Reviews tagging 'Emotional abuse'

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk

238 reviews

nicmargan's review against another edition

challenging dark informative slow-paced

3.5

 I took a detour from natural-disaster books to learn about trauma this month.

At the start of the book, we meet a soldier who won’t take his pills because he feels he must remain a living memorial to the friends he lost, so their deaths won’t have been in vain. This introduces the idea that some part of traumatised people remains stuck in the past.

This idea is borne out in studies presented later, in which it is shown that the bodies of some people after a traumatic event will continue to secrete stress hormones long after any threat has passed. This emotional information can make rationalising difficult, so that a small problem can be blown out of proportion because of the inability to self-regulate.

One of the main features of what makes an event potentially traumatic is if the event endangers the person’s sense of safety around other people. This could be from experiencing the horror of what people are capable of in war, or the horror of being sent to war by a government you trusted, or abuse or neglect by a carer or loved one. One study showed that the security of children’s attachments to their mothers consistently predicted the amount of morphine children in a burns unit needed to control their pain.

Trauma can also affect memory. The details of events become repressed or are experienced unlike other memories (in a sequence or narrative), but in sharply exposed, jumbled and incomplete sensations. Historically, trauma has been deemed made-up or the fault of the victim. When soldiers after World War II were treated for PTSD, doctors ‘almost invariably found the root cause in pre-war experience: the sick men were not first-grade fighting material… The military proposition is [that it is] not war which make men sick, but that sick men can not fight wars.’

Most of the second half of the book looks at treatment options and I appreciated that so much space was given to solutions.

Though I struggled at times with the long, technical and heavy nature of this book, it achieved the admirable task of identifying a set of social problems that are so pervasive they are often regarded as normal, and giving a roadmap as to how they don’t have to be. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

dreamingpages's review against another edition

informative reflective medium-paced

4.5

Extremely informative and insightful. I like that the book includes information on the shortcomings of psychiatric drugs and government policies. My only small complaint is that I was taken aback by some the really extreme examples of trauma. I think I would have liked a warning for some of them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Medical trauma, and Abandonment

danilippert's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Incest, Mental illness, and Self harm

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Grief, Mass/school shootings, and Abandonment

bethboo's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.5

This book has so much information. It's a lot longer and in depth than a quick personal growth read. This is a book I definitely wouldn't have gotten so much out of had I not been reading it in tandem with the information given to me by my therapist. It is so much more than a simple book on trauma and therapy techniques. It's the history of diagnoses, therapies, techniques, studies, training, patients, doctors, and experiences surrounding trauma. The author must be fucking immortal because he had first hand experience from ages ago and gave stories and examples and information for every single one he spoke of. I got a lot personally from the EMDR section and the structured Family Therapy or whatever and the beginning sections describing the brain and trauma and how it's all connected. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, and Injury/Injury detail

lafreier's review against another edition

dark hopeful informative slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, and Sexual violence

beklovesbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

5.0

An excellent textbook on trauma and the science-backed approaches to healing from it. Also an interesting journey through the author’s professional experiences that led to his outstanding knowledge on the subject. 

Read the trigger warnings and take them seriously. He often gives details about horrific abuse and sensitive information about patients, later illustrating their growth, but I would imagine it would be too much for many people with backgrounds touched by abuse, neglect, suicide etc.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Genocide, Gun violence, Hate crime, Incest, Infidelity, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Medical content, Dementia, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, and War

Moderate: Biphobia, Confinement, Eating disorder, Pedophilia, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Mass/school shootings, Religious bigotry, Suicide attempt, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Pregnancy, Toxic friendship, Dysphoria, and War

indiana_sorell's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring sad slow-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexual assault, Medical content, Medical trauma, and Dysphoria

evalunny's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Adult/minor relationship, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Incest, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Medical content, Grief, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Abandonment, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, War, and Injury/Injury detail

random_tuga's review against another edition

dark emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

Very interesting and informative. I learn a lot with this one although i felt that the last couple of chapters were a bit repetitive. It mentions a lot of studies conducted either by the author or other scientists and very heavy, graphic descriptions of what the peopl he helped went through. Read the tags for this one, seriously. Don't go into this one expecting a sort of self help book, it very much focus on science snd investigation 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Domestic abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Incest, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, and Abandonment

susannadkm's review against another edition

informative sad medium-paced

3.5

“Social support is not the same as merely being in the presence of others. The critical issue is reciprocity: being truly heard and seen by the people around us, feeling that we are held in someone else’s mind and heart. For our physiology to calm down, heal, and grow we need a visceral feeling of safety. No doctor can write a prescription for friendship and love…” (Chapter 5) 

3.5 stars. This is an absorbing book for anyone curious about trauma therapy and how it’s evolved in recent decades. I like how it’s full of stories, and van der Kolk isn’t afraid to admit when he realized he was wrong (like about eye movement desensitization and reintegration).

I’m not sure it’s the best book to read for those looking for the best treatment methods (so many of the stories are anecdotal) or coming to grips with sexual trauma (so many stories are graphic), though.

I listened to the audiobook.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Incest, Pedophilia, Physical abuse, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Medical trauma, Car accident, and War

Moderate: Eating disorder, Panic attacks/disorders, and Fire/Fire injury

Minor: Infidelity, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, and Murder