What Happened to You?

Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

By: Oprah Winfrey, Bruce D. Perry

Narrated by: Bruce D. Perry, Oprah Winfrey

"[Oprah Winfrey and Bruce D. Perry] are both capable, likable narrators who are sincerely engaged with their subject matter...The performances of these two humanitarians make this a must-hear for anyone recovering from their traumatic past." (AudioFile Magazine)

This program is read by the authors.

Our earliest experiences shape our lives far down the road, and What Happened to You? provides powerful scientific and emotional insights into the behavioral patterns so many of us struggle to understand.

“Through this lens we can build a renewed sense of personal self-worth and ultimately recalibrate our responses to circumstances, situations, and relationships. It is, in other words, the key to reshaping our very lives." (Oprah Winfrey)

This audiobook is going to change the way you see your life.

Have you ever wondered "Why did I do that?" or "Why can't I just control my behavior?" Others may judge our reactions and think, "What's wrong with that person?" When questioning our emotions, it's easy to place the blame on ourselves; holding ourselves and those around us to an impossible standard. It's time we started asking a different question.

Through deeply personal conversations, Oprah Winfrey and renowned brain and trauma expert Dr. Bruce Perry offer a groundbreaking and profound shift from asking “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?”

Here, Winfrey shares stories from her own past, understanding through experience the vulnerability that comes from facing trauma and adversity at a young age. In conversation throughout the audiobook, she and Dr. Perry focus on understanding people, behavior, and ourselves. It’s a subtle but profound shift in our approach to trauma, and it’s one that allows us to understand our pasts in order to clear a path to our future - opening the door to resilience and healing in a proven, powerful way.

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

©2021 Bruce Perry, Oprah Winfrey (P)2021 Harpo, Inc.

This should be read by everyone.

Everyone who teaches. Everyone who helps. Everyone who enforces, governs, dictates. Everyone who hurts, who longs, who suffers. Everyone who heals. Everyone who has a heart that has been broken or bruised by trauma in any form or knows someone who’s has. Instrumental. Thank you.

A must for anyone with trauma

This is a must for anyone with trauma or who works with children or adults with trauma, which is almost everyone. I’ve learned a great deal about trauma over the years in an attempt to understand my own traumatic history, and I have taught many workshops on trauma trying to help others do the same. This provided great insight into the many ways that trauma manifests in our lives. I didn’t expect to find anything new in this, but ended up learning through every stage of the discussion. I highly recommend this to anyone seeking greater understanding about the many ways that trauma impacts individual lives and our society as a whole.

An encyclopedia for childhood trauma

Just an astonishing book for people who want to understand the deeper meaning of childhood trauma and how it affects us in the future life. A must read for everyone.

Must read!

Incredible stories. Even the explanation of how the brain”works” was engaging. I tend to zone out when it goes to deep into theories.

So helpful

I love this book for so many reasons I love the honesty in the Ronis that Oprah shared but I also love the science that backs up some of the things that I’ve always felt in my heart. I love the fact that I can trust the things that I feel in my heart to be true and to be right and that healing comes when we learn to listen to that deep inner voice and obedient to excuse and it’s calls. Thank you Dr. Perry for going deep into the science of why we do what we do and thank you Oprah for your story your transparency and how you’ve used your pain to change the world.

Great book

So full of insight about how to heal. Love that it is read by both authors.

Compassion + psychology = very good

I really enjoyed this book and all the stories and insights Oprah and Dr. Perry had to share. In a nutshell, it seeks to explain why people act the way they do. Moreover, it does so in a slightly less mainstream way than normal.

That is, instead of saying, “How can we stop whatever undesirable behavior it is that you’re currently exhibiting?” it asks, “What experiences or past traumas are driving these behaviors and how did they shape you as a person?” This more compassionate look into the minds of various subjects helps uncover many compelling (and at times tear-jerking) stories and get to the root of these folks’ situations.

Along the way, Oprah and Perry weave in and out of captivating tales and conclusion-backing research. They make a really good pair for the information presented here — think Oprah’s tell-all TV show coupled with a trained psychiatrist. That formula makes for a book that’s not only informative and heart-wrenching but also rock-solid in its scientific foundations.

My only gripe with it is that its compassionate look into people’s past hurts may go a tad too far at times. There were a couple of stories in the book where the authors seemed to suggest something to the tune of, “It’s not his or her fault he or she did that heinous thing — look what happened to them in the past.”

Though I think it’s wildly important to have compassion for folks who’ve been through incredible pain, like most ways of looking at things, we need balance. Sure, what happens to us is not always our fault. But that doesn’t mean we can’t take responsibility for moving forward in our lives or treating people with respect in the future. It’s still up to us whether we’re going to use our pain in a negative or positive fashion. Sometimes the book feels like it’s missing that insight.

Despite that gripe, this is still a very good read and one that Oprah fans will really enjoy. It’s also a testament to her difficult past and a courageous closing of previous chapters of her life. She handles many challenging situations in this book with grace and is someone I think we could all learn a heck of a lot from.

-Brian Sachetta
Author of “Get Out of Your Head”

An eye-opener!

Explains so much why we are as we are. Corporally punished excessively as a child by a mother who knew no better because she experienced the same, I was traumatized. The result was that I was an anxious, fearful child who carried her trauma into adult life, effectively hindering any chance I might have had to achieve to my full potential. Yet, despite years of graduate studies in psychology, I had never considered myself to be suffering from PTSD before reading this book. Oprah and Dr. Perry have presented this important information in an easily comprehensible way that should be eye-opening and helpful to every reader.

Alternate, reshape your thinking and perspective

This should be read (listened to) by all parents, foster parents, social workers, teachers, administrators, employees, employers... everyone working with people and especially children.

So powerful and so needed

Highly recommend for anyone to help understand themselves and others and start the healing. This is a keeper I will likely listen to many times and gift to friends and family.