Reviews with content warning for Racism - What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

Reviews tagging 'Racism'

What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo

108 reviews

kayfab's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

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alayamorning's review against another edition

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

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madredeleones's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad tense

4.75

You don't have to have CPTSD to learn and grow from this book. This was recommended in a Divorce group I am in and it was so interesting and helpful from a healing perspective. As a queer and mixed-race person, there were lots of notes in this book that rang true for me--generational trauma, the long term effects of microaggressions, the effects of COVID and the current political climate--as well as the difficult goal of changing learned behaviors and reactions. I highly recommend this book for anyone who is trying to overcome trauma of any kind. There is hope and there are a LOT of roads to healing.

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katharina90's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

I'm always on the lookout for books about C-PTSD to foster a deeper understanding of my own complex trauma.

Foo writes about this topic in a very approachable way, blending memoir and journalism. At times it's a painful read but less triggering than I expected. What I found most interesting was her work with Dr. Jacob Ham.

I didn't love that the author sometimes presents subjective statements and experiences as universally true. I also strongly disagree with her generalization that Psychologists are more knowledgeable than LCSWs.

"We're gonna keep practicing curiosity and exploration rather than judgment, and it's through that practice that you'll start to be nicer to yourself."-Dr. Jacob Ham

"This was Dr. Ham’s whole theory: that because of its repetitive nature, complex trauma is fundamentally relational trauma. In other words, this is trauma caused by bad relationships with other people—people who were supposed to be caring and trustworthy and instead were hurtful. That meant future relationships with anybody would be harder for people with complex trauma because they were wired to believe that other people could not be trusted. The only way you could heal from relational trauma, he figured, was through practicing that relational dance with other people. Not just reading self-help books or meditating alone. We had to go out and practice maintaining relationships in order to reinforce our shattered belief that the world could be a safe place."

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