This book takes a painstaking look at developmental trauma as it manifests in group, individual, and combined psychotherapies, tracking the growth of non-abused individuals who have courageously addressed overwhelming childhood experiences to make sense of the chaos in their lives.

Kathleen Adams has specialized in primitive states, dissociation, and developmental trauma since 1977. Extensive experience in inpatient settings complements her long-term outpatient psychotherapy practice with children, adolescents, and adults.

Part 1: Emerging from the Fog: Navigating the Wilderness of Developmental Trauma, 1. Our Pain Knows No Time, 2. Our Pain is the Crack in the Shell that Encloses our Understanding (following Gibran), 3. Retreat from the Body: Birth and Beyond, 4. No Safe Harbour: Children of Perdition, 5. Sometimes it Takes a Village: Treating Developmental Trauma in Combined Therapy, Part 2: Group Therapy with Developmental Stress and Trauma, 6. Failling Forever: The Price of Chronic Shock, 7. The Abject Self: Self States of Relentless Despair