Books like Healing Developmental Trauma — picked by fans

This book reveals how the body stores emotional and traumatic memories long after the mind tries to forget them.

Van der Kolk explains why symptoms like anxiety, emotional numbness, anger, or disconnection can surface years later.

Many men who “push through” or never talk about their trauma find clarity in this book’s explanation of how stress affects the brain and nervous system. It helps readers understand themselves physically and emotionally, while giving hope that healing is possible through therapy, mindfulness, and self-awareness.

This is the best book ever written about the psychology of the male perpetrator in a trauma bond.

In this book, I was able to see into the mind of an abuser and no longer make excuses for them. I love how the author described the different types of abusers and how he explained how to leave a trauma bond.

I refer this book to every one of my patients.

I loved this book because the research Sandra Brown illuminates about narcissistic abuse is groundbreaking.

I was gripped by how the author described the people who are the perpetrators of trauma bonds. It was the first book that I had read about domestic violence that did not blame the victim.

In fact, the author presented personality research that changed my whole perception of the victim in a trauma bond.

I loved this book by Dr. Carnes because he presents an in-depth study of toxic relationships, why they form, who is most susceptible, and how they become so powerful.

The book kept my interest with how Dr. Carnes gave a clear explanation of the bond that compels people to tolerate the intolerable.

I also respected how the author provides practical steps to identify compulsive attachment patterns and ultimately to change or end them for good.

I recommend this book because of its accessibility and tie to the new age theories of consciousness. This book has the depth to bring value to experts, yet is accessible to anyone who wants to be a better leader. The authors demonstrate that hard work is not enough, recognizing how we’ve been conditioned to survive instead of thrive. They tout the benefits of compassion, empathy, resilience, and authentic engagement and encourage readers to rewire their thinking to manifest real change. This book doesn’t sugarcoat the fact that real change isn’t easy. It requires intention, finding purpose, and practice. But the authors also give you the tools and empowerment to make change a reality.

Shame is often more traumatizing than we realize, and there hasn't been enough exploration of its connection to prolonging the impact of initial traumatic events. In my first book, I dedicated an entire section to shame, and it was this work that significantly aided in delving deeper into its various forms and consequences.

This book's ability to distinguish between shame and guilt is particularly enlightening. While it may not be the most enjoyable read, it was undoubtedly a valuable reference for me when I needed to develop a better understanding of this crucial aspect of trauma.

My first 3 picks put much of the blame for widespread attention capture on greedy actors engaged in a “race to the bottom of the brainstem” (Tristan Harris, former Google employee, became popular opponent of exploitative big tech). 

Although Carr does not shy from that theme, he seems to put much of the responsibility on our own shoulders: it is we who must resist many temptations of convenience in order to preserve our own cognitive strengths, such as creativity. Otherwise, we become shallow thinkers and reliant on AI even for something as characteristically human as wisdom. 

Carr’s follow-up to this book, The Glass Cage, is also very intriguing, and it offers a little more hope for a humanity that is currently bound up in a web of frightening technological dependency.

In my mind, Carr nails the real threats of AI: a total dumming-down of humanity to a level where we… show more.

We will need optimism to tackle the big challenges ahead of us. We should therefore understand some of the strengths and pitfalls of this mindset. I read Tali Sharot’s The Optimism Bias while I was working on a research project about self-deception and the book made a big impression. Sharot is one of the world’s leading cognitive neuroscientists and in this book she offers more than a description of a decision-making bias. Instead, she provides a detailed, sweeping account of how optimism works in the brain, operates in cognition, and plays out in diverse areas of human life. One key lesson: optimism about the future should be embraced with an awareness of both its adaptive benefits and its potentially devastating costs.

Broks draws upon his experience as a neuropsychologist to tell illuminating case studies of those with brain injury and other anomalies of experience. Woven through are reflections on the philosophy of what it means to have a mind which is based on the meat of the brain and what it means for our sense of selves to have damage to that brain.

Humane and moving, with flashes of dark humour, Broks brings back from the outlying lands of human experiences lessons that are relevant for all of us.

We neuroscientists know a lot about how brains are, but not how they come to be. This book fills that huge hole: it explains how genetics and development shape the growing brain, and the consequences this has for our personalities and our mental disorders. Mitchell’s thesis is that the stochastic nature of development is key to understanding much of the variation between brains, and it has changed the way I think about the wiring of brains.