Summary

“Running for your Life: The Anatomy of Survival” begins with a quote suggesting that before brains there was little or no color, sound, flavor, smell, or feeling – particularly suffering. The author then introduces this chapter with a personal anecdote about a child, a family friend, who witnessed the events of 9/11 and, in the author’s mind was not traumatized for a number of important reasons: he came from a loving, supportive family; he was able to take productive action (i.e. run away); and able to process what he had experienced through an act of imagination (i.e. creating a drawing of what he saw). The author states how important these activities and perspectives are in healing, saying that “being traumatized means continuing to organize your life as if the trauma were still going on – unchanged...