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A review by saracatalyst
Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror by Judith Lewis Herman
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
This book has such great insights into trauma and such a human approach and view of people living with the knowledge and after affects that come with trauma. Much of the book discusses the trauma of war, the trauma of rape, sexual assault, and incest, and the trauma of prolonged childhood abuse. These unfortunately common experiences provide an interesting range of coverage for the cornerstones of the traumatic experience and the differences in how they affect us and why.
As a person who’s been living and coping with growing up in an abusive home from birth to adulthood, I loved that the book was about BOTH trauma AND recovery and that each got its own dedicated section. The author clearly cares just as much about the recovery as the understandings of the mechanism or trauma, which isn’t always the case and can make these books feel uncomfortably voyeuristic at times.
Her framework of the effects of trauma maps perfectly to her framework of recovery and both resonate deeply with the human experience and so called “common sense” without oversimplifying the maddening challenges of repair. I have been lucky to have access to psychiatry and therapy and I still walked away feeling much more empowered to drive my own healing journey and to extend the work of the therapy into my day to day life to deepen my healing and recovery.
It’s always a bonus for me when these authors work in my area, too. I feel more connected which is what we’re going for!
As a person who’s been living and coping with growing up in an abusive home from birth to adulthood, I loved that the book was about BOTH trauma AND recovery and that each got its own dedicated section. The author clearly cares just as much about the recovery as the understandings of the mechanism or trauma, which isn’t always the case and can make these books feel uncomfortably voyeuristic at times.
Her framework of the effects of trauma maps perfectly to her framework of recovery and both resonate deeply with the human experience and so called “common sense” without oversimplifying the maddening challenges of repair. I have been lucky to have access to psychiatry and therapy and I still walked away feeling much more empowered to drive my own healing journey and to extend the work of the therapy into my day to day life to deepen my healing and recovery.
It’s always a bonus for me when these authors work in my area, too. I feel more connected which is what we’re going for!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest, Rape, and Sexual assault