If you or someone you love has suffered a traumatic event, you know the
devastating impact it can have on your life and your spirit.
Life-threatening accidents, illnesses, assaults, abusive
relationships--or a tragedy like 9/11--all can leave deep emotional
wounds that persist long after physical scars have healed. Survivors
become "invisible heroes," courageously struggling to lead normal lives
in spite of symptoms so baffling and disturbing that they sometimes
doubt their own sanity.
Now there is new hope for the millions affected by posttraumatic stress
disorder (PTSD). Drawing on more than thirty years' experience as a
therapist and on the most recent cutting-edge research, Belleruth
Naparstek presents a clinically proven program for recovery using the
potent tool of guided imagery. She reveals how guided imagery goes
straight to the right side of the brain, where it impacts the nonverbal
wiring of the nervous system itself, the key to alleviating suffering.
Filled with the voices of real trauma survivors and therapists whose
lives and work have been changed by this approach, Invisible Heroes
offers:
- New understanding of the physical, cognitive, emotional, and
behavioral effects of PTSD, who is most susceptible, and why symptoms
can get worse rather than better with time
- Important insights into how the brain and body respond to trauma, why
conventional talk therapy can actually impede recovery, and why the
nonverbal, image-based right brain is crucial to healing
- A step-by-step program with more than twenty scripts for
guided-imagery exercises tailored to the three stages of recovery, from
immediate relief of anxiety attacks, flashbacks, nightmares, and
insomnia, to freedom from depression and isolation, to renewed
engagement with life
- A helpful guide to the best of the new imagery-based therapies, and
how to incorporate them into an overall recovery plan
Belleruth Naparstek concludes with the inspiring words of survivors who
have found their way back to peace, purpose, and
a deep joy in living. Her compassionate, groundbreaking book can lead
you and
those in your care to the same renewal and healing.
