Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

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

116 reviews

mx_flint's review

Very triggering for people with trauma (me), too long winded and unnecessary, sympathises with rapists more than rape victims and the long and descriptive traumatic events were unnecessary and triggering. Do not reccomend it, thank god I didn't spend money on it

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Chronic illness, Eating disorder, Animal death, Confinement, Death, Ableism, Addiction, Animal cruelty, Body shaming, Fatphobia, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, Car accident, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug use, and Emotional abuse

akvolcano's review

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

jussery's review

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

cwerber's review

challenging emotional informative tense slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Death, and War

moonylovesstars's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Medical content

Moderate: Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, War, Rape, Panic attacks/disorders, Child death, Death, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Emotional abuse, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Pedophilia, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Suicide attempt, Addiction, Blood, Car accident, and Physical abuse

Minor: Cursing and Mass/school shootings

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

katiedalton's review against another edition

I think this book was well written but it was very heavy and my brain was not prepared for the topic. I’m not sure why it certainly promotes itself as a book about trauma. 

I did not expect the graphic and countless descriptions of sexual assault, to include incest and child sexual abuse. It also detailed veteran trauma experiences, but the sexual abuse stories of children got to me. 

And I am not sure such quantity and detail of trauma stories were necessary to make the authors point, which is that the brain rewires itself in response to trauma. 

I have heard so many people praise this book and I wanted to appreciate it but it was very hard to listen to. It moved very slowly, and the solutions seem to be at the last chapters of the book and I couldn’t hold out for them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Incest, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, and Child abuse

Moderate: Drug abuse, Alcoholism, and Self harm

annerbtw's review

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

yaelm's review

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

bethboo's review against another edition

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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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Mental illness, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, Medical trauma, Death of parent, Suicide, Sexual violence, Self harm, Pedophilia, Child abuse, Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Rape, Injury/Injury detail, Incest, Eating disorder, Drug abuse, and Alcoholism