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The Deepest Well  By  cover art

The Deepest Well

By: Dr. Nadine Burke Harris
Narrated by: Dr. Nadine Burke Harris
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Publisher's summary

A pioneering physician reveals how childhood stress can lead to lifelong health problems and shows us what we can do to break the cycle.

Two-thirds of us have experienced at least one adverse childhood experience, or ACE, such as abuse, neglect, parental substance dependence, or mental illness. Even though these events may have occurred long ago, they have the power to haunt us long into adulthood, and now we have found that they may even contribute to lifelong illness.

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, the founder/CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness and recipient of the Arnold P. Gold Foundation Humanism in Medicine Award, expands on similar topics as in her popular TED talk as she demystifies the connection between adversity and ill health. After surveying more than 17,000 adult patients, she found that the higher a person's ACE score, the worse their health. This led Burke Harris to an astonishing breakthrough - childhood stress changes our neural systems, and its impact lasts a lifetime.

Through vivid storytelling that combines both scientific insight with deeply moving stories about her patients and their families, Burke Harris illuminates her journey of discovery from the academy to her own pediatric practice in San Francisco's poverty-ridden Bayview Hunters Point. She reroots the story of childhood trauma and its aftermath in science to help listeners see themselves and others more clearly.

For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood or who cares about the millions of children who do, the innovative and acclaimed health interventions outlined in the The Deepest Well represents vitally important hope for change.

©2018 Nadine Burke Harris (P)2018 Simon & Schuster

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A waste of time.

I’m a PhD psychologist and the book advertised ‘healing the effects of high ACES.’ I use the ACE test with my patients, but am clueless as to what to do on a practical level with someone who has elevated ACES that date back maybe 10-40 years. Hearing this author talk about tadpoles, rats, black tie dinners, endless anecdotal stories of kids in her practice, politicians she knows in San Francisco when I live on the East Coast, and biochemical theory offered me nothing useful. Knowing why my patients are messed up from the childhood they experienced doesn’t help. I can be empathic with understanding of their issues, but someone who is suicidal, or highly depressed in my office needs more than that and wants more: direction, guidance, effective answers. This book offers none of that.

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122 people found this helpful

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Blown away with the content of The Deepest Well

As a physician myself, this book has life changing and life giving information. I will be using what I have learned from Dr. Burke Harris in my medical practice, my community, my family and personally. My ACE (AChE) score is 7/10 and I am amidst a several year journey of recovery. The author/Dr. is spot on over and over throughout her book, her medical practice and her research. Universal application of the principles of her work and her passion will be a quantum leap to the improvement of health care and mental health care, simultaneously.
The Deepest Well is by far the most meaningful and relevant book I have read in years.
Thank you Dr. Nadine Burke Harris (and her family) for the valuable contribution of this book and your work.
Diana, MD, Oklahoma

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97 people found this helpful

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Disappointing

From the title, I honestly expected more of a focus on healing modalities: techniques and recommendations for victims of toxic stress in childhood.

I have read the research here and there elsewhere. The long-term damage caused by cortisol and an over-reactive stress response, as well as the biology behind PTSD, is not new. My hope for this book was a focus on solutions, not a reiteration of existing research. I also was surprised that the author included so much about her personal good luck and accomplishments: her wealthy husband, healthy pregnancies, subsidized education, political connections--what we used to call "chest thumping."

When you turn to a book that promises solutions, and you've lived a life of pain with a score of 8, you expect more than passing references to mindfulness and the value of child/parent therapy. If your parents don't even provide adequate medical care, are they really going to be honest about family dynamics or even speak with a therapist? Shame and denial can last a lifetime.

To me, this book was a tribute to the author's accomplishments, not a source of healing.

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A great thought uncrystalized

The pros are making the community aware of the struggles of children, their consequence and what can be done. If the title implied that intervention is what we can do well right now, it would get my 5 stars. It is very touching and hopeful in an area that so needs hope and light. I enjoyed it and hope professionals working in the area would read and embrace the hope. It is especially encouraging that treating the family through talk therapy can address learning and behavior problems.

The other significant point made is how childhood trauma is endemic in all of humanity and not a blemish on inferior people. It is common and injurious to people in every walk of life. Services aimed at the care of children have an obligation to provide for the therapy and care of children regardless of their problems. No more zero tolerance! No more labeling! No more drugging and isolating kids out of existence.

The cons:
Trauma does irreparable harm and a big part of the 'healing' is learning to live with the wounds without hurting everyone around you. Mindfulness, healthy eating, exercise and meeting all the criteria of the beautiful people, isn't going to fix it even if you manage to achieve every milestone. This book is about childhood and never makes it to that long road ahead. It doesn't present any evidence that this work has long-term healing. It addresses childhood A.C.E.'s as if the only requirement of education was getting kids through the system and not preparing them for life.

The author moves from a position of personal involvement to a more administrative role and seems to lose touch with trauma. Suddenly, we can delegate solutions and need only to be better advocates. The times she mentions how flawed, and staggeringly lost an unwieldy institution can become is followed by a more delegated solution. For example, a successful woman who can work with school teachers who successfully work with her son and does not accurately reflect that educators have already involved Congress in programs that oppress and isolate youth because they don't want those 10% kids in their classroom and neither does the community. In this version, there's no concrete requirement of inclusion.

Trauma is identity destroying and repeated trauma often requires that victims break the bonds with family and community in order to thrive in the world. It's not obvious what the limitations are or the damage an injury has done. They learn to silence their voices and withdraw from social contact because it is not the world they know and that learning curve is long. There is no reason to want to be in a more successful environment. Restructuring identity after trauma is key to grasping the intimacy and tolerance of human weakness. This books suggest they will be fine if they just limp along.

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78 people found this helpful

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A phenomenal must read

This book is excellently written. Dr. Burke's reading made this book as powerful as it is educational. The passion and pain in her tone as she read gave this educational book a personal connection to listeners. I would highly recommend this book to any parent, clinician, social service professional, educator, and law enforcement professional.

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Save your money and time.

Authors who read their own books Argh!!! This book was a Big disappointment. Waste of money and time for me. It offers no helpful advice for healing the effects of childhood adversity. It is a personal memoir filled with repetition of the fact that childhood trauma causes physical illness. We get it. There’s no helpful advice or new point of view to call it helpful. it’s not well told or interesting enough to be entertaining.
She says she wrote the book to help but offers no help. It feels more like her desire to vent, which is fine but not well written or narrated enough to be interesting.

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Paradigm-shattering book

You know that feeling when you discover something new, and then your view of the world is forever changed? This is one of those books. First of all, Nadine is truly an exceptional woman. Out of caring so much for her young patients, she discovered an association between childhood traumas (emotional traumas such as abuse or neglect) gets their little stress systems so hyperactive, that it starts causing havoc in their bodies. This leads to autoimmune diseases, ADHD, and later on in life cardiovascular diseases and stroke. But most doctors don't know about it, so they end up prescribing medications for the autoimmune diseases or for ADHD, without looking at the source of these conditions. She puts it this way: our stress systems evolved to help us fight or run away from threats, such as bears in the forest. But what happens when the bear comes home every night? Your stress hormones never get a chance to lower in your system. And the most interesting thing? Traumas are handed down, from generation to generation.

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Conjecture and Thoughts, Not Solutions

I had high hopes for this book, especially after listening to the sample, but I wasn't too far into the book when I learned that, although Dr. Nadine Burke Harris is a caring and compassionate physician, there really isn't anything new in what she is saying. Sadly the underprivileged children in San Francisco that she treated in her practice, who undoubtedly suffered traumatic home and social circumstances, won't be any further helped by what she has has put into print. I kept looking for an ah ha moment, and there wasn't any. I was looking for the HEALING that is in the title. Nada

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Must Read

If you could sum up The Deepest Well in three words, what would they be?

The solution to a big problem in our country

What does Dr. Nadine Burke Harris bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

Science, evidence, and experience

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

I did. I ignored all of my work to listen to this book. I finished it in a day.

Any additional comments?

How did I not know about this information before?

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Great information

I had no idea the long term effects that childhood adversity could cause. This book clearly articulated how those experiences can cause mental and physical challenges in later years. I feel more equipped to deal with these challenges with the information that has been shared in this book. Thank you!

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