Complex PTSD – From surviving to thriving by Pete Walker
Written for: survivors of childhood abuse and neglect who are interested in alternative treatment
Special focus: the authors personal idea of cPTSD and how he thinks it can be healed
What it is not:
- based on actual psychological knowledge
- based on tested and tried treatment
- based on the actual theory of cPTSD
- based on any kind of scientific fact
- about trauma, PTSD or dissociation
- touching on more than a few selected symptoms
Language: Keep a dictionary nearby. Even as a native english speaker you might want to look up words. Language is unnecessarily difficult without even using specific psychological terms.
Book: The book is based on a collection of articles that can be found on Pete Walkers website. It isn’t expensive but the website is for free. There are a lot of references to other books that might be helpful. The author is a survivor himself and writes from his own experience.
Overview
Part 1
This part consists of 4 chapters that are named overview of recovering, levels of recovery, improving relationships, progression of recovery, but they read as one chapter of general information and ideas. There is no clear structure to all of this and it is more like a train of thought. It doesn’t offer any logical foundation for anything that is presented and I found it hard to follow.
Part 2
Chapter 5: There is one more chapter of mixed general information and ideas.
Chapter 6: The author describes what he calls „trauma types“. They are taken from the stress responses fight/flight/freeze and fawn is somehow added as a forth. Walker creates his own theory where he creates these trauma types, combines them with personality disorders and other co-morbid disorders and develops his own categories for diagnosing people.
Chapter 7: There are some explanations on co-dependency in survivors based on the trauma types and possible ways to face that.
Chapter 8: „emotional flashbacks“ are described as well as a 13 step plan to stop them. The definition of emotional flashback differs from the general use of that phrase and is basically another word for an EP showing up.
Chapter 9: this is all about fighting the „inner critic“, which is Walkers phrase for introjects. His approach is to shame the inner critic into silence.
Chapter 10: is about fighting the „outer critic“, which is Walkers phrase for protective parts or the fight response, just limited to verbal critique towards others.
Chapter 11: this chapters goes into the details of what the author considers the grieving process, with a great emphasis on making yourself cry and talking about anger.
This is where I stopped reading
Chapter 12: managing abandonment depression
Chapter 13: relational approach to abandonment healing
Chapter 14: forgiveness
Chapter 15: has a list of book recommendations, most of them are self-help books about various topics
Chapter 16: this is a collection of positive phrases to tell yourself, some of it lists, some spreadsheets to fill out for yourself.
The bibliography shows practically no reference to scientific books on PTSD but a great variety of self-help books.
After reading
This is the first book on cPTSD that I couldn’t finish reading, because it started to challenge my inner peace.
It is not just that it lacks structure and the headlines often don’t mean that the chapter is really about that topic. I have deep issues with this book.
I struggle to believe that the author actually studied psychology. Diagnoses are used in a way that shows a deep lack of understanding what they actually mean. Especially personality disorders are talked about in a stigmatizing way.
I believe the theory of trauma types is confusing and simply wrong. They are made up, without anything close to evidence that people fall into these categories. They are also dangerously mashed up with personality disorders and co-morbid disorders without rhyme or reason. To me this is very close to diagnosing people according to their zodiac sign. Walker is constructing his own theory about cPTSD here that is not connected to any other literature, let alone research, about cPTSD. This builds the foundation of a lot of his interventions.
He also manages to ignore the concept of structural dissociation completely, while describing it as something else, emotional flashbacks, critics, and offering oversimplified approaches on how to deal with them These are his only interventions for cPTSD. There is no stabilizing work, not trauma work, just a silencing of emotional parts who interrupt daily life in an uncomfortable way.
I know that this book gets a lot of great reviews and I can’t explain how that is possible except that there is not enough information about cPTSD out there and people will just believe anything they are told. In my opinion this book is un-psychological, un-scientific and ends up being un-therapeutic.
I think it is a disgrace considering how hard psychologists fight to make cPTSD an official, science-based diagnosis and how much effort goes into finding out what really helps.
You will rarely see me being so harsh because as a writer I honor other writers, it is a lot of work to write a book. But this one offers misinformation on cPTSD and might hinder your healing because the interventions are extremely limited and questionable.
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