Trauma and Recovery - by Judith Lewis Herman (Paperback)

About the Book

Examines how people adapt to traumatic events such as rape, domestic violence, terrorism, and combat; discusses the healing process; and provides a framework for treatment.

Book Synopsis

The groundbreaking work on trauma that remains a "classic for our generation" (Bessel van der Kolk, MD, author of The Body Keeps the Score)

Trauma and Recovery is the foundational text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a political frame, psychiatrist Judith L. Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war.

This edition includes a new epilogue by the author assessing what has--and hasn't--changed in understanding and treating trauma over the last three decades.

Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most important psychiatry works to be published since Freud," Trauma and Recovery is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how we heal.

Review Quotes

"A stunning achievement ... a classic for our generation."--Bessel van der Kolk, New York Times-bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score

"Astute, accessible, and beautifully documented. Bridging the worlds of war veterans, prisoners of war, battered women, and incest victims, Herman presents a compelling analysis of trauma and the process of healing. A triumph."--Laura Davis, coauthor of The Courage to Heal

"Herman's brilliant insights into the nature of trauma and the process of healing shine through in every page of this rich and compassionate book."--Lenore Walker, author of The Battered Woman

"Judith Herman's seminal book Trauma and Recovery created a template for her field."--New Yorker

"Judith Herman's 1992 classic argues trauma can't be isolated from its social conditions, immersing readers in the feminist activism that raised awareness of the political context of rape and reformed the laws around it."--Mother Jones

"A book of luminous intelligence. You must read it as soon as possible."--Sophie Freud

"A landmark."--Gloria Steinem

"Brilliant."--Boston Globe

"Herman links the public traumas of society to those of domestic life in this provocative work of psychiatric theory."--Publishers Weekly

"One of the most important psychiatric works to be published since Freud."--New York Times

"This book will surely become a landmark work on the social impact of psychological trauma and on its treatments.... A magnificent gift to survivors."--Women's Review of Books

About the Author

Judith L. Herman, MD, is a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. She was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and is a distinguished life fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.