Customer Reviews

The Invulnerable Child (Guilford Psychiatry Series)

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Another positve reviewer said that this book lacks poetry and that is certainly true. This collection of case studies and essays may be written for the clinical professional but I think it has much to recommend to anyone interested in adult survivors of abuse.

The layperson can skip the super-clinical articles and devour the rest for a glimpse into why some children and adults are more invulnerable than others to abuse and tragedy whose wounds are often a crippling or mortal blow. It was a remendously validating experience to read these stories of why and how others have done more than survive devastating abuse and tragedy.

This book lacks poetry but is filled with important information.

It might be comforting to know that a (extremely, extremely small) percentage of children can grow up just fine with parents who are alcoholics, schizophrenics, physically abusive, etc., but the truth is that children as a group will always respond to their upbringing in highly predictable ways. Abusiveness will always, on the whole, produce more fragile and unhappy children, as do parents with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or other mental illness. Death and severe physical illness can ruin a child's life as well. This book seems like a subtle way to proclaim "Hey, it's ok to be physically and emotionally absent, workaholic, and otherwise a bad parent, because a RESILIENT child can handle it! If a child isn't resilient, it's not my fault he or she turns out badly!" It seems like a way to thus shift responsibility and blame from parents to children. This is extremely dangerous. Think of it this way: if you were a farmer, would it sit well with you if your crops were never watered? Would you blame the crops for no being "resilient" enough to survive?

There's no way you can demand a child be more resilient from birth like the tiny, tiny minority of children that are. You can only be better, more loving parents in your effort to make your child healthy and resilient, because that won't happen just because you wish it would.