A Personal Journey of Fear, Trauma, and Healing
The
Witness
SHARON BERK, M.A.
A deeply personal memoir of surviving childhood trauma of witnessing domestic violence, and discovering the courage to heal through inner work.
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About
The Witness
As Sharon writes,
“Being a witness is being abused — and that’s a truth we need to talk about.”
The Witness is a courageous memoir that reveals the hidden impact of domestic violence through the eyes of a child who grew up silently watching it unfold.
Blending vivid storytelling with the insights of Jung, Maslow, and modern trauma psychology, Sharon Berk offers both personal truth and universal reflection — a compassionate roadmap for those seeking healing from the wounds of the past.
Across each chapter, readers are invited to witness the human capacity for transformation: how fear shapes identity, how shame and anger become tangled in the psyche, and how compassion can free us from both.
The book also explores the body–mind connection, showing how trauma is stored, how it resurfaces, and how it can finally be released. Alongside psychology, The Witness offers a spiritual dimension — the inner voice, the soul’s wisdom, and the profound journey toward forgiveness, wholeness, and peace.
ABOUT
The Author
“It is not the fear of death that’s the problem, but the fear of living.”
Sharon Berk is a retired psychotherapist and educator whose lifelong work has centered on understanding the human condition. She taught Early Childhood Education in colleges across Ontario and Australia for sixteen years before transitioning into a second career as a psychotherapist, counselling clients with a wide range of life experiences and challenges.
She holds advanced degrees in Adult Education and Counselling, and her career has spanned both teaching and therapeutic practice, giving her a unique lens into how early experiences shape identity, behaviour, and emotional development. A mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother, Sharon brings wisdom, humility, and deep empathy to her writing.
Her mission is to break cycles of generational trauma and bring light to those who have lived in silence. Through The Witness, she invites readers to embark on their own journey—from fear to love, from survival to wholeness.
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What You’ll Discover in
The Witness
The lifelong impact of witnessing domestic violence as a child
How fear, shame, and anger shape our stories and relationships
Psychological insights from Carl Jung, Maslow, and trauma research
How trauma lives in the body — and how awareness and somatic healing bring release
Tools for healing and individuation — journaling, mindfulness, and dreamwork
The soul’s role in recovery and spiritual growth
Hope, love, and the possibility of transformation at any age
Featured Prologue Excerpt
“Sharon’s courageous sharing of her personal journey and recounting what she learned from experiencing IPV and her long search for healing is an insightful contribution to a largely invisible epidemic with profound, often life-long, impacts on children.”
— Tony Swords., Retired Psychologist & A Former Manager, Relationships Australia
What Readers Are Saying
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Early childhood family trauma (also referred to as Relational Trauma and Complex-PTSD) is more common than is generally recognised. It is driven by interwoven emotional reactions, especially fear and shame, and hidden by a culture of silence. Sharon courageously sheds light on this devastating condition, which often carries lifelong impacts.
I feel privileged to contribute to Sharon’s story. As Manager of a Relationships Australia counselling service, I worked with Sharon. In her work with individuals and couples, I witnessed the same qualities revealed in her writing: intelligence, empathy, curiosity, compassion, courage, generosity, dedication, and resilience.
Despite the human, financial, and societal costs of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) or Domestic and Family Violence (DFV or DV) as it is more commonly called in Australia, the profound impacts on the children who witness it continue to be largely misunderstood. Sharon takes us on a challenging journey to explore the fears that arise for children exposed to acute and chronic family violence.
Experiencing and witnessing IPV changes the development of the brain and nervous system, shapes children’s physical and emotional health, and sabotages their emotional regulation, memory, and decision-making. The child’s defensive strategies, initially formed to survive overwhelming experiences, often later unknowingly block attempts at recovery.
Dr Bessel van der Kolk’s 2014 landmark book, The Body Keeps the Score, identifies how traumatic experiences “leave traces on our minds and emotions, on our capacity for joy and intimacy, and even on our biology and immune systems” (p.1). Furthermore, IPV often initiates and sustains an emotional blindness that limits awareness, blocks understanding and healing, and keeps those impacted on a misery-go-round of life-limiting trauma responses.
Adult survivors of IPV often struggle to learn from their experiences, repeating the same problematic choices and behaviours. Moreover, they commonly lose hope of changing and eventually blame themselves for a lack of willpower or imagined character flaws. In reality, the confusion is the result of IPV and early changes in the brain. Without effective interventions, these children can remain caught in survival mode for years and decades, trapped in defensive patterns that limit opportunities for meaningful recovery.
The trauma is further intensified and deepened through IFV stories rarely being told. Unless a child is physically wounded or killed by a perpetrator, the impacts on children continue to be largely underreported. Discouraged from speaking about it, and unaware that other IPV families are “hiding in plain sight” in every neighbourhood and demographic, they innocently accept the stigma of shame attached to IPV families and attempt to deal with the demoralising burden alone. This isolation often intensifies their suffering through characteristics such as acute insecurity, low self-esteem, confusion with boundaries, difficulty in identifying needs, and emotional disregulation, all of which commonly lead in adulthood to compounding issues with relationships and addictions.
Sharon’s courageous sharing of her personal journey and recounting what she learned from experiencing IPV and her long search for healing is an insightful contribution to a largely invisible epidemic with profound, often life-long, impacts on children.
— Tony Swords., Retired Psychologist & A Former Manager, Relationships Australia
Additional Praise
“A remarkable and deeply affecting book… a roadmap to healing and integration.”
— Nico Scholten, Psychologist, Calgary
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Book Review: “The Witness” by Sharon Berk
“It doesn’t erase the past—but it frees you from being ruled by it.” That could well be the heartbeat of this remarkable and deeply affecting book, a memoir and reflection on childhood exposure to intimate partner violence and the long, often nonlinear road to healing.
Told through the eyes of a child who witnesses the terrifying instability of domestic violence, the book is unflinching in its honesty but never gratuitous. The reader is drawn into the confused silence, the desperate need for safety, and the instinct to disappear that so many children in violent homes come to know. The author’s voice remains intimate and grounded, never sensationalizing the trauma, but allowing its impact to be seen clearly—on the body, the mind, the nervous system, and the soul.
What makes this book truly extraordinary, though, is its second half—a compassionate, nuanced exploration of what it means to live through, and eventually beyond, early trauma. Healing is presented not as a destination but as a lifelong process. The narrative honours setbacks as much as progress. It reveals how childhood wounds can echo through adult relationships, parenting, work, and the inner life—and how they can, slowly and with support, be softened.
This is not a triumphalist tale of sudden transformation. It’s quieter and more truthful than that. The miracle, as the author shows us, is not that the pain disappears—but that it no longer defines you. Through therapy, self-reflection, body-based practices, and the hard-earned wisdom of adulthood, the narrator begins to integrate the past—not to forget it, but to hold it differently. With gentleness. With honesty. With self-compassion.
For therapists, especially those who have not lived through such chaos themselves, this book is a must-read. It offers a visceral understanding of what trauma feels like from the inside out. It will deepen empathy and sharpen clinical insight. It may challenge assumptions. And most of all, it will remind practitioners of the immense courage it takes not just to survive, but to heal.
Ultimately, this book is a quiet act of rebellion against silence and shame. It is a roadmap, a companion, and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit. For survivors, clinicians, and anyone seeking to understand the long shadow of childhood trauma—and the light that can follow—it is an essential, unforgettable read.
— John (Nico) S., Psychologist, Calgary
“Many will relate to this story and gain insight into how they too can break the chain of trauma. An excellent emotional read.”
— Sarah Luttrell., Retired Teacher of Children with Special Needs
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“Witness is a life story of how the author made a choice to seek help, in becoming healthier and happier. Many will relate to this story and gain insight on how they to can build strategies to break the chain of their own life’s trauma. An excellent emotional read for anyone!”
— Sarah Luttrell., Retired Teacher of Children with Special Needs
“For anyone holding painful experiences in silence, this book offers research, truth, and a path toward a more tranquil life.”
— Joanna Ulanowska., Retired Teacher
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“Many of us keep the most painful past experiences secret or unacknowledged. That secret corrodes our self-worth and drains our energy to enjoy life. If it is you, reach for this book. The author shares her own journey and a lot of research that helped her build up her present, more tranquil life.”
— Joanna Ulanowska, Retired Teacher
Why I Wrote
The Witness
For years, silence felt safer than truth. But healing begins when we speak. I wrote The Witness to honor the children — past and present — who live in fear and learn to hide their pain.
This book is for them, and for anyone who seeks to move beyond survival toward peace, understanding, and love.
“Silence protects no one. Telling our stories does.”
Latest Reflections
