What happens when a young child is traumatized? How does terror affect a child’s mind-and how can that mind recover? Child psychiatrist Bruce Perry has treated children faced with unimaginable horror: homicide survivors, witnesses to their own parents’ murders, children raised in closets and cages, the Branch Davidian children, and victims of extreme neglect and family violence.

In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Dr. Perry tells their stories of trauma and transformation. He explains what happens to the brain when children are exposed to extreme stress and trauma and reveals his innovative (non-medicinal) methods for helping to ease their pain and allowing them to become healthy adults. In this deeply informed and moving book, Perry shares with the reader the lessons of courage, humanity and hope he learned from these scarred children. He dramatically demonstrates that only when we understand the science of the mind and the power of love and nurturing, can we hope to heal the spirit of even the most wounded child.