9 stars: Super, couldn't put it down

From the back cover: Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the audiobook, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future - opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.

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Written in conversational format, Oprah talks to Dr. Perry, a world expert on childhood trauma, about how to overcome the effects of trauma. They challenge us to shift our focus from "What's wrong with you?" or "Why are you Behaving This way?" to "What happened to you?" It allows us to understand our past so that we may build a resilient and healing future. ( )

What Happened to You: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing is a book about trauma and how traumatic experiences affect people throughout life. Oprah is no stranger to trauma. Complete with experiences from Oprah’s own life and Dr. Perry’s knowledge in brain science to explain the resulting behavior, this can be a perspective-changing work. It is a way of helping people understand as well as overcome the effect of trauma—how it affects our brain and greatly influences who we become and shapes our behavior. The book is an insightful guide and provides advice on healing from trauma which is helpful and pleasant after reading and trying to understand trauma. It helps one understand that if we did so much as replace “What’s wrong with you?” with “What happened to you?”, we would do a much better job at understanding ourselves and one another. ( )

I don't know why I picked this up. I was having problems with my parent family and thought maybe this could help. It didn't relate to my situation but I thought it was fascinating. How does trauma carry through your life? How does our brain handle early childhood trauma or neglect or indifference. What if you were never hugged or held? How do we humans process trauma? What is biologically occurring in our brain? I highly recommend. It gets rather wordy and repetitive but still worth the read. ( )

I found this very helpful in understanding people going through tough times. ( )

A great book for u dears tan ding trauma. The conversation format makes it easy read and even better as an audio book. A great book for understanding the impact of childhood experiences on the developing brain. ( )