Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #159506 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In beautifully written, fascinating accounts of experiences working with emotionally stunted and traumatized children, child psychiatrist Perry educates readers about how early-life stress and violence affects the developing brain. He offers simple yet vivid illustrations of the stress response and the brain's mechanisms with facts and images that crystallize in the mind without being too detailed or confusing. The stories exhibit compassion, understanding and hope as Perry paints detailed, humane pictures of patients who have experienced violence, sexual abuse or neglect, and Perry invites the reader on his own journey to understanding how the developing child's brain works. He learns that to facilitate recovery, the loss of control and powerlessness felt by a child during a traumatic experience must be counteracted. Recovery requires that the patient be "in charge of key aspects of the therapeutic interaction." He emphasizes that the brain of a traumatized child can be remolded with patterned, repetitive experiences in a safe environment. Most importantly, as such trauma involves the shattering of human connections, "lasting, caring connections to others" are irreplaceable in healing; medications and therapy alone cannot do the job. "Relationships are the agents of change and the most powerful therapy is human love," Perry concludes. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Although many parents fret over how to raise a more academically and financially successful child, Perry has learned a thing or two about how not to raise a prospective sociopath. Here he shares the stories of several children he has encountered in his decades as a child psychiatrist and expert on childhood trauma. Each child, from the seven-year-old who offered him sexual favors to the eponymous boy who spent his early years living in a dog cage, taught Perry something about the effects of early childhood trauma on brain development. His discoveries contradict the formerly held precept that children are emotionally resilient and will outgrow insults to their psyches. On the contrary, he says, severe and occasionally even not-so-severe emotional or physical abuse can chemically alter early brain development, resulting later in the inability to make appropriate, socially sanctioned behavioral decisions. Perry doesn't promote what he calls the "abuse excuse" for antisocial or criminal behavior; rather, he makes a powerful case for early intervention for disruptive children to prevent adult sociopathy. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D. is the Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, a Houston-based non-profit organization which promotes innovations in service, research and education in child maltreatment and childhood trauma. He has served as a consultant to the FBI and is the former Chief of Psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital, as well as former Vice-Chairman for Research in the Department of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. He lives in Houston, Texas and Alberta, Canada. Maia Szalavitz is an award-winning journalist who specializes in science and health. She is the author of Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled-Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids and Recovery Options: The Complete Guide with Joseph Volpicelli, M.D., Ph.D. She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

Brilliant and moving
Assisted by a talented science writer, child psychiatrist Bruce Perry presents a series of heartbreaking stories of children severely damaged by trauma. But that's only one side of this remarkable book. The other side is how many of these profoundly damaged children were assisted to heal.

Perry explains his "neurosequential" approach that sequentially targets brain regions left undeveloped by abuse or neglect. He presents compelling cases to illustrate how the child's age at the time of the abuse or neglect will determine the gaps in neurological development and how his interventions sequentially target those developmental gaps. For children whose brains were stalled out in infancy, for example, therapy may start with healing touch or rhythm before moving on to higher brain activities.

The focus, always, is on the child's humanity. Perry explains the importance of listening and letting the child set the pace. He warns of the damage caused by well-intentioned but poorly trained therapists who push children to open up, or who administer punitive interventions in the guise of treatment. Healing is not about a specific technique administered in cookbook fashion but, rather, about love, and restoring shattered human connections.

This is an enlightening and heartening book and a real page-turner to boot. The neurological underpinnings of the trauma theory are presented in clear English accessible to anyone who can read. If you're a mental health professional, psychologist, or psychiatrist, you'll love this book. If you're a parent or a teacher, it's also for you. Whoever you are, it's for you. I guarantee you will be engaged and inspired.

Easy to read Neurobiology help guide
My Professor, Nina Mogar, is a friend of Dr. Bruce Perry. For her class she suggested we buy the book, because she incorporates it into her curriculum. Everything we know about children, will change when reading this book. This book delves into the neurobiology of children, rather than just studying behaviorism. Dr. Bruce Perry's stories from his own experience, helps us understand children. I also suggest that you visit this link: http://www.visualrecord.com/wishspace/education/childvideos375.html There you will find lectures from Nina Mogar, an extraordinary teacher who has fought for children for over 30 years. She is an amazing woman, and she said she will never retire until she gets the message out of helping children. But how do we define helping children? Both Dr. Bruce Perry and Nina Mogar shape that understanding, and know, what some may even say radical, ways to help children. They have challenged common ideas that we believe are okay to use with children such as: time-out, the idea that teaching children earlier is better, testing, teaching a child to share, recess being shortened, etc... things that many elementary schools are using in their teaching environment. This book will help you to help.

Brilliant
This book is a brilliant summary of the essential information for anyone working with children and families. I thank the authors.