Reviews tagging 'Physical abuse'

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

165 reviews

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

eelizard's review

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Classism, Colonisation, Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, War, Adult/minor relationship, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, and Self harm

rebeccakate07's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Self harm, Rape, Sexual violence, War, Domestic abuse, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Physical abuse

catalystcafe's review

challenging informative sad

5.0

What if we looked at trauma as the root of a number of behaviors vs over medicating and ignoring the self? What if we looked for ways the self is trying to express what has happened vs. suppressing outbursts and extreme behavior? An amazing book of a career of neuropsychology on trauma and what can be done to treat and integrate it into someone’s life.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Physical abuse, Panic attacks/disorders, and Sexual violence

karladuhrla's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Mental illness, Incest, Domestic abuse, War, Suicide attempt, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Violence, Death, Sexual violence, and Pedophilia

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

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

skylover's review

textbook heavy content and mildly triggering 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content, Sexual violence, Rape, Murder, Suicide, Physical abuse, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Sexual assault, and War

rachelmabarca's review

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense slow-paced

5.0

This book was life-changing and paradigm-shifting for me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Torture, Rape, Incest, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Slavery, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Physical abuse, and War

Overall intense, sometimes painful to read. Not for the faint of heart.