Book Review: A Clinician’s Journey from Complex Trauma to Thriving: Reflections on Abuse, C-PTSD, and Reclamation

A Clinician’s Journey from Complex Trauma to Thriving: Reflections on Abuse, C-PTSD and Reclamation by Rev. Sheri Heller LCSW is not a book written for the ordinary man or woman.

The vocabulary used in the book is the language used by scientists and doctors. Lots of medical wording and scientific terminology makes this book difficult to read for someone that has an average knowledge of the English language.

The book as it is written now is handy for Doctors and Clinicians that their vocation is Psychiatry and Psychology mostly. That doesn’t mean that other people can benefit from the content of this excellent book.

I really loved the fact that even that the author was a victim of abuse she manages to keep a professional and objective analysis throughout the book even when she was talking about her own personal experiences.

That is very difficult to do, to accomplish to renounce your biased mind and actually observe your own life as an external and impartial observer.

One thing about this book is that I learned a lot of new words of the English language. A lot of the phrase because they are medicine based are Greek so in that area I was lucky because I am Greek.

Thankfully I was not the victim of child abuse I grow up in a happy Greek family but the author through her personal experience and her rationalistic analysis of the traumas that people carry with them after they get abused as kids showed me a new word that exists and nobody really is talking about it.

I did the enjoyed the articles of the author about addiction. I learned a lot, and I related immediately. I managed to break free a few addiction of mine (Nicotine dependence, Junk Food Addictions). Furthermore, I  understood why I had those addictions. I was Isolated, depressed, and I was unable to connect with other people are characteristics of a future addict and back then I had them all.

Corporate Stockholm Syndrome was something that I really enjoy reading because it describes beautifully and fulls how new financial institutes and big companies exploit the working man and woman.

Pathological Envy was another useful article for me because it helped me understand a lot the psychological state of my ex-wife and why she was always jealous of my every move.

The good thing about this book is that the articles are autonomous, you can start reading them in no specific order. They are complete essays that describe and provide solutions to a particular issue through the lenses of the Author’s professional view.

I agree with the writer that a lot of relationships are problematic because they see love as a feeling and not as I really am, which is a practice.

Also, people love other people because they need them which is wrong. You should need other people because you love them. I really liked this argument because it’s the reality and for me, it’s like a golden rule as different kind of relationships is a concern.

You can sense the work invested in this book. It overwhelmed me at some point. The vast experience of the author with dealing with patients that have childhood traumas and also her own traumatic childhood made her create a beautiful therapeutic outlet. She created The Sistah Tribe Phoenix Project.

In a nutshell, theatrical performances are given by women and girls aiming into accomplishing creative solutions that will help them achieve the harmonic result of a homeostatic catharsis of the body and psyche.

Some of the stories I did not get at all, not lack of the English language but because I don’t have the educational and the experience background to relate with.

That’s why this book will be permanently open on my desk so I will have it as a valuable reference for future life encounters and psychological Searches.

Closing I would like to agree and endorse that the author is right when she says “We Need to learn to trust feminine power.”

When male element realize that all that is around us are female in nature and that the creation and the natural environment we live in cannot be without our Great Mother then our Cosmos both internal and external will be a more balanced and cruelty-free one.

This book brings hope to the hopeless, joy to the joyless, comfort to the weary, treatment to the sick and so many more happy and healthy attributes.

If you want to challenge your psyche and find more about yourself, then this book is for you.

Highly Recommended it.