'Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving' by Pete Walker
Posted on May 7th, 2017
This book is absolutely brilliant. It is packed with information. It takes an alternative view to DSM-like categorisation of personality disorders: instead of categorising of what is wrong with whom, it focuses on the real cause of those disorders. It is an analytical and exhaustive breakdown of the entangled state of an adult person with emotional problems, as well as clear guidelines of how to recover. The best book about emotional recovery I have ever come across.
When I read about steps of recovery I can map what is written in the book to my own path. Indeed, I started first with mindfulness, indeed later I discovered the importance of feeling emotions, and recently I have managed to stripe through my freakouts to the feelings of shame and fear, and I managed to even get below that layer to the ultimate pain of being abandoned, which I learn is very close to the final steps of recovery! I am amazed at how far I have gone, it is great to get a confirmation that what I have been doing indeed made sense. What the author also says, is that people often give up in the middle of the way as they think that there is no progress, and not seeing the progress despite it is there is one, is a common phenomenon. From that perspective I see that book as great motivational tool, because it allows to map one's own progress to the recovery steps from the book.
What is one important conclusion I made from that book is that the order of actions taken towards recovery matters. For example certain therapy may work at certain stages but there are prerequisites for that. Feeling emotions is therapeutic, but also only at certain stage of recovery, as if started to early it can be counterproductive. This kind of information could for sure give me hints about what may be my current impediments to recovery.. except I will have to read the book second time for that :D It is simply too much information for me to handle at once.
Great book. I don't want to try to summarise it, as it is already quite concise and the summary would be quite long. Actually this guy did a good job already.