First half is very informative for those who do not much about the evolution of mental healthcare. From there, it does get a little boring. The recovery part of the book seemed repetitive to me. If you’re new to the mental health scene, then this book may be helpful. 

Essential reading for anyone who is at the point in recovery where they are ready to reckon with the full extent of their traumatic injury. Take it slow.

For a book that was written a while ago, so much information in here is still relevant. The afterword had some good updates, and I think it could benefit from incorporating more inclusive research in a future revision. Also get Bessel van der Kolk out of here.

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!

One of the definitive tomes relating to trauma. It is a difficult read in the first half, which deals with trauma as indicated by the title, with other challenging, though more encouraging, passages in the second half, recovery. Herman details the history of trauma diagnoses from hysteria to shell shock to what we now see as PTSD, and then goes on to describe the conditions under which one develops a trauma-related disorder as well as accompanying symptoms. She writes with a lot of care and sympathy, and rightful indignation as well, but there's also a predictably clinical tone, as she is a psychologist.

I'd have to say my main hangup with this book is how it lacks an intersectional lens and doesn't actually challenge the status quo as a result. She claims that the only way we will be able to grant legitimacy to trauma and accountability to perpetrators is with a social movement, yet oddly enough she makes sweeping generalizations about women, who are all certainly not in the same boat depending on their race and socioeconomic status, for example. She mentions the feminist movement which gave face to women in abusive relationships and who were raped/sexually assaulted, but we also have to remember how that same feminist movement has caused so much harm to trans women and contributed to their own trauma within that movement.

There's also the fact that certain groups of people are pretty much guaranteed to undergo trauma simply due to who they are and what they look like: LGBT people, Black people, other people of color... It is true that a social movement is needed to address trauma and how it affects these people's livelihoods and outcomes but she kind of falls short of that mark.

And then of course... we have to consider how many people are unable to access a lot of the treatment options detailed in the recovery section. How many decent trauma-focused therapists are there, and then how are they accessible in terms of location and price? With trauma as a social movement, it also needs to include accessibility, as well as sensitive care especially for Black and other people of color. The movement needs to address racism, homophobia, transphobia, capitalism, etc. if it is to truly succeed in taking a stand against trauma.