- Creator(s)
- Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D.
- Publisher
- Penguin
- Year
- 2014
- Started
- Monday, April 17, 2023
- Abandoned
- Friday, April 21, 2023
- Time Spent
- 2.25hrs
I abandoned this book after 4 chapters. It looks like it takes me about 4 chapters before I start to see through the facades built by these viral best selling self-help books.
There was some problematic stuff in the first chapter, I told myself the author is recounting a story, no room here for interjection. I should have dropped out there and not wasted another 2 hours.
The straw was a reference the author made to observing how a two year old flirts with you. “Attend any two-year-old's birthday party and notice how little Kimberly will engage you, play with you, flirt with you, without any need for language.”
As a survivor of molestation this struck me very odd, the phrasing, the specifically named and gendered child. I tried to put it out of my mind and keep reading, but I kept thinking about the choice of words. I did some searching, and discovered the author isn't exactly a person I would like to take advice from.
Allegedly the work of Dr. Nadine Burke Harris The Deepest Well, predates Kolk's. I could not find any formal accusations of this.
He's been accused of and subsequently fired from the organization he started for bullying and denigrating employees. Source: Boston Globe
There is a lot of discussion around his problematic approach to surfacing extreme examples in the book without warning, which some have deemed as irresponsible considering the intended audience.
The discomfort I felt reading the flirting quote was enough for me to drop this book, but after finding so many other things that I would class as red flags I decided to move on.