Reviews tagging 'Child abuse'

What Happened To You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing by Bruce D. Perry, Oprah Winfrey

73 reviews

leslie_overbookedsocialworker's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Physical abuse, Grief, and Death of parent

cheesepuppy's review against another edition

4.5

Not without it’s faults, but this book and line of thinking has been enlightening. It’s interesting because this is something I’ve thought about a lot in the past few years. I enjoyed learning more

I love having a new way to reframe things I’ve always known but had never heard put into the right words to have the right impact.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Emotional abuse, and Physical abuse

Moderate: Drug abuse

sharladione's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

If you want to understand your own trauma or the trauma of those you love, and how to move forward from it, this book is for you. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment

Moderate: Addiction, Alcoholism, Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Racism, Rape, Self harm, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Medical content, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, and Colonisation

Minor: Eating disorder, Police brutality, Trafficking, and Abortion

greenlivingaudioworm's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective sad

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Toxic relationship, Grief, Death of parent, and Abandonment

barelyconcealed's review against another edition

hopeful informative medium-paced

2.0

 This book is odd; I listened to this because it was recommended to do it that way - the book is more of a conversation between Dr. Perry and Oprah Winfrey. This is perhaps the part that makes it odd in that several times throughout the book they would reference third parties - either people dealing with their own trauma, or folks like Maori community elders, and I kept thinking "wow I wish they had written this book instead."

This book is a work of pop-science, and that's to its detriment since it frequently relies on anecdotes - truly horrific anecdotes - to support its conclusions and then when it mentions the science frequently seems to admit that the results just aren't in yet.

Other negative reviews have pointed out its mixed messages - namely that it seems to believe that trauma is ingrained and permanent, but also that you can heal through it. There is a finality to the way that trauma is presented.

If this had been an article, it might have been revelatory. As a book, I bounced about halfway through 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Sexual assault, and Medical trauma

kegila's review against another edition

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse and Violence

bookreadingelf's review against another edition

3.75

Interesting, but could go deeper.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, and Abandonment

ksuazo94's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Abandonment, and Colonisation

Moderate: Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Violence, Grief, and Gaslighting

comraderowan94's review against another edition

medium-paced

3.5

The book is very informative about how trauma affects the brain and the lasting impact that can have, but when discussing systemic issues, the authors gloss over the roll a capitalist society plays in the difficulties of recovery. The authors also need a more nuanced approach when discussing societal issues or need to be more specific about which social groups they’re addressing.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Addiction, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, and Violence

sakisreads's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

4.5

Wow! What a book! Oprah and Dr. Perry’s conversations are intense but iconic; there was so much to digest and take in. Two parts struck out to me in particular (the latter being because I’m taking a flight later on today)! 😳

‘Crimes involving a Black suspect and a white victim make up only 10% of all crimes - but they account for 42% of what’s reported on television. When you’re watching the news and almost half of what you see is Black people committing crimes against white people, that’s going to influence the way you think when you see a Black person.’ ‘Many people have had the experience of feeling ‘exhausted’ after a day of travel, even if all they did was stand in a few lines and sit on a plane. This happens because your brain was continuously monitoring thousands of new stimuli. Remember: Activating your stress-response systems, even at a moderate level, for long periods of time is physically and emotionally draining.’

I do think the audio version may be slightly better for this book, only because it is so conversational and slightly clunky in written form because of that, but it was still very beautiful. I don’t feel that I could take it all in at once so I am definitely going to try and get an audio edition ✨

Thank you! 🥰

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Chronic illness, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Mental illness, Physical abuse, Racism, Self harm, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Violence, Forced institutionalization, Police brutality, Mass/school shootings, Medical trauma, Suicide attempt, Death of parent, Colonisation, and War