Bruce D. Perry

A child psychiatrist who has consulted on the Waco siege, the Oklahoma City bombing and the September 11 attacks, working with children whose early years were catastrophic.

The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog takes case histories and uses them to explain how a developing brain organises itself around whatever it is given, and why sequence matters more than intensity. What Happened to You?, written with Oprah Winfrey, moved the same material to a much larger audience by replacing the question of what is wrong with someone.

The clinical framework is serious work, whatever one makes of the celebrity packaging.