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A review by mrs_erven
The Soul of Shame: Retelling the Stories We Believe about Ourselves by Curt Thompson
2.0
Had to read this for a book club. I would not have finished it otherwise. (I honestly speed-skimmed the last two chapters.)
Redundant, long-winded and unnecessarily scientific. As another review said, this book could have been fifty pages long. It also could have had some more diagrams for those of us not well-versed in neuroscience.
Most of the book was just frustrating bc it felt like the author took Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability and shame and Daniel Siegel’s work on the brain and then desperately tried to make it all Biblical.
He uses genesis 3 to try and make a “biblical narrative” of shame. If I’m to understand hermeneutics correctly, then one may want to use more than a single chapter of the entire Bible to create a “biblical narrative” of anything.
He also engaged in a whole lot of eisegesis; sometimes just making up stuff to fit his agenda. The apostle Paul and John Calvin rolled over in their graves when this book was published.
I am not a religious person but I used to be, and if this book frustrated me this much now...my old super-bible-studying self could NOT have handled it.
Sometimes it felt like he didn’t expect his audience to take the Bible too seriously. Rather insulting.
If you’re interested in neurobiology and shame, stick with Brown and Siegel. Their books are shorter, better written and don’t seem to have an agenda other than to dispense life-changing info.
Redundant, long-winded and unnecessarily scientific. As another review said, this book could have been fifty pages long. It also could have had some more diagrams for those of us not well-versed in neuroscience.
Most of the book was just frustrating bc it felt like the author took Brené Brown’s work on vulnerability and shame and Daniel Siegel’s work on the brain and then desperately tried to make it all Biblical.
He uses genesis 3 to try and make a “biblical narrative” of shame. If I’m to understand hermeneutics correctly, then one may want to use more than a single chapter of the entire Bible to create a “biblical narrative” of anything.
He also engaged in a whole lot of eisegesis; sometimes just making up stuff to fit his agenda. The apostle Paul and John Calvin rolled over in their graves when this book was published.
I am not a religious person but I used to be, and if this book frustrated me this much now...my old super-bible-studying self could NOT have handled it.
Sometimes it felt like he didn’t expect his audience to take the Bible too seriously. Rather insulting.
If you’re interested in neurobiology and shame, stick with Brown and Siegel. Their books are shorter, better written and don’t seem to have an agenda other than to dispense life-changing info.