It’s no coincidence that this is the first book I chose to review and recommend on my website, as it’s played a pivotal role in my own healing journey. I found it validated many of my own childhood experiences and the resulting challenges I have faced in adulthood.

Walker differentiates Complex PTSD (C-PTSD) from “standard” PTSD, explaining that C-PTSD can be a result of ongoing, repetitive trauma (often in childhood), whereas PTSD results from a single traumatic event. Though Walker acknowledges the trauma of physical and sexual abuse, he primarily focuses on the damaging effects of emotional abuse, neglect and abandonment. These include: emotional flashbacks, toxic shame, self-abandonment, a vicious inner critic, social anxiety and difficulties forming and maintaining relationships.

In this book, he offers practical strategies and wisdom based on his experiences as both a survivor and as a therapist, and emphasises a holistic approach combining talk therapy, somatic therapy and mindfulness. He also stresses the importance of self-compassion, self-reparenting, and developing a strong sense of self as part of recovery.

In terms of understanding Complex PTSD, Walker highlights:

• Emotional Flashbacks: these are sudden and intense regressions to feeling-states of an abused or emotionally-abandoned child, characterised by overwhelming feelings of fear, shame, sadness, despair or anger. There is not always a specific memory attached to these feelings, so these flashbacks can feel very confusing
• The Inner Critic: internalised messages from childhood result in a harsh and often debilitating “inner critic”, frequently resulting in self-blame, toxic shame and perfectionism.
• The Four ‘F’s: four survival strategies developed in response to childhood trauma: Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn, each with their own characteristics and coping mechanisms.
• Frequent Relationship Challenges: relationship struggles are common, as people avoid intimacy or repeat unhealthy relationship dynamics the developed in childhood. Difficulties with trust, insecure attachment, and a negative view of self are also very common.
• Abandonment Depression: the deep sadness and feelings of emptiness stemming from childhood experiences of emotional abandonment and consequential self-abandonment.

With regards to recovery and healing, Walker describes:

• A multimodal approach addressing the physical, psychological, emotional and social aspects of complex trauma.
• Managing emotional flashbacks, which first involves recognising that a flashback is occurring, and then following this with grounding techniques, reassuring the inner child, and challenging the inner critic.
• Grieving, which involves identifying, processing and releasing repressed emotions including anger and sorrow.
• Shrinking the Inner Critic through long term, dedicated  use of thought-stopping, thought-substitution and thought-corrective practices.
• Developing self-compassion is an essential part of recovery: learning to treat ourselves with understanding, acceptance and kindness.
• Self-reparenting: learning to provide ourselves with the care, love and attunement that was lacking in childhood, helping to develop a more secure sense of self.
• Forming safe and healthy relationships with others. Walker strongly emphasises the significance of a supportive therapeutic relationship as part of the healing process – something which has certainly been absolutely essential to my own healing and recovery!

In summary, Pete Walker’s book offers a compassionate and practical framework for recovery for those with a history of childhood developmental trauma. It details a comprehensive roadmap for recovery, providing practical tools and strategies, along with useful insights for navigating the challenges of C-PTSD symptoms, and supports readers on a path from surviving to thriving. 

This book really changed my understanding of what happened to me, and how my early experiences shaped who I am today (and all of the struggles I have experienced along the way), and I highly recommend it to anyone who resonates with the trauma responses Walker describes, including emotional flashbacks, the Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn responses, and the Inner Critic.