I put this on my to-read list and then forgot about it. When it resurfaced, I thought it would be like Oliver Sacks The man who mistook his wife for a hat, that is, a look at selected medical oddities that illuminate how we work. Instead it is a look at the latest science in a field that most of us don't understand well – how early experience of children can have life long consequences.
The good news is that they don't have to be crippling consequences. Despite the horrific nature of some of the cases, some of the children made substantial recoveries. The lengthy subtitle gives a true flavor: The boy who was raised as a dog and other stories from a child psychiatrist's notebook: what traumatized children can teach us about loss, love and healing by Bruce D. Perry.
So what is the book about? Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Branch Davidians and their surviving children. How to grow a psychopath. Mainly it is about the human brain: how it develops and why it often doesn't, what can be done to restore or obtain undamaged functioning, why childhood matters.
Perry is a child psychiatrist (M.D. and Ph.D.) with an interest in neurochemistry and brain development. After conventional training, he comes to realize just how little we know and how much we can learn from those who have been traumatized if we will only listen and observe. I recommend this book to all who deal with children and yes, I know that means just about everyone. This will make my best of the year list.