The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook

In the author’s note for The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Bruce D. Perry and Maia Szalavitz establish that their book presents genuine case studies while maintaining strict ethical standards for patient confidentiality. The authors modified identifying information such as children’s names and family member names to protect privacy, though they preserved the core facts of each case and used actual names for adults unless specifically noted as pseudonyms. They reconstructed dialogue based on their recollections, written documentation, and recorded materials from their clinical work. Perry and Szalavitz emphasize that the cases presented represent only a small fraction of the hundreds of severely traumatized children they encountered through their decade-long research at the ChildTrauma Academy, where they studied children who experienced extreme neglect in institutional settings or through parental abuse. The authors express their intention to honor both the featured children and the many others who endured similar trauma by sharing these stories, hoping to convey the remarkable resilience and courage these young survivors demonstrated despite their difficult experiences.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog originated from a chance collaboration between psychiatrist Bruce D. Perry and journalist