starlit_pathways's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

4.75


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wetdirtreads's review

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challenging informative reflective medium-paced

3.75


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zombiezami's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0


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ronan_lesh's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective tense fast-paced

5.0


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careinthelibrary's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.0

This was really good. It struck me how candid Stephanie was being about her childhood traumas, how those experiences affected her and as a result rippled down to all of Foo's relationships and aspirations.
The descriptions of the childhood abuse was palpable, sickening, and incredibly sad. Major content warnings for these scenes, please take care while reading.

The relationships with her parents in her adulthood was also fascinating. How she manages to maintain some contact with her father despite how much he hurt her. We do what we must to find mental and physical safety but how much we can crave love from our parents even if we fear them. It's a constant balancing act and so emotionally exhausting.

I don't know very much about psychiatry and psychology so this aspect of the memoir was a bit over my head but I still followed along. She made it pretty easy for non-experts to understand the different kinds of treatment she sought. This memoir is so sad, reading about Foo encountering so many hurdles and struggling to find the light at the end of the tunnel. Knowing that she was well enough to write this memoir, reflecting on her life does little to lessen the second-hand blow of her life story to the reader. It's heavy heavy heavy.

I wish her the best in continuing to heal and understand herself before and after the trauma.

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stonams's review

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challenging emotional funny hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0


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faduma's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0


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lmshearer's review

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challenging dark emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

In What My Bones Know, Stephanie Foo weaves personal memoir and psychology together to tell her story as a survivor of C-PTSD. She is generous in sharing her story and struggles and never keeps the reader at a distance. Instead, she presents the knowledge she's learned along the way in an inspiring and poignant way.

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megbooks02's review

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emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Reading What My Bones Know as a therapist whose main specialties are developmental trauma and attachment was difficult and infuriating at times. I often take for granted how much easier it is to access mental health care in my state versus others across the country. Attunement is the most essential element in the client-therapist relationship to foster healing, so I get really upset when therapists forget this! Stephanie Foo was so vulnerable, insightful, and authentic in this beautiful, beautiful memoir!

Just a small clarification from the text - psychologists do not necessarily have more training than LCSWs and LPCCs. Psychologists have more training in psychological testing to determine diagnoses, but not in providing actual therapy. 

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ashleycmms's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative inspiring tense medium-paced

5.0


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