The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity

by Nadine Burke Harris M.D.

Overview

“An extraordinary, eye-opening book.” —People

"A rousing wake-up call . . . this highly engaging, provocative book prove[s] beyond a reasonable doubt that millions of lives depend on us finally coming to terms with the long-term consequences of childhood adversity and toxic stress.” — Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

Dr. Nadine Burke Harris was already known as a crusading physician delivering targeted care to vulnerable children. But it was Diego — a boy who had stopped growing after a sexual assault — who galvanized her journey to uncover the connections between toxic stress and lifelong illnesses.

The stunning news of Burke Harris’s research is just how deeply our bodies can be imprinted by ACEs—adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, and divorce. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems, and lasts a lifetime.  For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do, the fascinating scientific insight and innovative, acclaimed health interventions in The Deepest Well represent vitally important hope for preventing lifelong illness for those we love and for generations to come​. 

 “Nadine Burke Harris . . . offers a new set of tools, based in science, that can help each of us heal ourselves, our children, and our world.” — Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780544828704
Publisher:	HMH Books
Publication date:	01/23/2018
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

NADINE BURKE HARRIS, M.D., is founder and CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point. She is the subject of a New Yorker profile and was the recent recipient of a prestigious Heinz Award in 2016, among many other honors. Her TED talk, “I Was Thinking Too Small,” previewed the subject of The Deepest Well, her first book. She lives in San Francisco, California.

Table of Contents

Authors Note ix

Introduction xi

I Discovery

1 Something's Just Not Right 3

2 To Go Forward, Go Back 17

3 Forty Pounds 27

II Diagnosis

4 The Drive-By and the Bear 45

5 Dynamic Disruption 57

6 Lick Your Pups! 77

III Prescription

7 The ACE Antidote 97

8 Stop the Massacre! 117

9 Sexiest Man Alive 135

10 Maximum-Strength Bufferin' 155

IV Revolution

11 The Rising Tide 175

12 Listerine 197

13 In the Rearview 213

Epilogue 223

Appendix 1 What's My ACE Score? 227

Appendix 2 CYW Adverse Childhood Experiences Questionnaire 229

Acknowledgments 231

Notes 235

Index 243

Editorial Reviews

…for the true science nerd who also craves a page turner…Burke Harris tells the stories of her patients carefully and sometimes humorously, and the studies she cites, showing how early exposure to stress hormones can plague a person for years, are both disturbing and fascinating.

The New York Times Book Review - Judith Newman

The Deepest Well . . . offers a powerful—even indispensable—frame to both understand and respond more effectively to our most serious social ills.” —David Bornstein, New York Times

“Can severe childhood stress cause adult stroke, cancer, Alzheimer’s and more? Yes, says Harris, a pediatrician who began researching the biological effects of abuse, divorce and other stressors after treating a boy who stopped growing following a sexual assault. There’s no way yet to erase the damage, but Harris developed a written screening test and strongly advocates exercise, mindfulness, diet and talk therapy as remedies. An extraordinary, eye-opening book.” —People, Book of the Week

“The Deepest Well is more than a riveting medical story—it’s a must-read guide for recognizing, understanding and treating a condition that many will find in our own homes.” —BookPage

“Get the book. Read the book. Share the book . . . The Deepest Well is about avoidance, therapy, and healing for the children who have ACE in their lives. The country needs Dr. Burke Harris’s book.” —ThreeKeyYears.org

“A heart-breaking, world-shaking, revolutionary book. In The Deepest Well, Nadine Burke Harris uncovers the once-hidden story of why we are the way we are. And she offers a new set of tools, based in science, that can help each of us heal ourselves, our children, and our world.” —Paul Tough, author of How Children Succeed

“This ultra-smart and compassionate book delivers revelations about what is really going on—in our bodies, in our families, in our communities—as a result of childhood toxic stress, as well as targeted solutions for individual healing. My Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) test result is a nine out of ten.  When I needed it, one person extended the hand of hope and help to me. It saved me. This book has the power to extend that hand to countless others.”—Ashley Judd, author of All That is Bitter and Sweet

"The Deepest Well is a rousing wake-up call, challenging us to reimagine pressing questions of racial and social justice as matters of public health.  The research and stories shared in this highly engaging, provocative book prove beyond a reasonable doubt that millions of lives depend on us finally coming to terms with the long-term consequences of childhood adversity and toxic stress.”—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
 
“The Deepest Well is a heartbreaking, beautiful book about what might be the most important single issue facing our country's disadvantaged populations: the prevalence of childhood trauma. Relying on her work as a compassionate physician and first-class scientist, Burke Harris weaves together groundbreaking research with touching personal stories.  The result is a gripping book that should convince everyone that we have a serious problem, and that unless we address it the losers will be our nation's children.”—JD Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy
 
“This powerful work book brilliantly exposes and explores one of the most critical health issues we face today.  Dr. Burke-Harris combines a scientist's rigor with a compassionate doctor's heart to paint an unforgettable picture of what is at the center of what ails so many of our communities.  Anyone who cares about people who sometimes struggle should read this book.”—Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy

"This important and compassionate book further sounds the alarm over childhood trauma—and what can be done to remedy its effects." —Kirkus, starred review

 

From the Publisher

09/01/2017
Founder and CEO of the Center for Youth Wellness in San Francisco and a TED talker whose "I Was Thinking Too Small" has been viewed 2.5 million times, Burke Harris was inspired by a young male patient who stopped growing after sexual trauma to investigate the long-term impact of childhood adversity. A survey of 17,000 adult patients found that the higher the incidence of experiences such as divorce and parental substance abuse, the worse the adult's health. With a 75,000-copy first printing.

Library Journal

★ 2017-11-12
A pediatrician's battle against the toxic effects of childhood adversity.In 2007, after opening a community clinic in a low-income neighborhood of San Francisco, Harris soon suspected that an underlying medical issue must be at work in the lives of many of her patients, who often experienced both poor health outcomes (asthma, slow growth, etc.) and the overwhelming adversity of trauma (parental incarcerations, abuse, foster-care placements, etc.) What was the connection? She found her answer several years later in a medical article that changed her medical practice, "The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study," in which scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Kaiser Permanente described the strong relationship between childhood trauma and many leading causes of death in adults. In this powerful debut, the author describes the medical research and recalls her own frontline experiences as a pioneer in the treatment of toxic stress as CEO of San Francisco's Center for Youth Wellness, which offers multidisciplinary care for children suffering from trauma. "The body remembers," she writes. "Twenty years of medical research has shown that childhood adversity literally gets under our skin, changing people in ways that can endure in their bodies for decades." Indeed, adversity "can dramatically increase the risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes—even Alzheimer's." In a winning conversational style, Harris explains how adversity "harms development and regulation of the immune system throughout someone's life" and the ways in which doctors now screen for and treat childhood trauma—sleep, mental health, healthy relationships, exercise, nutrition, and meditation. She notes that adverse childhood experiences affect people of all socio-economic levels (they are often disguised out of secrecy and shame), and their harmful effects can be passed on from one generation to another.The author's work has won wide attention through a New Yorker article and a TED talk. This important and compassionate book further sounds the alarm over childhood trauma—and what can be done to remedy its effects.

Kirkus Reviews

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