What It Takes to Heal

How Transforming Ourselves Can Change the World

By: Prentis Hemphill

Narrated by: Prentis Hemphill

Length: 10 hrs

Publisher's summary

From one of the most prominent voices in the trauma conversation comes a groundbreaking new way to heal on a personal and a collective level.

“I love this book.”—Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score

“In a time when so many of us are being trained in cynicism, this book stands in necessary defiance.”—Cole Arthur Riley, author of Black Liturgies and This Here Flesh

As we emerge from the past few years of collective upheaval, are we ready to face the complexities of our time with joy, authenticity, and connection? Now more than ever, we must learn to heal ourselves, connect with one another, and embody our values. In this revolutionary book, Prentis Hemphill shows us how.

What It Takes to Heal asserts that the principles of embodiment—the recognition of our body’s sensations and habits, and the beliefs that inform them—are critical to lasting healing and change. Hemphill, an expert embodiment practitioner, therapist, and activist who has partnered with Brené Brown, Tarana Burke, and Esther Perel, among others, shows us that we don't have to carry our emotional burdens alone. Hemphill demonstrates a future in which healing is done in community, weaving together stories from their own experience as a trauma survivor with clinical accounts and lessons learned from their time as a social movement architect. They ask, “What would it do to movements, to our society and culture, to have the principles of healing at the very center? And what does it do to have healing at the center of every structure and everything we create?”

In this life-affirming framework for the way forward, Hemphill shows us how to heal our bodies, minds, and souls—to develop the interpersonal skills necessary to break down the doors of disconnection and take the necessary risks to reshape our world toward justice.

©2024 Prentis Hemphill (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“In the tradition of James Baldwin, Hemphill invites us in close and personal to experience life, pain, beauty, injustice, and healing. I’ll read this again and again.”—Staci K. Haines, author of The Politics of Trauma

“This book reckons with our major issues—trauma, race, social upheaval—and opens us up to the possibility that everything actually could be different. And it does so one gorgeous sentence after the next.”—Resmaa Menakem, author of My Grandmother’s Hands

“This book will be both the ‘aha’ moment and the balm for so many people who are saddled with vacant platitudes that don’t give them a way forward. It is what we need in this moment and will be foundational for generations to come.”—Tarana Burke, author of Unbound