What's On Our Bookshelf? "What Happened To You?", by Bruce Perry, MD and Oprah Winfrey

By Mary Attridge, CMHC, ATR-BC, ATCS

How many times have you responded to someone’s words and actions and wondered where your reaction came from?

How many times have you been on the receiving end of someone else’s reaction and wondered what you’d done?

We will say to ourselves, “what’s wrong with me?” or, “what’s up with them?”, often in an effort to deflect a natural feeling of shame for our behavior that is incongruent with our values or responsibility for another’s behavior. Our defenses are lit and protect the perceived threat to our vulnerable humanity, never imagining that these kinds of behaviors and words are actually the result of years of evolution resulting in a sophisticated response to threat.

Further, that as we require connection with other human beings, we would be equating any threat to those connections the same as a car accident. Bruce Perry lays out a clear and relevant model for understanding ourselves and others where the development of compassion cannot help but proceed. His book, co-authored by Oprah Winfry, “What Happened To You?” helps us understand ourselves and others from a place of compassion.

I will often consider that the most therapeutic intervention doesn’t require a clinical masters or training: it’s kindness.

I would say that one of the most meaningful takeaways from this book for me was more so than “hurt people hurt people,” but “healed people heal people.” Today, I hope you are able to find kindness for yourself and/or someone else. We all need more of that as an antidote to trauma.

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