71 pages • 2 hours read
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Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, child sexual abuse, addiction, and death.
“Ultimately, what determines how children survive trauma, physically, emotionally, or psychologically, is whether the people around them—particularly the adults they should be able to trust and rely upon—stand by them with love, support, and encouragement. Fire can warm or consume, water can quench or drown, wind can caress or cut. And so it is with human relationships: we can both create and destroy, nurture and terrorize, traumatize and heal each other.”
Perry and Szalavitz use an extended metaphor comparing human relationships to natural elements—fire, water, and wind—each of which is capable of both beneficial and harmful effects. This parallel structure emphasizes the dual nature of human interactions and their profound impact on trauma recovery. The metaphor highlights the theme of The Importance of Patterned, Repetitive Experience; it suggests that consistent supportive relationships create healing patterns, while harmful ones perpetuate trauma. The passage establishes that recovery depends not solely on the traumatic event itself but on the quality of relationships that follow, positioning human connection as the primary factor in determining whether children develop resilience or remain wounded by their experiences.
“Working with traumatized and maltreated children has also made me think carefully about the nature of humankind and the difference between humankind and humanity. Not all humans are humane. A human being has to learn how to become humane.”
Perry uses wordplay with “humankind,” “humanity,” and “humane” to distinguish between biological existence and moral development. The repetition of these related terms creates emphasis while revealing a crucial distinction: Being born human does not automatically confer compassionate behavior. This connects to the theme of The Use-Dependent Nature of Brain Development—empathy and compassion must be developed through experience and practice rather than emerging naturally. The statement challenges assumptions about innate human goodness and suggests that moral behavior requires active cultivation.