Reviews

Trauma and Recovery by Judith Lewis Herman

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calvinjdorsey's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

4.5

mimimooncake's review against another edition

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dark informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

5.0

saracatalyst's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

This book has such great insights into trauma and such a human approach and view of people living with the knowledge and after affects that come with trauma. Much of the book discusses the trauma of war, the trauma of rape, sexual assault, and incest, and the trauma of prolonged childhood abuse. These unfortunately common experiences provide an interesting range of coverage for the cornerstones of the traumatic experience and the differences in how they affect us and why.

As a person who’s been living and coping with growing up in an abusive home from birth to adulthood, I loved that the book was about BOTH trauma AND recovery and that each got its own dedicated section. The author clearly cares just as much about the recovery as the understandings of the mechanism or trauma, which isn’t always the case and can make these books feel uncomfortably voyeuristic at times.

Her framework of the effects of trauma maps perfectly to her framework of recovery and both resonate deeply with the human experience and so called “common sense” without oversimplifying the maddening challenges of repair. I have been lucky to have access to psychiatry and therapy and I still walked away feeling much more empowered to drive my own healing journey and to extend the work of the therapy into my day to day life to deepen my healing and recovery.

It’s always a bonus for me when these authors work in my area, too. I feel more connected which is what we’re going for!

Content Warnings

carriehall1987's review against another edition

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5.0

This is the OG The Body Keeps the Score. Absolutely required reading- a phenomenal trauma text.

amandajwampler's review against another edition

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5.0

First official book for my thesis done!!! This is an incredible exploration into the implications of trauma on a survivors adult life and what recovery may look like. Lots of great ideas in here, and Herman truly changed the game for trauma psychotherapy.

willowbiblio's review against another edition

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4.0

"The effort to ward off intrusive symptoms, though self-protective in intent, further aggravates the PTSD, for the attempt to avoid reliving the trauma too often results in a narrowing of consciousness, a withdrawal from engagement with others, and an impoverished life."
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This was an extremely intense reading experience for me. I needed to journal at length (in my personal journal) about several passages because of how much it brought up. In many ways it was incredibly validating to read and have affirmed just how normal my responses have been. It was also frustrating.