non-dominant hand, noticing where fear sits in the body, is simple enough for a session yet lands with weight — I could hand it to a client tomorrow.

This book sits between a client workbook and a memoir-informed guide and I would absolutely keep it on my bookshelf to use with clients working through relationship patterns and inner-child wounding. It asks readers to listen to their pain rather than bypass it — rarer than it should be."

— Heather Nugent - Life Coach & Writer

“She's a trauma practitioner who has spent years teaching people to put themselves first — and then goes home and does the opposite. She's built a career on helping others heal while quietly holding herself together with her own two hands. That honesty is rare in this genre, and it's exactly what makes the teaching land. This isn't a guru telling you what healing should look like. It's someone who has lived inside the theory and is willing to admit where it still fails her.”

Robyn Clifford - Counsellor