Home What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma by Stephanie Foo (ISBN: 9780593238127)

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What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma Paperback - 2023

Name: What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
Price: 9.19 GBP
Availability: InStock
Author: Foo, Stephanie
ISBN: 9780593238127

by Stephanie Foo

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4.50 / 5 (69896 total reviews)

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Reader reviews for What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma

Review summary

This seller has earned a 4.50 of 5 Stars rating from internet customers.

4.50 / 5 (69896 total reviews)

Readers widely praised Stephanie Foo’s memoir for its raw honesty and compassionate, accessible exploration of complex PTSD, combining personal narrative with reporting on therapy and neuroscience. Many highlighted the authenticity of her treatment journey—especially sessions with Dr. Jacob Ham—and called the author-narrated audiobook a standout. The book resonated strongly around Asian American identity and intergenerational trauma, and its practical insights into accessing care and trying different therapies felt validating and useful. While several readers noted the material is heavy and potentially triggering, and some criticized occasional repetition, uneven structure, or disputed scientific framing, the overall response was highly positive and hopeful.

Readers say this book is:

raw and vulnerablepowerfulhopefulinformativenuanced on race and culturelife-changingheavytriggeringwell-writtenoccasionally repetitive

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From the publisher

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - A searing memoir of reckoning and healing by acclaimed journalist Stephanie Foo, investigating the little-understood science behind complex PTSD and how it has shaped her life

"Achingly exquisite . . . providing real hope for those who long to heal."--Lori Gottlieb, New York Times bestselling author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone

ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The Washington Post, Cosmopolitan, NPR, Mashable, She Reads, Publishers Weekly

By age thirty, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: She had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD--a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years.

Both of Foo's parents abandoned her when she was a teenager, after years of physical and verbal abuse and neglect. She thought she'd moved on, but her new diagnosis illuminated the way her past continued to threaten her health, relationships, and career. She found limited resources to help her, so Foo set out to heal herself, and to map her experiences onto the scarce literature about C-PTSD.

In this deeply personal and thoroughly researched account, Foo interviews scientists and psychologists and tries a variety of innovative therapies. She returns to her hometown of San Jose, California, to investigate the effects of immigrant trauma on the community, and she uncovers family secrets in the country of her birth, Malaysia, to learn how trauma can be inherited through generations. Ultimately, she discovers that you don't move on from trauma--but you can learn to move with it.

Powerful, enlightening, and hopeful, What My Bones Know is a brave narrative that reckons with the hold of the past over the present, the mind over the body--and examines one woman's ability to reclaim agency from her trauma.

Details

Title What My Bones Know: A Memoir of Healing from Complex Trauma
Author Stephanie Foo
Binding Paperback
Pages 352
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Ballantine Books
Publication date 2023-02-21
Features Bibliography
ISBN 9780593238127 / 0593238125
Weight 0.55 lbs (0.25 kg)
Dimensions 8 x 5.1 x 0.9 in (20.32 x 12.95 x 2.29 cm)
Themes
- Ethnic Orientation: Asian - General
Category Biography / Autobiography
Library of Congress subjects Mind and body, Autobiographies
Dewey Decimal Code B

About the author

Stephanie Foo is a writer and radio producer, most recently for This American Life. Her work has aired on Snap Judgment, Reply All, 99% Invisible, and Radiolab. A noted speaker and instructor, she has taught at Columbia University and has spoken at venues from Sundance Film Festival to the Missouri Department of Mental Health. She lives in New York City with her husband.