Healing Childhood Trauma

Robin Marvel
Loving Healing Press (2020)
ASIN: B0859PKRPG
Reviewed by Tammy Ruggles (05/2020)

“Healing Childhood Trauma: Transforming Pain into Purpose with Post-Traumatic Growth“, by Robin Marvel, isn’t the average “You’re a victim” book. A lot of self-help books spend a lot of time–and are very good at– defining the problem or issue and letting the readers know they are victims. But this book transcends that. Marvel of course defines various forms of trauma and how the effects of PTSD can wreak havoc on one’s life–her own included. She writes for an audience of abuse and trauma survivors, but also for the professional who may be looking for a more positive approach to victimhood.

Sometimes helping professionals spend years working with clients and patients on the problem–what it is and where it came from–but give few solutions or insights that can affect change.

Marvel’s book changes that. She not only helps the traumatized person define the root cause of the trauma, but helps him/her understand how it has affected his/her life, and then goes on to show them how to see themselves in a different, better light, accept the past, but change their future in positive ways.

With a couple of tools (questionnaires), Marvel engages with the reading audience and asks them to answer honestly, thus helping them to see the origins of their PTSD, and how it’s shaped their choices, behavior, and outcomes. But the help doesn’t stop there. Robin asks readers to learn to love themselves, to forgive others and themselves, and realize they deserve to be happy and trauma-free.

Victimization shouldn’t last a lifetime, and this book helps all trauma sufferers to look honestly at their lives, admit what happened, and turn it into something great instead of an endless merry-go-round of toxic relationships, depression, suicidal thoughts, substance misuse, domestic violence, and broken families.

The author writes from her expertise as a survivor, motivational speaker, and champion for wounded souls looking for a way up and out. This book can help turn readers into happy, thriving people–not just another victim. If there is anything to criticize regarding “Healing Childhood Trauma”, it’s that the book is a little on the short side, with reviews and foreword at the beginning taking up a good portion of the book. I’d love to have read more tests and questionnaires to get the reader thinking about their issues and how to solve them. Still, this book deserves an A.