In 2006, when I was dispatched to a massive house fire, I had no idea that my life was about to change forever. Prior to that call, I thought of myself as another "tough guy" police officer and nothing fazed me. That night began a journey that would threaten everything I loved most - my family, my career, my life. Fourteen years after that initial call, I can confidently say that this is a story of hope. But getting here was the hardest thing I have ever done. I fought for myself, and I survived. Today, I am well on the road to recovery. In these pages, I chronicle my journey with PTSD and share candid details about my symptoms, my experiences with therapy, my setbacks, and the ultimate test of my recovery. Telling my story was an important part of my therapy, but that's not why I have chosen to write this book. Too many men and women in policing - and in other emergency services - don't get the help they need. If you or someone you know is suffering, this book will give you hope, guidance, and confidence that you are not alone. I hope it serves as a step on your road to recovery.
In this groundbreaking book, a leading clinical psychiatrist redefines how we think about and treat victims of trauma. A "stunning achievement" that remains a "classic for our generation." (Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., author of The Body Keeps the Score). Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war. Hailed by the New York Times as "one of the most important psychiatry works to be published since Freud," Trauma and Recovery is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand how we heal and are healed.
Safe and effective principles and strategies for recovery from trauma. Trauma recovery is tricky; however, there are several key principles that can help make the process safe and effective. This book gives self help readers, therapy clients, and therapists alike the skills to understand and implement eight keys to successful trauma healing: mindful identification of what is helpful, recognizing survival, having the option to not remember, creating a supportive inner dialogue, forgiving not being able to stop the trauma, understanding and sharing shame, finding your own recovery pace; mobilizing your body, and helping others. This is not another book promoting a new method or type of treatment; rather, it is a necessary adjunct to self-help and professional recovery programs. After reading this book, readers will be able to recognize their own individual needs and evaluate whether those needs are being met. They will have the tools necessary to put themselves in the drivers seat, navigating their own safe road to recovery.
If you’ve experienced a traumatic event, you may feel a wide range of emotions, such as anxiety, anger, fear, and depression. The truth is that there is no right or wrong way to react to trauma; but there are ways that you can heal from your experience, and uncover your own capacity for resilience, growth, and recovery. Overcoming Trauma and PTSD offers proven-effective treatments based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you overcome both the physical and emotional symptoms of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This book will help you find relief from painful flashbacks, insomnia, or other symptoms you might be experiencing. Also included are worksheets, checklists, and exercises to help you start feeling better and begin your journey on the road to recovery. This book will help you manage your anxiety and stop avoiding certain situations, cope with painful memories and nightmares, and determine if you need to see a therapist. Perhaps most importantly, it will help you to develop a support system so that you can you heal and move forward.
Told in the voice of a Soldier-turned-therapist who struggled through her own debilitating PTSD, The Soldier's Guide is a call to arms, offering facts, empathy, and direction, while urging Service Members to get the help they need, helping family members to understand the battlefield, and connecting civilians with a Warrior culture.
The classic edition of Rhythms of Recovery sheds light on rhythm, one of the most important components of our survival and well-being. It governs the patterns of our sleep and respiration and is profoundly tied to our relationships with friends and family. But what happens when these rhythms are disrupted by traumatic events? Can balance be restored, and if so, how? What insights do eastern, natural, and modern western healing traditions have to offer, and how can practitioners put these lessons to use? Is it possible to do this in a way that’s culturally sensitive, multidisciplinary, and grounded in research? Rhythms of Recovery examines and answers these questions and provides clinicians with effective, time-tested tools for alleviating the destabilizing effects of traumatic events. It also explores integrative medicine, East/West medicine, herbal medicine, psychedelic medicine, complex trauma, yoga, and somatic and feminist therapies. For practitioners and students interested in integrating the insights of complementary/alternative medicine and 21st-century science, this deeply appealing book is an ideal guide.
Integrative tools for healing the traumatized mind and body • Combines cutting-edge Western cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and ancient Eastern wisdom to heal Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) • Teaches Kundalini yoga practices specifically designed to reset parts of the brain and body affected by PTSD • Presents a fast-acting, holistic, evidence-based, and drug-free program for eliminating PTSD symptoms and restoring health, vitality, and joy Trauma, the Greek word for “wound,” is the most common form of suffering in the world today. An inescapable part of living, the bad things that happen to us always leave aftereffects in both body and mind. While many people experience these aftereffects and move on, millions of others develop Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)--a painful, chronic, and debilitating barrier to happiness. Reclaiming Life after Trauma addresses both the physical and psychological expressions of PTSD, presenting an integrative, fast-acting, evidence-based, and drug-free path to recovery. Authors Daniel Mintie, LCSW, and Julie K. Staples, Ph.D., begin with an overview of PTSD and the ways in which it changes our bodies and minds. They present research findings on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and yoga, giving the reader insights into how these powerful modalities can counteract and reverse the physical and mental aftereffects of trauma. The authors provide a suite of simple, powerful, and easily learned tools readers can put to immediate use to reset their traumatized bodies and minds. On the physical side, they teach four Kundalini yoga techniques that address the hypervigilance, flashbacks, and insomnia characteristic of PTSD. On the psychological side, they present 25 powerful CBT tools that target the self-defeating beliefs, negative emotions, and self-sabotaging behaviors that accompany the disorder. Drawing on many years of clinical work and their experience administering the successful Integrative Trauma Recovery Program, the authors help readers understand PTSD as a mind-body disorder from which we can use our own minds and bodies to recover. Woven throughout the book are inspiring real-life accounts of PTSD recoveries showing how men and women of all ages have used these tools to reclaim their vitality, physical health, peace, and joy.
More than 13 million Americans experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and one out of 13 adults will develop it in their lifetime. Recent worldwide crises and events including the Iraq war; the September 11th attacks; numerous Columbine-like events; the Catholic Church child molestation scandal; and the Katrina tragedy in New Orleans, continue to present thousands more PTSD cases each year in all age groups. This book helps victims make sense of the events that led to their illness and teaches them how to create a new reality with specific advice and action plans that put them on the road to recovery and long-term healing.
Most books on PTSD are dry, clinical, and impersonal - no matter how sympathetic they are to the sufferers. Not so with this challenging book! Author Bob Bray shows remarkable transparency in his record of a painful journey toward recovery from PTSD - including significant self-discovery in the process. Are you ready to start taking back your life?
Trauma Recovery Handbook, 2nd Edition, is an indispensable and easy to read guide for yourself or someone you care about who has survived a traumatic event. Insightful and direct, this guide helps make sense of a wide range of traumatic experiences from the mild to severe, and identifies warning signs and symptoms left in the wake of trauma and prepares you to begin the road toward recovery and healing. Psychologists and trauma experts Debra Tasci and Charlene Slover draw on more than 35 years of field experience helping people during, in the aftermath, and in the recovery process of living through a traumatic event. This book includes insights on the stages of trauma recovery, recognizing vicarious stress, children and trauma, juror distress and support strategies for friends, colleagues and those you love.
