"Common Shock is a profound and important book...which should be read by anyone who ever witnessed another's pain and wondered: "How can I stand this? and "What do I do now?""
— Roger Gottlieb, Tikkun Magazine

" The writing of Common Shock was one act of compassionate witnessing; to read it is another...[It] is a map through a difficult present into a restorative future. Chapter 1 warns that reading the book may cause the reader pain, and it does. But the pain is spent on the way to catharsis, self-forgiveness, determination, and, above all else, hope. "
— Pam Houston, O, The Oprah Magazine

" In the end, Common Shock is one of those rare books that, through its own practical example, teaches how we all might live as peacemakers."
— Fred Marchant, Peaceworks

" Kaethe Weingarten's book translates contemporary understandings of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) into plain talk and provides ordinary people affected by catastrophic violence or illness with common-sense activities that they can use to alleviate stress, to prevent themselves from becoming emotionally distant or numb, and to avoid passing the violence on."
— Karen Malpede, The Women's Review of Books

"This is an extraordinary book, written by an American woman with the horrors of September 11th in mind. It is about ordinary and extraordinary violence and its effects in our lives, and is set in personal, collective and global contexts...This moving book directs us to ways we can become aware and useful in guiding ourselves and other people towards healing resources that lie within...This book is different in another way: although the work is powerfully academic and extensively researched, it is written in a style that brings theory alive, and can be read without effort. It is full of stories that teach - stories that create pictures we can relate to and resonate with, written in a personal, moving and engaging way...It is not often these days that I come across a 'text book' that grips me, that I am reluctant to put down and that makes me want to go and spread the word. This book did just that."
— Kim Effington, Counseling and Psychotherapy - The Journal of the British Association for Counseling and Psychotherapy

" Weingarten's book is written with the sensitivity and understanding that comes from personal experience, professional training, and substantial exposure to other nations and cultures. She talks eloquently about how we can do our best to comfort others without ever fully being able to understand their experience, due to our all being separate individuals...thought provoking and timely...She is skillful at applying a family or systems model of trauma transmission to nations and leads the reader to think about many current political situations in new ways as a result. She also weaves in examples from literature. These are both evocative in themselves and powerful. They convey the sense that the issues of trauma and common shock have been with us since the beginning of time as have humanity's skillful capacity to bear witness to them."
— Claudia Bukszpan Rutherford, MassPsych, Publication of the Massachusetts Psychological Association