“Maggie Scarf is brilliant, a writer with foresight who has always been ahead of the pack, and she writes in language people can relate to. Her humanistic way of looking at life shines thru in this astonishing book about how the past resides in our bodies–and what we can to do about it.”
–Nancy Friday, author of My Secret Garden and Women on Top
“This is a book that puts body, mind and spirit together, and helps dispel the ghosts. Maggie provides a deep sense of hope with the idea that we might look at these early traumas in our lives and find a way to be healed of the fight-or-flight impulses that sometimes drive us away from the very things we want most in our lives–friendship, warmth, loving relationships with those nearest us, and, finally, the answers that were hidden by the scars that cover those secrets
present in most every one of us.”
–Judy Collins
"This book is a for-real treasure map. It leads us through a lot of pain and trauma to a secret, buried world of feeling locked inside the human body–and shows us the terrific reward possible at the end. With her characteristic compassion and erudition, Maggie Scarf is a superb guide to radically new approaches to healing trauma and betrayal. I have been a patient on the path Scarf follows here, and this is exciting, ground-breaking material, beautifully presented."
–Augustus Napier, author, The Family Crucible and The Fragile Bond
Maggie Scarf has given us a book with the force of revelation. Secrets, Lies, Betrayals shows how our bodies store the painful memories of our past. This is a book that will make you see yourself and your whole life in a new way.
–Susan Cheever, author of My Name is Bill
"The mix of theory and story is one of the things Maggie Scarf does so well.
I found the book compelling, convincing and, in a good way, shocking."
–Betty Rollin, author of First, You Cry and Last Wish
Here are the mind’s various activities, possibilities, given the corporeal home that nature has offered it–a searching, knowing exploration of how our thoughts, experiences, persist in our neuro-muscular life, assert themselves in how we live (with whom, under which circumstances, and with what instincts of mind and heart). Here is mind connected to body–and done so with the help of a documentary effort: the author herself, and others she has come to know, enable us, through their personal narratives, to understand human psychology, its pleasures and its darker side, as an aspect of the physical existence each of us has, experiences.
–Robert Coles, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities, Harvard Medical School
Maggie Scarf’s thesis–that in painful circumstances the body has a mind of its own–is both enlightening and liberating in that if offers a way out. This is characteristic of her work. She is alert enough to spot a problem that no one else has seen, and generous enough to provide a remedy. That her writing is as clear as daylight is icing on the cake.
–Roger Rosenblatt
Maggie Scarf has an extraordinary gift for sharing with the reader her own intimate memories and thoughts, those of the person whose story she tells, while simultaneously discussing the neurobiology of memory, in readily understood terms. The intertwining of her narrative with those she skillfully interviews is captivating. She is insightful and incisive. Her picture of family trauma and violence reveals its pervasiveness and inaccessibility. This is truly a remarkable tour de force, a book that one cannot put down.
–Carol Nadelson, M.D.
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