BOOK POST
In 2016, April 26, Penguin Books published a book titled, "It Didn't Start with You | How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle” A seemingly self-help and or guide book for the general public, written by Mark Wolynn, yet I would argue that this book would not just benefit the average reader but also future psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors. Why? You may ask, well…
Mark Wolynn the author of "It Didn't Start with You" currently has over 20 years of experience within counseling as well as teaching future psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors. Wolyn has created the Core Language Approach, (which is mentioned in his book) allows individuals to see clues to unsolved trauma passed down through generations. Alongside that Wolynn has written various articles and essays which have appeared on different small platforms such as Psych Central and has even written poetry which has appeared in The New Yorker. Fail to mention that towards the end his book under the section “Notes” Mark Wolynn lists numerous sources backing his words.
While reading, it was easy to get submerged into this topic, Wolynn does a great job of showing actually case studies which personally allowed myself to see:
Other’s perspectives
Correlate my experience with theirs
Find a deeper meaning and understanding with the content Wolynn is trying to explain.
To add to this, Wolynn comes to these sections where he adds in these notes for the reader to take, like an exercise for the reader to gain a deeper meaning and understanding of the content. For example, the following image is directly from the book:
When it came down to selecting information such as the cell division process known as Mitosis, at first, when I skimmed through this book, I noticed that the word "dividing" had a footnote on it. At first, I was a little worried about what was going on, but after fully reading said chapter, I understood fully what was going on. However, if a person doesn’t know what the steps are in the cell division process they would have to research what it is.
Which brings me to my final note: the viewpoints that this book includes that I hadn't initially considered?
Epigenetics, the thought hadn't really crossed my mind. In simple terms, epigenetics is merely connected to the bridge of the Nature vs. Nurture debate. Nature, meaning you are born with x, y, z, while Nurture is the experiences a person can go through, like trauma, a huge stress marker to look back upon. That's at least from my perspective, yes, there is more to it, but that looks like the largest thing to note.
While reading through the chapter that included Mitosis, it almost amazed me to see the connection between how a person, for example, if a mother were to experience high levels of stress, that same stress can affect the body in ways that may influence the child's stress response, like their fight or flight response. Thinking more about this makes the idea of generational influences feel more serious in ways people might not even be aware of!
