Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress by Gabor Maté

4 reviews

katharina90's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

3.5

Dr. Maté highlights the connection between childhood trauma (and resulting poor boundaries and/or lack of emotional competence) and chronic stress, which then adversely impacts our health, e.g. by increasing our susceptability to illness.

A lot of the evidence is anecdotal, but I found the book informative and I appreciated the food for thought it provides.

"Research has suggested for decades that women are more prone to develop breast cancer if their childhoods were characterized by emotional disconnection from their parents or other disturbances in their upbringing, if they tend to repress emotions, particularly anger, if they lack nurturing social relationships in adulthood and if they are the altruistic, compulsively caregiving types."

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, and Domestic abuse

faithaforman's review

challenging informative reflective sad medium-paced

3.75

This book really made me think. As someone struggling with internalized stress and anxiety who also has an autoimmune disease, much is this book hit close to home. The author did a good job of clearly explaining medical terms and cases, and the book circled back to earlier cases near the end to emphasize the conclusion the author was putting forth about the relationship of trauma and stress with autoimmune disease and cancer. The only reason I did not rate higher is I have not yet taken the time to review the sources and do some more digging to see if the author was perhaps very selective in their case and data choices. That being the case I am not comfortable rating higher until I feel more confident in the research utilized for the medical hypotheses posited in this book.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Cancer, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Drug abuse, Medical content, Medical trauma, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Alcoholism, Mental illness, Sexual assault, and Terminal illness

Minor: Infidelity, Rape, Abandonment, Physical abuse, and Grief

This book may awaken fear/anxiety regarding the hypothesis proposed and one's own handling of stress. Be sure you are in a relatively stable mental health condition before embarking to avoid emotional crisis.

bellulapatata's review

dark informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

Not an easy read, but a very necessary one!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, and Abandonment

lou_o_donnell's review

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Bullying, Classism, Chronic illness, Excrement, Mental illness, Self harm, Terminal illness, Cancer, Child abuse, Colonisation, Death of parent, Infidelity, Medical trauma, Physical abuse, Rape, Suicidal thoughts, Abandonment, Drug use, Eating disorder, Medical content, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Forced institutionalization, Pedophilia, and Sexual violence