The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog Analysis

In the book, “The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog” by Bruce D. Perry, M.d., Ph.D. and Maia Szalavitz we are provided insight into the world of traumatized children and the effect in which trauma has on the development of children. Throughout this 263-page book, Dr. Perry provides different situations, methods, solutions and outcomes in relation to specific children who have been exposed to traumatic experiences from birth through adolescents. In this paper, I will provide a summary as well as a critique of the book. I will also include my personal perspective in regards to the contents of Dr. Perry and Maia Szalavitz’s book.

Dr. Bruce Perry, an incredible psychiatrist, describes some of his many experiences with extremely traumatized children in his novel, “The Boy who was Raised as a Dog and Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist’s Notebook”. Throughout this book, Dr. Perry presents just a slight insight into what children all over the world experience: violence, neglect, abuse, starvation. Due to the effects of these harsh realities, many children are viewed as strange or different, but in reality, they are some of the bravest children I’ve ever heard of. Though all of these stories are incredibly remarkable, one of the children that stood out to me the

Lee cites the stories of three foster care children; Elisa, who has been in foster care over a decade, has been abused both mentally and physically and had two adoptions fall through; Three year old Thierry who the courts have yet to determine whether he should have been separated from his mother eighteen months ago; and Alexandria, wasn’t cleared for an adoption by her foster parents of four years and remains a foster child.

Twenty-one year old Claudia Felder lives in Chino, California in a lovely home, with three sweet dogs, and most importantly, a family. One would never think that this well off young lady was once living a life inside foster care. She entered the system when she was just three years old, when most preschoolers were busy having play dates and learning to color within the lines. Claudia’s earliest memories instead were of her mom being beaten in a motel room. After that experience, Felder entered the foster system and stayed there for the next ten years. With not enough foster families in the system, she was bounced around wherever a bed was available. Her lack of a consistent foster

I want to thank Professor Grigsby for the academic support by teaching me how to draw upon ideas from the book and emotional support by kindly talking with me about random things and making me feel more confident in writing. I want to thank Andrea Green for helping me brainstorm the prompt for my essay; without her helpful, it would be difficult to start. I also want to thank my dog Taozi for giving me reference and inspiration to write this piece and my brother for connecting the video chat with Taozi in China and me.

It is amazing, ridiculous, and sometimes scary how the brain deals with trauma. It is also ludicrous to believe that your environment and how you are treated are not always believed to strongly affect children. The first story in this book is a very moving one. I thought it interesting and appropriate that that was his first child patient.

When reading “The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog,” I gained a greater insight into the effect in which traumatic experiences have on a child as well as on their physical and mental development. According to “Disorders of Childhood Development and Psychopathology” (Parritz and Troy, 2014), “slowing down the development of the brain during times of adversity, leading to reduced brain volumes in adulthood, stress in early life could modify the developmental trajectory of the brain” (Parritz & Troy, 2014, p. 247). The impact of an individual’s traumatic experience is based on the type of traumatic events that take place, the amount of exposure the child is exposed to, and how the children as well as their parents are personally affected by the event such as hurricanes, earthquakes, accidents, or natural disasters (Martorell, Papalia, & Feldman, 2014). Throughout each and every case presented by Dr. Perry, we see the importance of early experiences and the effect in which early experiences have on an individual’s growth and development. The stories and situations

Children should not be frequently moved in foster care and should have consistent caregivers before being adopted by a family. Moving around amongst different caregivers can cause problems with children’s brain development, stunted growth, and long-term mental and emotional problems (Hamilton, 2014). These children are in desperate need of attention after being neglected during their early ages of childhood (Hamilton, 2014). Children in foster care and orphanages need to build an emotional and physical attachment to someone, like a parent, because parents play a crucial role in a child’s brain development (Hamilton, 2014).

The article “Get the Name of the Dog: How Thinking Like a Journalist Leads to Better Content” written by Justin Willet is an article about the skill of journalism. There are four topics and in the begining of the artical he tells a story about a fellow reporter did not get the name of the dog that was a really important part of the story the four topic he uses focus on the details for maximum effect, interviewing, research, and writing.

Justin, who was discovered at age 6, had been raised as a dog by his primary caregiver. Being isolated and neglected, he displayed animal-like behavior, crouching, flinching, circling, and grunting. He was unable to walk or speak. He was not toilet trained and had a primitive concept of food, not likely to eat what is unfamiliar. He displayed signs of fear and frustration by throwing food and fecal matter at whomever he perceived as a threat. Justin was severely developmentally delayed in all three areas; cognitively, physically and psychosocially.

In the novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, the main character, Christopher, describes his life and thinking as a mentally impaired fifteen year-old. Most of his actions can be attributed to one of three parts in Sigmund Freud’s structural model of the psyche: the id, the ego, and the superego. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem, “Frost at Midnight”, helps to further illuminate the different feelings and actions caused by each part of Freud’s tripartite mind by illustrating the thoughts of the speaker. Both of the principal characters’ motivations and thoughts are affected by their respective id, ego, and superego because of their need for fellowship, their instantaneous responses to displeasure, and their sacrifices

This story begins in late 2013, when a litter of puppies is somehow born from a mother who never leaves her kennel therefore nobody knows how the mother became pregnant. The puppies are born, and the owners decide that because the mother is part Australian shepherd, the dogs should have stubbed tails. Instead of googling places that work those procedures in a safe and sterile environment, the owner decides to cut off the tails with a pair of rusty wire cutters. the entire litter becomes sick. The owner drops them off at the vet. After treating the puppies, the vet waits for the owner to come back, which he never does. A month passes, and the office needs to find a home for these dogs. They then contact a rescue agency who takes them in and

Nothing was going to stop my goals, yet too many books had informed me of what happens to babies when you leave them in care homes. The neuroscience of abandonment, the psychological trauma of

In this book, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time, Mark Haddon writes about Christopher John Francis Boone who is an autistic child. Throughout this story Christopher attempts to solve a murder case of his neighbor’s poodle. Christopher wakes up one day at seven minutes past midnight, and he notices the next-door neighbor’s dog laying on the ground. So he decides to go over and check out what happened, soon he found a garden fork sticking out of a dog named Wellington. Since Christopher likes murder mystery novels, he decided to write his own murder mystery novel starting with finding out what happened to Wellington. Throughout his attempt in solving the mystery of the

Many people suffer from mental health, but it is the things that witnesses and mental professionals say that can truly prove the definite signs of the theme of mental illness being present in the novel. From a quote that Dr. Jones said, “Perry Smith shows definite signs of mental illness.”(Capote 333). This quote tells us that Dr. Jones’ tests came back to