Healing Developmental Trauma: How Early Trauma Affects Self-Regulation, Self-Image, and the Capacity for Relationship Paperback – September 25, 2012

Very very good book. It’s a little above my head and I will definitely read again to understand better, but the thoughtfulness and kindness and everything in this book is revelatory and healing. I highly recommend for the average person and definitely for therapists.

This books is an amazing book that is not expresses the ideas very crisp but also offers a completely different perspective to look at life. It cuts across other models of how mental health and human interaction works to show that maybe the underlying principle of how everything works is different.The title suggests that the book is about developmental trauma. Yet it's not limited to people dealing with severe trauma. It provides insight in how most of us work and how our childhood affects our adult relationships.The book identifies five different attachment styles: trust attachment, love/sexuality attachment, independence, etc. It suggests that during human development each attachment develops at a different point of growing up. For example at six months old, our connection with a parent is that they are holding us in their arms and looking at us. A couple years later, we may be developing trust with our parents. Can we trust them that our needs will be met.If there are problems with one of the attachment styles, children will usually progress through a healthy range of calling attention to their needs - starting with "hey mommy, I'm hungry" to using healthy aggression. The concept of "health aggression" caught me eyes. The book is full of terms where simply hearing the term was a huge insight in and off itself. In this case, the idea that aggression can be healthy was intriguing. If that doesn't work, the child's sympathetic nervous system gets activated (fight/flight). If that doesn't work, the parasympathetic nervous system gets activated (e.g. shutting down).Simply these ideas of the different nervous systems are a fascinating concept. The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system can be triggered at the same time (stepping on the gas and break at the same time). That's for example, when we panic and try to suppress the panic.The books proposed remedy is to pay attention to what we are feeling in our bodies because that's how we find out about our needs. In the ideal world that the book paints, we can freely express our needs in our relationships and (as adults) also deal with when people don't necessarily tend to our needs. (E.g., because I'm a hungry adult doesn't mean the other person has to feed me. They could be full and not interested in going to a restaurant with me. Yet, that I am aware of my hunger and can express it appropriately - without fear, panic or not at all -, that's the goal.)Most people I know are functioning adults, yet I often find that what the book describes affects me. Often when I'm with people, I'm very focused on making sure that they feel entertained and comfortable. (That might be a good host's job.) Yet the book's idea is that I should scan my body to realize what's going on with me and express my needs, e.g. "I feel a bit bored, let's check out the other pool." The book shifted my thought of what a good relationship looks like: Both people should feel comfortable to express their needs and the other person responds to that. (And needs don't have to be monumental things like needing help to move, but a need for comfort at the end of a tiring hike, a need for play in a conversation that turned dry, etc.)The book opens up many interesting topics. For example, it suggests that based on unmet childhood needs, people may develop pride. E.g., if they were ignored as a child, they may pride themselves as easy going. The book suggests that for each pride, there is usually an opposite shame. That example person may have shame around being too needy. That concept alone is very interesting. Now when I hear people making prideful statements, I wonder if there is an opposite shame in place as well. (The pride essentially is trying to make us feel good about a place where we are hurting.)I've written many quotes from the book into my notebook. It was a real page turner because each page offered so many intriguing insights to how life works.

This was a phenomenal book as masters students. There’s not enough books on this topic so, I found this to be a great read! Easily digestible, powerful and healing!

I really wanted to love this book. It's got great information that I've never found anywhere else on how trauma affects self regulation. My problem is that I find the book incredibly hard to read. Sequences of word are repeated over and over. It feels distant, as if a robot wrote it. This makes it hard for me to believe that their therapy works.They put down transference. Which means they take living being of the therapist out of the therapeutic relationship. Yet, they talk about the importance of human connection. That makes it sound as if their therapy is as cold as this book.What I also find objectionable is how much time they take to describe and indirectly put down other therapeutic approaches. They also want their cake and eat it too. I get it, you guys are different. But, tell me what you do actually believe. Here's an example of how abstract they can be, "Initially, it may not be possible for traumatized individuals to access their somatic awareness; in such cases any experience of self-reference can serve as a starting point." What kind of experience of self-reference?They say the past is not important, yet they say the past is where all this started. Which is it?If you write a new edition with a heart, let me know.

Such an easy read for such a complicated subject! I've experienced other 'self-help' or 'methodology' books that can be read in parcel, meaning that much of those may be oversimplified or overwritten for many readers. Not so with this book. It is neither oversimplified nor too 'techie'. That being said, when I downloaded this book I proceeded to read it cover to cover - something new for me. It gives a clear understanding for how humans incorporate early experience in non-verbal ways, positively or negatively. From that point on, we as humans can find ourselves reacting to our environment and experiences in self-hurtful and sometimes harmful ways.Yes, this is important information to me in a very personal way, for early experiences of my own. I will be dipping back into the text as I move into and beyond my own experiences. Thankfully, it is written in the adult persective - for the adult (much of what I have found on this subject is not). Another positive with this book is that it gives a 3D approach to overcoming these issues. It's not coming at the problem with a single focus but to the individual as a whole - biologically, physically, emotionally, cognitively and spiritually; and it treats each aspect with respect.But I see a value far beyond that. This book can be pivotal in understanding how we impact others in such a positive and/or negative way. Parents, teachers, grandparents and others helping to raise or support families can benefit from this information. I know it's impossible to predict every possible outcome in our interactions with young people and teens, but knowledge such as this can help guide our behaviours and help us to develop a respect for the sensitive natures of our future... yes, I said future; these babies, toddlers and teens are our future - they deserve that hope, as do we.Thank you Laurence Heller and Aline LaPeirre for your work in this area - and for making it available!