Reviews

The Tao of fully feeling: Harvesting forgiveness out of blame by Pete Walker

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tsuntsun's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring fast-paced

4.0

cezanj's review against another edition

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4.0

A beautiful example of why books about trauma and mental illness are best written by people who have those experiences. Pete Walker offers solid guidance while also making the reader feel seen and understood.

ecn's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

4.0

waterbear0821's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

I enjoyed this book and it gave me a lot to think about. The big caveat is that it’s extremely dated. Some of the ideas about therapy, pharmacology, and treatment have been shown to be limited or wrong and some of the terms are offensive and cringe-worthy. However, most of the basic tenets hold up and it provides a lot of actionable ideas, not to mention a lot of valuable references and inspiring quotes. The premise is the very ‘90s notion that a lot of our current suffering comes from what we might have called then “bad parenting” but now we more commonly call generational trauma. It contains a new-to-me redemptive idea that “blame” can be valuable and therapeutic when it’s not a blanket justification but is used to move into forgiveness, particularly self-forgiveness. I hesitate to give this book a hearty endorsement because so many of the side commentaries are wrong or unhelpful (e.g. SSRI’s prevent recovery. Yikes) but the main themes still had value for me. Proceed with awareness.