Description
A “courageous, compassionate, and rigorous every-person’s guide” (Christina Bethell, PhD, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health) that shows the link between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and diseases, and how to cope and heal from these emotional traumas.
Your biography becomes your biology. The emotional trauma we suffer as children not only shapes our emotional lives as adults, but it also affects our physical health, longevity, and overall well-being. Scientists now know on a bio-chemical level exactly how parents’ chronic fights, divorce, death in the family, being bullied or hazed, and growing up with a hypercritical, alcoholic, or mentally ill parent can leave permanent, physical “fingerprints” on our brains.
When children encounter sudden or chronic adversity, stress hormones cause powerful changes in the body, altering the body’s chemistry. The developing immune system and brain react to this chemical barrage by permanently resetting children’s stress response to “high,” which in turn can have a devastating impact on their mental and physical health as they grow up.
Donna Jackson Nakazawa shares stories from people who have recognized and overcome their adverse experiences, shows why some children are more immune to stress than others, and explains why women are at particular risk. “Groundbreaking” (Tara Brach, PhD, author of Radical Acceptance) in its research, inspiring in its clarity, Childhood Disrupted explains how you can reset your biology—and help your loved ones find ways to heal. “A truly important gift of understanding—illuminates the heartbreaking costs of childhood trauma and like good medicine offers the promising science of healing and prevention” (Jack Kornfield, author of A Path With Heart).
A great Reed, and a great resource highly recommend
Great find. I have been trying to fix myself all my life. This tells you science based facts and how to heal your brain.
I consider Donna Nakazawa’s book very important for people who have suffered abusive childhoods. Her book focuses mostly on physical health issues (immune disorders, etc.) resulting from stress that has its roots in childhood abuse or traumas that resulted from circumstances that didn’t involve abuse. My personal interest in the book (apart from theoretical interests) is due to my having suffered from severe emotional abuse in childhood. The particular impacts of this abuse (albeit by well-meaning parents) for me were principally psychological in nature. Although experiencing high blood pressure in middle age was, almost certainly, due to intense emotional stresses that had their roots in my childhood.
Nakazawa argues persuasively that people with high ACE (Adverse Childhood Experiences) scores are at much greater risk of certain kinds of physical illnesses – especially autoimmune disorders – than are people whose ACE scores are low. She also points out that many doctors and other medical professionals are oblivious to the fact that many of the physical health issues they encounter in their patients are, in fact, caused by severe stresses as a consequence of childhood traumas. The medical professions seem to be woefully unaware of the powerful psychosomatic (mind-body) impacts that can result from psychological stressors. Therefore, many patients with severe autoimmune disorders are routinely misdiagnosed by doctors who lack sufficient awareness that a patient’s childhood experiences can gravely impact adult health issues.
As a nonprofessional, it appears to me that, in general, much of Western medical science is due for a makeover, if not a downright revolution. In Western science, there is a serious deficiency in an understanding of the powers of the human mind. By and large, the mind is regarded as NON-EXISTENT – a merely mysterious by-product of physical brain functions. Since the brain is physical, and given the philosophical supposition that the mind consists of brain processes, the powers of the mind are absurdly underrated, marginalized, and often discounted as, in analytical fact, NON-EXISTENT.
Notwithstanding Western sciences’ brilliant successes in “mastering” material entities, its stubborn refusal to acknowledge the viability and powers of the mind simply means that, in certain respects, Western science and philosophy have foundered at the point where Democritus (with his “atoms and the void”) left them in ancient Greece (some 24 centuries ago). My point is not to argue that, regarding matter and the material world, science has not progressed, because it obviously has been brilliantly advanced. However, from the perspective of the mind-body problem, science and philosophy are largely stuck – regardless of how much some neuroscientists might believe that we’re on the verge of a breakthrough, whereby the “consciousness problem” is scientifically solved. The fact is that Western science will have to undergo a revolution (greater than the Copernican revolution) if it will ever make meaningful inroads into the glories of the mind.
My digression into philosophy and science is intimately related to this book review. Nakazawa repeatedly decries the grave inadequacies in our medical professions regarding the crying need to grant due importance to how the mind, when it suffers dysfunctions, can DESTROY the body. To underrate that importance is a seriously damaging error of which most Westernized medical science is guilty. Donna Nakazawa’s book shines the spotlight on medical science’s neglect.
Although my personal interest in this book was principally a desire to learn how better to tackle my psychological problems from childhood abuse, I found this book to be highly informative, enlightening, and worthy of high marks. After all, the book shines a light where much of Western medical science fears to tread.
As Ordered – Happy with Product
This book should be required reading for every human resource provider whether in ministry, education, or in the medical profession. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) affect individuals on so many levels; and understanding its long-term impact in people’s lives can make a positive difference in turning the tide in the healing process. I highly recommend this book.