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Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World

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Drawing from a rich and powerful history of personal and clinical experience, Dr. Richard Mollica's Healing Invisible Wounds has compiled a moving book about the healing power of the human soul, taking the reader on a fantastic journey through the complex, but often unrecognized resilient attributes of individuals whom have endured horrific pain and tragedy.

This book is by no means, however, a "self-help", or even "self-healing" textbook. Rather, this book is radically unique insofar as it cannot truly be boxed in to any particular literary genre. It is at once deeply philosophical, gracefully painting an illustration of healing as a true art form, while simultaneously noting the value of concrete and pragmatic applications of the artistic healing principles covered throughout the book. Through employing a mix of clinical vignettes, personal observations and revelations, and new scientific findings made throughout a lifetime of learning, Dr. Mollica's Healing Invisible Wounds reads much like a crazy, philosophical adventure novel calling, awakening the reader to the hidden, subtle, yet ubiquitous nature of discovery and healing entwined in this mystery we call "the human experience".

This book is a profound and poetic new psychology of healing and recovery from not only extreme violence but the tragic events of everyday life. The well-cultivated insights Dr. Mollica shares with the reader should--almost must--be openly embraced, encouraged, and activated in ourselves and our loved ones as often as humanly possible.

Dr. Paul Farmer, the subject of "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder, describes Healing Invisible Wounds as "a welcome salve in a world of want and pain." I couldn't agree more. If you're exhausted from violence, war, and fear, look it square in the eye, and Mollica will show you the previously invisible resilience of the human mind and heart.

The book provides a courageous, inspiring, and radical message of the human capacity for self-healing. Mollica reveals the intricate relationship of humiliation, depression, and violence, providing deep insight both into international headlines and into our own lives. He describes the relationship of personal- and social-healing, illuminating and artfully deconstructing their systemic obstacles and showing a middle way.

Defying genre, and far from clinical in style, the book is a philosophical inquiry into the soul of man while providing skills rooted in scientific study for both understanding and recovering from trauma. The book is as applicable to the average person that is witness to ambient violence as to the survivor of extreme violence.

I've told everyone I know about it.

I have been an admirer of Richard Mollica ever since I heard him speak in Boston in 1987. His work with refugees and survivors of trauma is monumental and profoundly humanistic and his research contributions have improved our understanding of recovery immeasurably. So I had high expectations when I sat down to read Healing Invisible Wounds as a preparation for a course on trauma and recovery. Mollica is a skilled writer and the depth of his compassion for survivors resounds throughout this book. Unfortunately I often found the logic and evidence behind many of his conclusions to be flawed, although I feel confident that his overall thesis--that healing is a natural process and that medically-based treatment often interferes with it--is valid.

Much of the evidence Mollica presents is derived from his decades of experience with Cambodian refugees, among the most severely traumatized people in the world. Indeed, the gravity of their trauma is due not only to the horrors of the Pol Pot era but to grotesque human rights abuses they suffered while trapped on the Thai-Cambodian border in the 1980s and early 90s. Sadly, I found Mollica's description of Site 2 to be wildly inaccurate (I know, I was there): Contrary to his description, no one was "severely punished" for praying or writing letters and the camp did have businesses, temples and schools (Mollica says "inmates were forbidden to...go to school [p. 101]" when in fact over 77 thousand children and 10,000 adults were in school when he visited Site 2 in Oct 1988--which tells us how observant he was!). Nonetheless it was a cruel and hopeless existence for the 160,000 people who stagnated there behind barbed wire at the mercy of Thai border guards, and this is Mollica's point, that some of the worst trauma takes place after the traumatic events, and our misguided efforts to assist refugees and victims of war and violence can often make their problems worse.

Mollica describes an interesting experiment that he conducted with Cambodians in the US, intended to promote self-healing by encouraging diet, exercise and meditation. This is a superb example of the direction that trauma recovery should take, and the results are inspiring. However I had one nagging question: if self-healing is a natural process, why had these refugees not healed themselves, 20 years after Pol Pot and more than a decade after leaving the camps? Throughout the book Mollica implies that a patronizing, drug-dependent and arrogant health care system is often to blame, but he himself says that in most cases the subjects of this particular study had never received treatment. The answer is of course that "self healing" really only happens once survivors understand that it is not only possible but necessary. The subjects in Mollica's study began to heal as they realized that an active program of self-care could relieve their loneliness and depression. Self-healing may be "natural" but it doesn't happen by itself, as Mollica implies; it requires awareness and active implementation on the part of the survivor.

The chapter on interpretation of dreams was a breath of fresh air to me. I have long believed that dreams are significant in the processing of traumatic experiences, as is the act of telling the story, and Mollica's description of how and why these two phenomena are therapeutic is beautifully expounded. In particular, his prescription for how to tell the survivor story, focusing not on the horrifying details but rather on the meaning it holds for the survivor, is enlightening and useful, although hardly new (see Lennis Echterling's Crisis Intervention: Promoting Resilience and Resolution in Troubled Times). Mollica also has valuable insights on the importance of work for trauma survivors, as a means of social rehabilitation, and on the need for survivors to recover dignity in response to the humiliation many experience as part of their trauma.

As a result of this book I am now inspired to use story-telling and dream analysis in my own work with survivors, and to spread the word about self-healing and how to promote it. I believe that Mollica has made a major impact on the theory behind trauma recovery, and I look forward to reading more of his work in the future.

Dr. Mollica's book artfully combines theory, narrative, and practical guidelines to describe a new, powerful, and radically comprehensive approach to post-trauma recovery. I especially appreciate his attention towards factors in healing that are often not addressed by psychiatry, namely the role of spirituality, ethics, justice, altruism, community, and social policy. He also provides a new perspective and approach to mainstays of psychoanalytic inquiry, the arts of listening,story-telling and the analysis of dreams and nightmares. All this scholarship is delivered in accessible, easy-to-read language that blessedly avoids technical jargon. (Thank you!) While the clinical encounters he describes deal with some of the worst atrocities in human history, the lessons are meaningful for all readers who need to deal with the commonplace losses and traumas of life.

As a medical student and an aspiring psychiatrist, I am inspired by Dr. Mollica's work as a model of compassionate, holistic, and effective psychiatric care. At the same time, his approach emphasizes the power of self-healing, making this book a valuable read not only for clinicians, but for everybody. I recommend this book to anybody who can read English! And especially for all healers and those in need of healing (which is everybody!).

Read this book and recommend that all your public and university libraries have it in their collections!

Dr Mollica's long history of working with refugees and survivors of severe trauma is well documented in this book, and allows him the authority to bring about this new, refreshing perspective on healing and survival. This should be read by practitioners, refugee resettlement agency staff and anyone who works with survivors of mass violence.

This is one of the best books I have ever read. Dr. Mollica's work is remarkable. He and his colleagues are true pioneers. I cried, laughed, and learned a great deal about human nature, trauma, post-conflict mental health, and resilience. I highly recommend this book!!!

All too rarely, it seems, the public is privileged to receive a book that is neither text nor tome, but rather gift. Richard Mollica's Healing Invisible Wounds is such a gift - a gift of hope for all who inhabit this violent world. One of the most widely accessible books I have read, Healing Invisible Wounds speaks to clinicians, policy makers, survivors and all who wish to live responsibly toward their neighbor in an increasingly global world. Having developed international recognition as a leading researcher/scientist in the field of psychiatry and trauma, Mollica departs from hard, empirical science and turns his attention toward the grace-filled trauma stories of which he has long been the recipient in his work with refugees, torture survivors, and victims of disaster. Such a shift is not easy - evidence-based research exerts an indomitable influence on the practice of healthcare. Yet, with this book, Mollica demonstrates his commitment to individuals - real people struggling with real pain yet capable of real healing. In this book, we do not find statistical evidence to support hypotheses about the mental health sequelae of violence; instead, what we find are stories of people - Somaly, Dr. Nakas and Liz - whose resilience, spirit and grace lead readers to a newfound understanding of "healing."

As a religious professional, I cannot recommend this book enough to clergy, congregations and individuals seeking to make an active, faith-based commitment to their communities. Resounding throughout Healing Invisible Wounds is Mollica's dedicated attention to the powerful force of spirituality, empathy and narrative in regards to healing. Were I to attempt to re-energize an adult faith study at my church, this is the book with which I would begin - inspiring, courageous, visionary and hopeful, Mollica's gift to us is one to be read, discussed and shared for years to come.

I recently re-read this book, and it's amazing message of resilience and self healing, is even more profound the second time through. I can't recommend this book highly enough to be both practioners and lay persons. This work serves not as a therapy manual but as a wake up call to the world to respect the voices of survivors and help them heal themselves. It blends historical information, religious and spiritual practices with medical and psychiatric knowledge to help build a framework for true cross-cultural counseling. My only "complaint" is that I wish it focused more on the how and less on the why. However there is no better introduction than Dr. Mollica's text to understanding the power of self healing in refugees and survivors of mass violence.

This book is pretty good...I'm still reading it, so this is only my initial reaction. It is definitely a new perspective in dealing with trauma...a refreshing one.

Healing Invisible Wounds: Paths to Hope and Recovery in a Violent World

In this dangerous world and in the affairs of Man's inhumanity to man, no one has a better perspective on the damaging effects of war, starvation, torture, natural disasters on the human psyche as does Dr. Mollica. For anyone working in resettling our newest residents, our refugees and immigrants, this is a must read book for understanding and opening channels of communication across cultural and linguistic barriers.