chelanna22's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative sad tense medium-paced

4.0


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akvolcano's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.75

Loved reading this book! Trauma is always spoken in the context of war veterans, but the intricacies are never fully connected. This book well develops the connection. It actually goes further by not separating citizen trauma from war trauma, but speaks of them on the same level. When I began this reading I was skeptical if there would be any new concepts or material. I am happy to say that there was in fact exploration in areas that have not been fed into mainstream media! As a survivor myself, I enjoy that throughout the book there is consistently stories of people being shared. I would like to read a book like this one that takes its central concepts and goes a bit further. Overall, excellent well researched and articulated book!

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karladuhrla's review

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emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.0


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jussery's review against another edition

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challenging informative medium-paced

4.0

This book was really useful to me in how it summarized a lot of research findings in an interesting and succinct way (not to say this book wasn't long, it definitely was). Halfway into this book I found out that the author is not really a great guy, which definetely soured anything I read from his perspective. I found some of his descriptions of women kinda gross. I thought he went too far describing some patient's trauma. This book has so many triggers and I read it as someone without PTSD (I have a depersonalization disorder though, and was hoping to uncover more about that through this book) - so a big warning to anyone considering reading it! Overall though, I still gave this book 4 stars just because I think it really captured a lot of research studies on trauma in a digestible way (could do without the authors excessive descriptions though). And it really helped me contextualize some of my symptoms and how they are biologically based, which helped me put less blame on myself for them.

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moonylovesstars's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

5.0

I can’t help but rate this 5 stars. It talks about the stories of others and is very informative. I have seen myself in parts of their stories and many other things. It made me feel seen, and feeling seen is the best feeling ever. I feel like everyone should read it. I feel like everyone should give it a try.

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mallorymontenegro's review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful sad slow-paced

4.5

Informative and very insightful for anyone who wants to understand a person with PTSD. There are many real life experiences told of PTSD patients, which entails many disturbing accounts of the unspeakable events that traumatized them. For this reason, I didn’t particularly enjoy this book. Even if you don’t have any specific triggers… this stuff is heavy. I had to be in the right frame of mind before I could read it. That said, I believe it is important for these stories to be told. Hopefully it will help those without PTSD to be more understanding and compassionate, and those with PTSD to know they are not alone and that it is possible for them to overcome their trauma. 

Being a new parent, I found this excerpt to be especially striking:
As long as we feel safely held in the hearts and minds of the people who love us, we will climb mountains and cross deserts and stay up all night to finish projects.
Children and adults will do anything for people they trust, and whose opinion they value. 

But if we feel abandoned, worthless, or invisible, nothing seems to matter. Fear destroys curiosity and playfulness. In order to have a healthy society, we must raise children who can safely play and learn. 

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danikc8's review against another edition

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informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

Extremely informative and insightful. I like that the book includes information on the shortcomings of psychiatric drugs and government policies. My only small complaint is that I was taken aback by some the really extreme examples of trauma. I think I would have liked a warning for some of them. 

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bethboo's review against another edition

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emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

This book has so much information. It's a lot longer and in depth than a quick personal growth read. This is a book I definitely wouldn't have gotten so much out of had I not been reading it in tandem with the information given to me by my therapist. It is so much more than a simple book on trauma and therapy techniques. It's the history of diagnoses, therapies, techniques, studies, training, patients, doctors, and experiences surrounding trauma. The author must be fucking immortal because he had first hand experience from ages ago and gave stories and examples and information for every single one he spoke of. I got a lot personally from the EMDR section and the structured Family Therapy or whatever and the beginning sections describing the brain and trauma and how it's all connected. 

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beklovesbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

An excellent textbook on trauma and the science-backed approaches to healing from it. Also an interesting journey through the author’s professional experiences that led to his outstanding knowledge on the subject. 

Read the trigger warnings and take them seriously. He often gives details about horrific abuse and sensitive information about patients, later illustrating their growth, but I would imagine it would be too much for many people with backgrounds touched by abuse, neglect, suicide etc.

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monstrouscosmos's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad slow-paced

1.0

I used to always recommend this book to people, but I'm at a point where I think it's an avoid. it's meant as a professional resource, and while as a non-professional I think there's something to be gained by learning about these topics: there are less triggering, less retraumatizing, and more empowering options out there. 

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