Trauma, Shame, and Secret Making provides a descriptive, qualitative inquiry into a family's unsuccessful attempts across generations to repress the memories of an early life trauma. Broad in its scope, Trauma, Shame, and Secret Making explores more than one hundred years in the life of a single family, offering students and professionals invaluable insight into the consequences of prolonged narrative suppression in the social life of people. The book models a converging interdisciplinary approach to inquiry across specializations spanning traumatology, family therapy, psychology, psychiatry and social work. The model is consistent with an evolving paradigm of medical, public health and social service practice based on biopsychosocial evaluation of all patients.

"Francis Joseph Harrington has written an insightful account of his inward journey to understand the ways in which what is unseen and unspoken within a family system profoundly shapes the lives of its members. What sets this book apart is the author's candid self-honesty and the way in which he combines research in the social sciences, personal experience, and family history to discover how his life has been influenced in surprising ways. His understanding of the role of 'abulia' in trauma is creative as well as intriguing. This is a must read for clinicians and students in the social sciences." Martin Helldorfer, DMin, MA, MS, author of Healing with Heart: Inspirations for Healthcare Professionals, the American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year 2008 (leadership and management) "Harrington gives us the courageous telling of his story as participant-observer of three generations of trauma lived out in his own family. This compelling and scholarly narrative brings to life the evolution of trauma literature from its foundations in the early work of physicians, psychologists, anthropologists and philosophers to the present-day work in the areas of epigenetics and neuro-imaging. It is a must read for clinicians and public policy experts seeking deeper understanding of trauma's role in mental and behavioral illnesses and answers to the epidemic of intergenerational trauma." Colette Horn, PhD, licensed psychologist, Courtland Psychological Services, Maryland