The Deepest Well by Nadine Burke Harris

The Deepest Well

Subtitle: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Trauma and Adversity

Author: Nadine Burke Harris

Genre: Nonfiction, Self-Help

Publish Date: December 2021

Read: September 2025

Favorite Quote: “Dr. Lieberman debunked the long-held myth that young children and babies don’t need treatment for trauma because they somehow don’t understand or remember the chaotic experiences they faced. Her work is built on research that shows that early adversity often has an outsize effect on infants and young children…”

Synopsis: As Dr. Harris served her Bayview area (San Fran, CA), she uncovered more anecdotal evidence that childhood trauma affects humans in childhood and well into adulthood, often perpetuating the problems and trauma, passing down generationally. When Dr. Harris found a study confirming her experiences, she began a quest to better understand what constitutes trauma, what resilience truly means, and how to overcome your childhood traumas especially when you had no choice in whether or not you experienced it.

Why does this book beguile? Childhood trauma and healing one’s inner child are hot buzzwords/phrases in today’s society. Many people brush it off and downplay those childhood experiences, however Harris outlines the hard scientific evidence that things like poverty, familial deportation, emotional neglect, physical or mental abuse and more can not only show up in the physical body well into adulthood, but can also cause ADHD-like behaviors, stunt growth, and keep kids in a perpetual cycle of fight or flight response. I think this book is especially important for parents or future-parents to read to help their child(ren).

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