Reviews tagging 'Medical trauma'

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

126 reviews

akvolcano's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Cancer, Child abuse, Child death, Chronic illness, Confinement, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Gun violence, Incest, Mass/school shootings, Lesbophobia, Medical trauma, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Sexual harassment, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Body shaming, Car accident, Cursing, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Dysphoria, Fatphobia, Fire/Fire injury, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Gore, Infidelity, Medical content, Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Pedophilia, Police brutality, Racism, Pregnancy, Rape, Self harm, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Terminal illness, Torture, Toxic relationship, Trafficking, War, and Violence

bookaddictang's review against another edition

emotional slow-paced

3.5

I enjoyed this book because it helped me understand trauma; the history of trauma treatment in the psychology world; and the type of treatments available/studied and their success rates. I also enjoyed learning why some treatments are widely available and others are not. 

This book was eye-opening and really helped me understand and categorize some of my emotions and how I react/respond to things, especially in response to what I now know was a neglectful upbringing. 

What I did not like was the detailed trauma/case study the author went into for some of these examples. It may be beneficial detail to a psychologist but I was disturbed by a majority of the ones that I read and did not need those details to comprehend the points the author was making. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Child abuse, and Incest

Moderate: Medical trauma, Trafficking, Violence, and Sexual violence

jussery's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Police brutality, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, Fatphobia, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Violence, Car accident, Child abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, War, Chronic illness, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Trafficking, Sexism, Alcoholism, Child death, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Slavery, Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Animal cruelty, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Rape, Death, Death of parent, Drug use, Eating disorder, Murder, Self harm, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Stalking, Suicide, Torture, Domestic abuse, and Medical trauma

slop_queen's review against another edition

2.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Cultural appropriation, Misogyny, Mental illness, Medical trauma, and Sexual assault

schopflin's review against another edition

slow-paced

4.0

This is highly readable despite the complexity of some of the concepts. I have no background in neuroscience but I was able to follow these parts and understand them. From another aspect, this book is potentially life-changing. I wouldn't say my experiences were traumatic on the scale of the patients described here, but I recognised so many of the physical responses to stressful situations. Not least, the pure lack of safety I feel in relation to others. This isn't an easy read, but we'll worth it. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Medical content, Rape, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Self harm, Alcoholism, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Child abuse, Eating disorder, Incest, Chronic illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual assault

annerbtw's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective sad slow-paced

3.75

 3.78/5 ⭐️ - because I want to be difficult with my rating.

I liked it, I found it insightful, but I think I went in with the wrong expectations. I assumed that by the end of the book, you'd have resources that could be "easily" applied to your own mental health journey. Kolk definitely teaches you about them, but they're not easily applied to anything specific you might have going on. It's a very educational read... but don't read it side-by-side with A Little Life, my GOD... do not.

Also, (sorry for long review, anyone reading) there are some negative reviews about Kolk sympathizing with horrible people - I don't necessarily think that's true. The same way that people find documentaries about serial killers interesting, I think the same applies here. I would never excuse the actions some mentally disturbed people do at the beginning of this book, but I think it's important for us to find the source (if there is one), and figure out how to keep it from happening again. There can be a lot of fascination in this topic because of just how complex humans are, how complex the brain is.... that's what the whole book is about. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual harassment, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Incest, Grief, Gaslighting, Eating disorder, Child abuse, Blood, Toxic relationship, Torture, Mental illness, Forced institutionalization, Drug abuse, Death of parent, Chronic illness, Addiction, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Emotional abuse, Drug use, Domestic abuse, Child death, Cannibalism, Alcoholism, Suicide attempt, Alcohol, and Death

nonbinarian_librarian's review against another edition

challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual violence, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, and Suicide

Moderate: Bullying, Cancer, Panic attacks/disorders, War, Chronic illness, Abandonment, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, Alcoholism, Incest, and Rape

yaelm's review against another edition

challenging dark informative reflective sad tense

3.0

מבינה מה הכותב אומר ובסה״כ מדובר בספר עשיר במידע וקולח, אבל השפה בה הוא משתמש מאוד בעייתית (אנשים נורמליים לעומת אנשים עם פוסט טראומה, למשל) ולפעמים כואבת.

יש לו גם כל מיני הבחנות מכאיבות מאוד לגבי הורות עם פוסט טראומה. אני לא הורה בעצמי אבל זה כאב לי בכל הגוף. היו עוד כל מיני כאלו לאורך הספר.

מעבר לזה, מבוסס (בחלקו) על מדע שכבר אינו עדכני ולדעתי גם בתקופת הכתיבה של הספר לא היה מדויק (הצד הימני של המוח הוא היצירתי והשמאלי הוא השכלתני וכו׳).

מלאאא בטריגרים כמובן, כל דבר שיכול לגרום לפוסט טראומה. כמה מהמקרים שהוא מציג כטראומטיים מאוד מקוממים (אדם שביצע פשעים נוראיים כלפי נשים וילדים וחזר מהמלחמה עם טראומה, למשל. אין לי ספק שהוא באמת חזר בטראומה, אבל זה עבר בלי ביקורת בכלל. ברור לי שכפסיכיאטר התפקיד שלו הוא לא להפעיל שיפוט מוסרי, ועדיין אפשר היה לכתוב איזו מילה וחצי כמו שהוא עשה במקרים אחרים ופחות שחורים מוסרית)

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Adult/minor relationship, Body shaming, Bullying, Car accident, Child abuse, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, Alcoholism, Fatphobia, Domestic abuse, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Antisemitism, Chronic illness, Emotional abuse, Ableism, Addiction, Grief, and Drug use

danikc8's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Pedophilia, Rape, Torture, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Incest, Self harm, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

scripturient's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical trauma, Rape, Car accident, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Incest, and Mental illness

Moderate: Panic attacks/disorders, Alcoholism, Self harm, Suicide, and Addiction