A fresh and sympathetic contribution to trauma recovery literature.
Barrett, a trauma survivor who was diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder in 1992, explores a hopeful healing process in this nonfiction book.
The author, informed by such therapeutic approaches as inner child work and Internal Family Systems therapy, asserts that recovery can occur independently of forgiveness. To embark on a “hero’s journey” toward healing, she says, readers must set a healing intention, which she describes as “your compass that leads you through the trees to the forest that is a happy, healthy, whole life.” Barrett also discusses structural dissociation, a theory in which “Apparently Normal Parts” of the psyche facilitate everyday life while “Emotional Parts” keep memories and pain of abuse hidden. Survivors, she writes, may have multiple identities, or “alters,” which can be identified and integrated with the help of a trauma-informed therapist. Self-forgiveness, she says, allows survivors to let go of feelings of blame and shame, and forming new friendships provides crucial support. Barrett discusses the difference between bilateral forgiveness (in which “the offender acknowledges, repents, and makes amends before forgiveness occurs”) and unilateral forgiveness (in which the survivor “does the work of forgiving” solo). Readers also learn about the Healing Wheel, a visual framework that outlines seven core areas. Experiencing gratitude, feeling compassion, and embracing spirituality are several signs of progress, she says, and she concludes by reminding readers that although one’s healing journey changes, it never ends. Barrett notes upfront that she lacks formal psychological training, but her approach to her subject is a refreshing and compassionate one. Rather than framing forgiveness as the only avenue toward healing, she posits that healing is “the container within which forgiving may or may not occur.” Frameworks like the Healing Wheel reassure survivors that it’s a nonlinear, ongoing series of events, and real-life stories from fellow survivors ably illustrate various aspects of it. Barrett effectively offers survivors a variety of exercises to process trauma and difficult emotions, involving such activities as writing, physical movement, and listening to music. She also includes an appendix for Christians grappling with religious messages around forgiveness.
A fresh and sympathetic contribution to trauma recovery literature.Pub Date: Jan. 13, 2026
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Dec. 3, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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