The author, Bonanno, does a great job with this book where the flexibility mindset and sequence are highlighted as it relates to trauma. Indeed, trauma is not an easy diagnosis and the reality of PTSD isn’t easy, either. However, the author does a great job in writing in very relatable ways, especially about physiological aspects related to trauma, given that this is such a difficult topic for so many people. If you or someone you care about might benefit from this book, please don’t hesitate to recommend it, read it, and embody it.

I have no qualms with this fantastic book. As a social worker, the value in the literature on resilience cannot be overstated. I will be thinking about this book for a long time, and am sure I will come back to it time and time again in my career. I'm looking forward to buying my own copy. m

If you are interested in taking a deeper dive into trauma, this book will help you with that. Bonanno shares personal experiences with 9/11 in New York combined with scientific studies to discuss trauma in great detail. If you have enjoyed other trauma books, such as "the body keeps the score" and want to read and understand more, this is a good book to continue that work.

*Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of the book.

The central idea of this book is that not everyone who’s exposed to traumatic events has long-term mental health effects. On average, two-thirds of those who suffer traumas show resilience. Bonanno’s experience working in the mental healthcare sector in New York City in the aftermath 9/11 impressed this truth upon him. The anticipated mental health tsunami never came; most people recovered and moved on with their lives.

It is hard to predict who that one-third is who will suffer long-term mental trauma. While there are some traits that correlate more to resilience and others to a proclivity to be traumatized, the fact that humans are complex and there are many confounding variables makes it immensely difficult to anticipate the impact of a trauma.

Given this difficulty, it’s beneficial to figure out how one can increase any victim’s resilience, and that’s the task the book engages. Bonanno discusses an optimal mindset for resilience that he calls the “flexibility mindset,” and he details a corresponding sequence (i.e. the “flexibility sequence”) that he suggests is the best known approach to reducing the adverse effects of trauma. As the key word, “flexible,” suggests, this approach requires adaptability. It’s not a one-size fits all approach, but rather hinges upon determining what coping strategies a person has access to, and then evaluating the degree to which they are working.

If found this book to be full of food-for-thought. I thought there could have been more elaboration of the dangers and limitations of distraction as a coping mechanism. To be fair, there is a discussion of this as he presents another therapist’s experience with, and thoughts upon, the “flexibility” approach, but that’s a bit late in the book. That said, I learned a great deal in reading this book, and thought it offered some excellent insights.

Started off well but got jargony very quickly. Not a book for the lay person with ptsd but rather for professionals.

Remarkable Examination of Trauma And Its Permanence. This is a truly eye opening book about the remarkable resilience of many, perhaps most, people - and how the science of trauma often gets the permanence of trauma wrong. Bonanno has spent his career researching these topics, and this is a solid look at his best findings to date. Told using some long-term case studies as a bit of a narrative structure (and certainly a recurrent theme), this book does a great job of showing how intensely personal trauma and resilience are, yet also using facts and studies to back up the case studies and show larger findings and trends. The bibliography here comes in at about 23% of the total text, which is within normal range - and would likely have been a bit more, without the focus on the case studies. Of note, the case studies are from an accidental spine injury - from a traffic accident - and from survivors of the 9/11 attacks, which helps to show the wide range of trauma. Though also of note, sexual traumas are not examined directly. While Bonanno makes the case for general applicability to all traumas for his findings of resilience and the factors that lead to it, one wonders whether more directly studying various types of traumas using Bonanno's framework would truly show true general applicability? Still, that question would be an intriguing premise for a follow up book - but this book itself does in fact make a strong case for its premise and adds quite a bit to the overall discussion of trauma, PTSD, and resilience. Very much recommended.

This book is well written and full of vivid stories. However, this read more like a personal odyssey than a practical resource or guide that could be readily shared with and grasped by readers.

The End of Trauma is a thorough piece of writing on the history of trauma, how we define it and how it is treated. It is a book that shares a different scope on how mental health trauma is portrayed today, immense, debilitating and vast. And yes, some of that is true, but Bonannno, pioneering psychologist and top expert on human trauma, argues that we vastly overestimate how common PTSD is and how we fail to recognize the resilience of the human psyche. He shares research on the devastating attack of 9/11 for example, that the belief would be that individuals would significantly struggle with symptoms of PTSD. That was just not the case. What we did was naturally adapt to a moment of crises, healthy coping for this situation. Bonanno goes on to explain what makes us resilient, why some struggle with this and how we can handle traumatic stress better.
An important read during these times!

Thank you NetGalley and Hachette Book Group for the ARC!

I am SUCH a fan of this book! It is a much needed antidote to the current cultural moment, in which we are often encouraged to believe that the difficult things that happen to us have to harm or traumatize us for life. THE END OF TRAUMA provides specific and research-backed arguments that we are far more resilient that this grim outlook suggests, and that although we don’t entirely understand why or how some people are more resilient than others, the amount of “bouncing back” we see across the scope of human history should give us hope and encourage us to study this more. This is a super encouraging book for anyone who has experienced significant challenges but does not want to be defined by them.

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

The premise of this book is that the prevalence of PTSD is overestimated. Using multiple examples, including research after 9/11, people are shown to often not develop PTSD after traumatic events. The book explores the idea of human resiliency and ability of most people to process trauma. I’d recommend this book for anyone working in the field of trauma.

A top expert on human trauma argues that we vastly overestimate how common PTSD is and that people are more resilient than we think. This is a surprisingly quick read- on kindle format everything after 75% is reference material and acknowledgement so it seemed to end quite suddenly. It also seems the book was cut short due to the pandemic. The author looks at an example of a couple of people and gives some information about their trauma and how they have responded. I didn't think the stories were very carefully handled or told with much empathy.