This paradigm-shifting work, written by a Harvard-educated physician and social engineer, is expected to have a dramatic impact on individuals, academia, and society. This book is about how to heal and deliver you from shame and social oppression. This is the first in-depth inquiry into the core of human suffering, from the combined perspectives of the biological, social and political sciences. You will learn how to exit from the cage of all forms of oppression and victimization-Or recognize when you are becoming prey, and get out of it quickly. You will experience a deep healing process that is built into this book's flow and structure, along with expertly crafted somatic exercises based on trauma therapy. Shame was genetically wired into the human brain for our survival in prehistoric times. But, today, if shame is culturally perpetuated, it becomes toxic starting in infancy, and significantly alters the natural balance of the most evolved part of the brain-the prefrontal lobes- to achieve full toxicity by the early 20's. Systematic, yet unrecognized, forms of abuse maintain toxic shame in socialized adults. When abuse occurs at a sufficient frequency or intensity, trauma manifests as widespread brain malfunction. And a population that is traumatized is easily oppressed. My vision, which transcends writing this book, is to create social change. The book presents a treatise that may lead to a paradigm shift affecting the social and political sciences, economic theory, and biomedicine. "Overcoming Oppression" is also an activist's dream model for creating mass resistance to oppressive institutions. We labor under the yolk of social and political oppression on a global scale, and social change is required. This happens naturally when enough people understand the urgent need for reform, and this work represents a grand leap towards educated action. This book examines issues such as the true roots of most physical and emotional disease, racial prejudice and homophobia, predatory relationships and love, childrearing practices and educational systems, criminal justice and addiction, religion and self-sabotage, seniorhood and death. Special emphasis is given to the growing schism of wealth and neoslavery under the rule of a self-serving corporate elite, driven by an insatiable greed for concentrating more and more wealth in the hands of the very few.