What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

Description

The Number 1 New York Times Bestseller Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand. Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives. - Oprah Winfrey This book is going to change the way you see your life. Have you ever wondered 'Why did I do that?' or 'Why can't I just control my behavior?' Others may judge our reactions and think, 'What's wrong with that person?' When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question. Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking 'What's wrong with you?' to 'What happened to you?' Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the book, she and Dr Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It's a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it's one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future - opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.

Over the course of her esteemed career, Oprah Winfrey has created an unparalleled connection with people around the world. As host and supervising producer of the top-rated, award-winning The Oprah Winfrey Show, she entertained, enlightened and uplifted millions of viewers for twenty-five years. Her accomplishments as a global media leader and philanthropist have established her as one of the most influential and admired public figures in the world today. Some of her previously published works include O's Little Guide to Starting Over, Food, Health and Happiness, What I Know for Sure, The Wisdom of Sundays and The Path Made Clear. Dr Bruce Perry is the Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy a Community of Practice based in Houston, TX and Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago and the College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Australia. He is the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered and BRIEF: Reflections on Childhood, Trauma and Society. Over the last thirty years, Dr Perry has been an active teacher, clinician and researcher in children's mental health and the neurosciences holding a variety of academic positions.