the last part, about the three stages of recovery, gave me palpable relief, as if i were going through recovery myself as i read the book with the class. it was, simply put, like going through a trauma experience. for some reason, this time around the book had a tremendously disruptive impact on me. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. When Trauma and Recovery was first published in 1992, it was hailed as a groundbreaking work.
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