Key concepts of the book include managing emotional flashbacks, understanding the four different types of trauma survivors, differentiating the outer critic from the inner critic, healing the abandonment depression that come from emotional abandonment and self-abandonment, self-reparenting and reparenting by committee, and deconstructing the hierarchy of self-injuring responses that childhood trauma forces survivors to adopt. A great deal of new material is also explored. Moreover, many principles that were only sketched out in the articles are explained in much greater detail. As such, much of the psychological jargon and dense concentration of concepts in the website articles has been replaced with expanded and easier to follow explanations. However, unlike the articles on my website, it is oriented toward the layperson. It extensively elaborates on all the recovery concepts explained on my website, and many more. This book also contains an overview of the tasks of recovering and a great many practical tools and techniques for recovering from childhood trauma. This book is also for those who do not have Cptsd but want to understand and help a loved one who does. It is copiously illustrated with examples of my own and my clients’ journeys of recovering. This book is a practical, user-friendly self-help guide to recovering from the lingering effects of childhood trauma, and to achieving a rich and fulfilling life.

If you felt unwanted, unliked, rejected, hated and/or despised for a lengthy portion of your childhood, trauma may be deeply engrained in your mind, soul and body.

Many survivors grow up in houses that are not homes – in families that are as loveless as orphanages and sometimes as dangerous. I can see now that I am not bad, defective or crazy…or alone! The causes of Cptsd range from severe neglect to monstrous abuse.

An often echoed comment sounded like this: At last someone gets it. I felt encouraged to write this book because of thousands of e-mail responses to the articles on my website that repeatedly expressed gratitude for the helpfulness of my work. I also wrote it from the viewpoint of someone who has discovered many silver linings in the long, windy, bumpy road of recovering from Cptsd. I have Complex PTSD and wrote this book from the perspective of someone who has experienced a great reduction of symptoms over the years.

Pete walker from surviving to thriving