This book has the distinction of being among the few I have not finished. I tried. I really did. But I can't keep going with this nonsense. It starts out all scientific with genetics, but quickly veers into woo-woo territory. Look, if blaming your problems on some unknown trauma that happened to your grandmother helps you move on, great. It's barely better than past-life regression bullshit. But, the authors insistence on reconciling with parents is frankly, toxic, especially to victims of abuse...

I wish Goodreads had an "abandoned" option... I've gotten about halfway, and may finish just for kicks and giggles, but within the first 10% of the book, Wolynn draws a wholly unscientific and even anecdotally-sketchy conclusion regarding the accidental death of the uncle of one of his patients-- an uncle who passed before the patient was born, making it impossible for that "trauma" to have been passed from the uncle to the nephew in any way (not to mention the fact that there is no direct genet...

No book (self-help or otherwise) should so strongly suggest that children reestablish contact with their parents. A parent-child relationship if severed is done so for a good reason and after much consideration and effort towards other solutions. Toxic individuals are best left out of the healing process.

Let me start by saying- IGNORE THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS ABOUT THIS BOOK.I found this book to be quite helpful! I was able to link my core statement to my past family trauma. I will say that the author gave TONS of examples in this book. However, every few examples I was able to dig deeper into more traumas that my family had experienced. What an eye opener! I want to know everyone’s biggest fear now. I’m nosey like that... lolNote: Some people have estranged relationships with their parents & that’s...

Despite the great reviews, as soon as I started reading, this book started brushing me the wrong way. What a waste of $5.24. As early as page 1, the author makes claims about the "latest scientific research" and offers no citation. On page 10 he claims a miraculous recovery of his vision. Are we to believe he ever had any eyesight loss at all? I don't. Chapter 2 is inundated with internet articles as his "scientific" sources. On page 29 he makes a strange claim about junk DNA being influenced by...

I have severe Depression, PTSD, OCD, and Anxiety/Panic due to physical and emotional abused I suffered at the hands of my malignant Narcissistic Personality disordered mother. From the title, I really thought that this book was going to help me to overcome many of my issues. Nope.It advises the abused to rebuild a relationship with the abuser. I'm flabbergasted. NPD's fight to control even their adult children with brainwashing and gaslighting. Who would suggest that I put myself back in that po...

While the first few chapters provide some useful information about how genetics and epigenetics play a role in our health, the author goes off into kookyville with his personal therapy. Honestly, the author focuses too much on how you need to fix and have a relationship with your parents and that if you fix this relationship then you will never be mentally ill again. Mind you that not everyone can fix or wants to "fix" the relationship with their parents, especially if there's severe abuse invol...

There are some useful pieces of information in this book, but the majority of it is pseudoscience. The author points to "empirical evidence" in support of his assertions that are either not empirical at all, or that conclude something not quite relevant for the author's assertion. I would sum up the useful information this way: 1. Your parents weren't perfect, no one's were perfect. 2. They had trauma and difficulties when they were growing up as well, and they probably (unintentionally) passed

I would love to read an incisive book about epigenetic trauma because there is still so little known about the subject. This book just didn't cut it for me. The first red flag was when the author wanted the reader to believe that someone experienced residual trauma because an uncle (not even a direct patrilineal carrier of their DNA) froze to death. Logistically that doesn't make sense - wasn't even true epigenetics. More self-help and pseudoscience than edifying. There were some interesting sto...

// the following book discussion includes topics of trauma, abuse, childhood. //// if this is a subject that triggers you, please skip this review <33it’s really not worth it, i promise. //personally, i was coming to this book to understand trauma better from a victim’s perspective. i think a great book that i read that i can give an example was by Marie-France Hirigoyen: “Stalking the Soul: Emotional Abuse and the Erosion of Identity”. I read this a few years ago and it really shone a light on

The heavy emphasis on reconciling with parents without regard to abuse was alarming and made me question his further advice.

Thought I'd be giving it more stars but I just can't bring myself to, and honestly the 1 star is there because up until page 66/67 it was OK. After? I usually keep all my books regardless if I liked it but I'm definitely giving this away (if I don't decide to burn it). The author focuses too much on their own trauma, which wouldn't be a problem except they use it to push the absolute need to re-establish broken relationships with parents. I love genetics and I absolutely agree that trauma can pa...

I understand that there are professionals who have issues with the methodology of this treatment approach and I defer to them. I also do not buy some of the connections made by Wolynn in the book, but overall I think this is a very worthwhile book. I do think that trauma can be passed down subconsciously and I like the exercises in the book on bringing these histories into consciousness so that you can let them go.

I thought when I started the book I would be giving it more stars. I'm a school psychologist and a PREPaRE trainer (school crisis work) and do a lot of reading about trauma. My orientation tends to be more in the cognitive behavioral area however I deeply believe in the purpose of narrative in therapy and that how we tell our stories matters. That being said, a lot of this book really got under my skin and made me say "a psychologist should know better"... except Mark Wolynn is not a psychologis...

I made the mistake of reading Goodreads reviews of this book. Oy. Y'all. Y'AAAAAALLLL. The main bashing this book comes in for is that 'oh if your parents are toxic this book is *dangerous*' because he suggests reconciling with family and family issues. Sweet Christmas, people, can you actually read the book? Can you use your brain at all? He CLEARLY states that for some people they can't actually reconcile with family (dead, estranged, etc) and then outlines a way to work through his process so...

Update: I keep getting angrier and angrier about this book! 😡 I just found out that Mark Wolynn’s graduate degree is in EDUCATION, not social work/psychology/counseling! Also, there doesn’t seem to be any peer-reviewed papers backing up the claims Wolynn made in this book!As a social worker, I have a lot of beef with this book! Can someone please rewrite this from a REAL trauma-informed lens? This books starts off great, but it turns very toxic in saying that someone can only heal if they fix th...

I do think the author was too forgiving (even dismissive) of abuse, and parts of the book felt kind of new-agey or otherwise hard to believe, but it gave me some things to think about.

I'm gonna skip rating this one. It is a self help book on dealing with intergenerational trauma. I was more interested in the scientific discussions on emotion, genetics, and epigenetics. That took up the first 50 pages. The rest was the technique wolynn uses to treat his patients.I think the technique Wolynn uses is probably effective. However, it depends on what kind of relationship you have with your parents and how much information you have on your family history.I have issues with this for

A fascinating in-depth look at inherited family trauma. Mark Wolynn is the Director of the Family Constellation Institute, where he and his colleagues delve into 3 and 4th generational family issues to help heal or resolve trauma that does not have an immediate understandable cause. He believes that we all have a "core language" that we unconsciously use to speak of our deepest fears (i.e., "I don't deserve to live", "I'll never be good enough", etc) that may have been used by a previous family