Reviews tagging 'Mental illness'

You Are Your Own: A Reckoning with the Religious Trauma of Evangelical Christianity by Jamie Lee Finch

1 review

bluejayreads's review against another edition

2.5

My fundamental problem with this book is that I completely misunderstood what it was. From the title and the personal bent to the whole idea, I thought it was going to be a memoir, or mostly memoir combined with some self-help-style content. It is neither of those things. The conclusion section refers to it as a "thesis," and that's really what it reads like. Even the slightly odd formatting makes more sense in that context. It combines autoethnography (a variety of academic sociological study using the self as subject) with a historical analysis of Evangelical Christianity, trauma and PTSD, the development of Religious Trauma Syndrome as an idea, and pathways to healing. (I'm also slightly uncomfortable with her assertions that healing from religious trauma could heal chronic illness, cancer, infertility, and other physical ailments - I've read The Body Keeps the Score and don't disbelieve in the premise, but it needs some disclaimers that she doesn't provide.) It is a decent length for a thesis paper but very short for a book, especially a book with such a broad scope. It's also written like a thesis paper - dense, packed with citations, emphasizing information and facts over storytelling or emotional engagement. It is a good, if academic, overview of the idea of religious trauma and how growing up in Evangelical Christianity can cause it. However, I'm not sure how or why this got published as a general readership book. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Emotional abuse and Religious bigotry

Minor: Child abuse, Eating disorder, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, and Self harm

Talks about a lot of heavy mental health- and trauma-related topics, but discussed dispassionately and without description.