trauma

On this week's 51%, we speak with Dr. Frank Putnam, professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine, about the Female Growth and Development Study (FGDS), which he co-founded with the late Dr. Penelope Trickett in 1987. The FGDS, which is still running today, has followed the lives of more than 100 girls to assess the impacts of child sex abuse on female development, and how trauma crosses generations. Putnam says child abuse can affect a survivor's physical and mental health in a way that accelerates their biological aging, putting them at an increased risk for early puberty, obesity, premature births, mental illness, cognitive decline and more. Putnam compiles more than 35 years' worth of papers from the FGDS — and outlines ways to better prevent child abuse — in his new book Old Before Their Time.

Adam Ross is the author of the novel, “Mr. Peanut,” which was selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times. It came out in 2010. 2025 brings his next novel, “Playworld,” a big and big-hearted book examining one transformative year in the life of a child actor coming of age in a bygone Manhattan.

A pioneer in the field of psychohistory, Robert Jay Lifton is a psychiatrist and author best known for his studies of the psychological causes and effects of war and political violence and for his theory of thought reform and cult behavior. He joins us this morning to discuss his latest book: "Surviving Our Catastrophes: Resilience and Renewal from Hiroshima to the COVID-19 Pandemic."

Ayana Mathis’s new novel, “The Unsettled,” is set in the 1980s and follows three generations of a family divided by a painful past. Ava lives in racially and politically turbulent Philadelphia, struggling to care for her son, Toussaint. Her mother, Dutchess, remains in her historically Black hometown of Bonaparte, Alabama, fighting to save her land.

Trauma surgeon and professor Dr. Brian H. Williams has seen it all: gunshot wounds, stabbings, and traumatic brain injuries. In “The Bodies Keep Coming,” Williams ushers us into the trauma bay, where the wounds of a national emergency amass.

Adversity comes in many forms, and can make us feel alone in our pain, even years after the fact. But as wellness coach and licensed therapist Minaa B. observes, we can’t heal in isolation. The best way to move past individual trauma is through connection and community. Minaa B.'s book is "Owning Our Struggles: A Path to Healing and Finding Community in a Broken World."

"The Smile of Her" is a world premiere play written and performed by Academy, Emmy and Golden Globe Awards winner Christine Lahti. The play, running through July 29 at BTG’s Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, takes the audience on a sometimes funny, always deeply personal, journey of denial, neglect, abuse, understanding and by the end: hope.

"My Hijacking: A Personal History of Forgetting and Remembering" is a memoir from historian Martha Hodes. In the new book, she offers a personal look at the fallibilities of memory and the lingering impact of trauma as she goes back fifty years to tell the story of being a passenger on an airliner hijacked in 1970.

Musician and author Mikel Jollett will speak about the relationship between trauma and creativity at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts on Tuesday.

Goldie Taylor's debut memoir, "The Love You Save," shines a light on the strictures of race, class and gender in a post–Jim Crow America while offering a nuanced, empathetic portrait of a family in a pitched battle for its very soul.