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A review by cat_rector
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
5.0
This book will require relistens, I can see it already.
I was happy to find a book that would deepen the work I'd already done trying to figure out my mental well-being. Like most people, I walk that thin North American line of needing healthcare I can't quite access, and this will be a great part of my journey to shoring up my own defences.
I'd recommend this to people who enjoy non-fiction, as it is a long book, and I'd recommend listen to it in chunks so that the reader can mull over what was said. The physical book has about 200 pages of appendices, and the audiobook is around 15 hours long without those appendices. It reads more or less in layman's terms, but maybe shouldn't be the first book you read on the subject. I'd recommend this book as a compliment to some more basic books on mental health or as a compliment to someone's current/previous experience with a therapist. I feel I got more out of it since I've been reading on the topic for a while, and I may have been overwhelmed with some of it otherwise.
It's also going to be a triggering book for some people. The author discusses patient examples in detail, which means hearing about rape, violence, acts of war, and people you will not like. If you cannot view these subjects from a detached standpoint, it may be hard to listen to, especially where some clients have been the perpetrators of crimes, not the victims.
I'll be thinking about so many parts of this book for a very long time, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the person who recommended it to me.
I was happy to find a book that would deepen the work I'd already done trying to figure out my mental well-being. Like most people, I walk that thin North American line of needing healthcare I can't quite access, and this will be a great part of my journey to shoring up my own defences.
I'd recommend this to people who enjoy non-fiction, as it is a long book, and I'd recommend listen to it in chunks so that the reader can mull over what was said. The physical book has about 200 pages of appendices, and the audiobook is around 15 hours long without those appendices. It reads more or less in layman's terms, but maybe shouldn't be the first book you read on the subject. I'd recommend this book as a compliment to some more basic books on mental health or as a compliment to someone's current/previous experience with a therapist. I feel I got more out of it since I've been reading on the topic for a while, and I may have been overwhelmed with some of it otherwise.
It's also going to be a triggering book for some people. The author discusses patient examples in detail, which means hearing about rape, violence, acts of war, and people you will not like. If you cannot view these subjects from a detached standpoint, it may be hard to listen to, especially where some clients have been the perpetrators of crimes, not the victims.
I'll be thinking about so many parts of this book for a very long time, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the person who recommended it to me.