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Vulnerable Minds: The Harm of Childhood Trauma and the Hope of Resilience Hardcover – March 12, 2024
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Each year at least a billion children around the world are victims of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) that range from physical abuse to racial discrimination to neglect and food deprivation. The brain plasticity of our most vulnerable makes the adverse effects of trauma only that much more damaging to mental and physical development. Those dealt a hand of ACEs are more likely to drop out of school, have a shorter life, abuse substances, and suffer from myriad mental health and behavioral issues.
The crucial question is: How do we intervene to offer these children a more hopeful future? Neurobiologist and educator Dr. Marc Hauser provides a novel, research-based framework to understand a child’s unique response to ACEs that goes beyond our current understanding and is centered around the five Ts—the timing during development when the trauma began, its type, tenure, toxicity, and how much turbulence it has caused in a child’s life. Using this lens, adults can start to help children build resilience and recover—and even benefit—from their adversity through targeted community and school interventions, emotional regulation tools, as well as a new frontier of therapies focused on direct brain stimulation, including neurofeedback and psychedelics.
While human suffering experienced by children is the most devastating, it also presents the most promise for recovery; the plasticity of young people’s brains makes them vulnerable, but it also makes them apt to take back the joy, wonder, innocence, and curiosity of childhood when given the right support. Vulnerable Minds is a call to action for parents, policymakers, educators, and doctors to reclaim what’s been lost and commit ourselves to our collective responsibility to all children.
- Print length320 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherAvery
- Publication dateMarch 12, 2024
- Dimensions6.21 x 1.06 x 9.28 inches
- ISBN-100593538692
- ISBN-13978-0593538692
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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From the Publisher
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Editorial Reviews
Review
— Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of How the Mind Works
“An important and profound book by a brilliant researcher. I strongly recommend it.”
— Johann Hari, New York Times bestselling author of Stolen Focus
“Hauser is not just a renowned scientist, he is an exceptionally accessible writer. Educators, parents, and policymakers will find this clear and compelling book an invaluable guide to understanding and protecting our most vulnerable children.”
— Daniel Willingham, Professor of Psychology, University of Virginia, author of Why Don't Students Like School?
“Marc Hauser's Vulnerable Minds is a tour de force! With exceptional depth and breadth of scholarship, Hauser uses research and theory to illuminate the lives of children growing up amidst adversity, while showing that they are not doomed to succumb to it if the forces of resilience, compassion and social justice are mobilized on their behalf.”
— James Garbarino, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Cornell University and Loyola University Chicago, author of Listening to Killers
“Deeply informed and profoundly moving, Marc Hauser's remarkable book not only reveals the indescribable tragedy of loss of childhood but also shows how sympathy and understanding along with impressive advances of science can offer escape and hope for the victims.”
— Noam Chomsky, Laureate Professor, University of Arizona, author of The Precipice
“I want this book in the hands of every medical student, health professional and educator! It so eloquently and compassionately outlines the profound impact of childhood adversity, maltreatment and neglect that affects lifelong health learning and behavior.”
— Jean Clinton BMus MD FRCP(C) Clinical Professor, Child Psychiatry, McMaster University Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, and the author of Love Builds Brains
"Vulnerable Minds is a mesmerizing read on an extremely important topic. Marc Hauser lucidly illuminates the science that establishes and explains the physical and psychological consequences of many kinds of adversity endured by millions of children in the US and around the world… But the book also offers hope via evidence that many forms of intervention can ameliorate or even reverse the damage done to bodies and minds by childhood adversity."
— Susan Carey, Morss Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and the author of The Origin of Concepts
“Even as so much of this latest work proves disheartening, this book also highlights what is promising, including that mistreated children often develop hidden talents; that children vary immensely in how and whether they are affected by adversity; and what can—and still needs to be—done so that ever more children can experience the developmental fruits of growing up safe and secure.”
— Jay Belsky, Emeritus Professor, University of California-Davis, and author of The Origins of You
“This ’must read’ book provides the reader not only with revolutionary insights into the very nature and suffering of humans, but gives hope as it provides the necessary compass towards a better place in this world.”
— Thomas Elbert, Professor, University of Konstanz; Honorary Professor, Université Lumiére, Bujumbura; author of Narrative Exposure Therapy
“In Marc Hauser’s well-researched, exquisitely written and heartfelt account of the misfortunes and horrors many children face, we learn how some children suffer greatly and a fortunate few are spared.”
— Charles A. Nelson, Ph.D., Professor of Pediatrics, Neuroscience and
Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; Richard David Scott Chair in Pediatric Developmental Medicine Research, Boston Children’s Hospital, author of Romania's Abandoned Children
“With the experience of a caring parent, insights of an experienced teacher and analytical skills of a scientist, Marc Hauser trains his eyes on Adverse Childhood Events, or ACEs. Along with clear and succinct explanations of the physical and mental health impacts of early adversity Hauser provides constructive proposals for dealing with trauma’s consequences. Anyone raising, interacting with, supervising or devising policies that impact children needs to read this book.”
— Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Professor Emerita, University of California, Davis, author of Mother Nature
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Avery (March 12, 2024)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 320 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0593538692
- ISBN-13 : 978-0593538692
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.21 x 1.06 x 9.28 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,498,758 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,145 in Codependency (Books)
- #1,195 in Child Abuse (Books)
- #2,194 in Post-Traumatic Stress
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
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Marc Hauser is a scientist, educator, innovator, author, and humanist. With broad training in the biological and social sciences, as well as philosophy and linguistics, he has published over 300 scientific papers and seven books, including most recently Vulnerable Minds (2024, NY: Penguin-Random House, Avery); these papers and books can be found at marcdhauser dot com. During his 18 years as a professor at Harvard University, he worked on topics in animal cognition, moral psychology, cognitive development, cognitive neuroscience, behavioral economics, linguistics, anthropology, and philosophy. In the last 14 years, he has worked with high at-risk youths, including children with trauma, bringing the tools of the mind and brain sciences to help change their lives, including their capacity to learn and make meaningful decisions. This work continues today. He is married to Lilan Hauser and has two daughters, Alexandra and Sofia.
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2025Big fan of Hauser's work. Great book.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 21, 2024Marc Hauser’s book is a beautifully written, scrupulously documented, and clearly explained survey of the causes and effects of childhood adversity and trauma. Written by a neuroscientist, special ed teacher, and a sensitive and empathetic observer, the book examines not just the trajectory of young victims of domestic physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and neglect. It also ranges more globally to explore the plight of child soldiers in war zones, children scarred by deprivation in orphanages, and kids victimized by violent youth gang. It also includes some hauntingly topical and poignant passages about the children of Gaza who lived through the bombing of Gaza in 2021. As a neuroscientist, Hauser carefully deconstructs and reconstructs the neural circuits and chemical pathways that scar children at critical stages of brain and behavioral development. As an educator and humanist who has taught in special needs schools for the past decade, Hauser brings a tender, caring, and empathetic sensitivity to his firsthand encounters with many of the children he has met. But the book also provides some hopeful accounts of resilience and some recipes for recovery. Those working in the mental health, education, and criminal justice fields should not miss this sobering but hopeful tour de force.
Michael R. Schneider, criminal defense lawyer
- Reviewed in the United States on April 3, 2024Up to date information and a need to know on how to address the ACEs in children that can be applied to adults as well for a more comprehensive understanding and assessment of mental health needs that can be better met. Just going off of the latest DSM for diagnosing individuals is not going to address the specifics in each patient as Dr. Marc has so detailed throughout this very informative book. A must read for anyone who is around children and young adults and wants to better understand humanity in a more thorough manner.