Customer Reviews

Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal

5 star:		(22)
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3 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(2)

 

 

Reading "Invisible Heroes" has absolutely changed my life. I am a survivor of childhood incest and physical abuse and this book understands me, my symptoms, and my life post-trauma. This is the first time I have felt really understood. That within itself was enough. Yet, this book can explain my symptoms and what is going on in my brain when things like when flashbacks are happening. It is wonderful to have clinical research to back up my experiences and to explain things to my academic/intellectual friends in a way they will take more seriously. And, to top all this off . . . this book brought hope to my life. Not only do I feel understood, and validated through the reading of this book, but I truly feel there is hope for healing. This is a new thing for me. No one in my almost 20 years of therapy (of all sorts) has suggested I could do more than manage the PTSD symptoms. In this book not only did I find hope for healing, but Belleruth gives "how-to's" for healing. I am so excited about the PTSD pack of guided imagery CD's. I couldn't afford them all, so I began with "Healthful sleep". Sleep is a particular problem for me and it seems to me that if I can get good sleep that would go a long way on the path to healing. I've used the CD for a week now and I'm sleeping really well. I've been able to decrease my dose of Ambien already and am optimistic about getting off this med altogether. More than anything else, thank you for your work, for your understanding of the PTSD phenomenon and for the hope you offer trauma survivors.

By the time I was about 5 chapters into Invisible Heroes, I had begun to strongly recommend it to friends, students and clients.

I'm certain that, where both physical and emotional healing are concerned, this is one of the most important and valuable books written in the last 20 years. And I'm confident that value holds whether the reader is a trauma survivor, a psychotherapist, a medical practitioner or an interested member of the general public.

Belleruth Naparstek writes with compassion about Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Equally important, she explains SIMPLY and EASILY what the latest medical diagnostics reveal about how our bodies' own biochemical and psychophysical responses can lock in PTSD in ways that just talk therapy or just drug intervention can't sufficiently overcome.

Most importantly, Naparstek offers very specific information about how, and why, guided imagery can be a functional, healing intervention to support the hard work of OVERCOMING PTSD. And she provides a series of guided imagery scripts, developed through extensive work with private clients, 9/11 survivors and VA Hospital trauma groups, among others. The scripts can be used on their own, or in concert with counseling and medical intervention.

This book is GOLD! It provides a functional path through hell into healing. If I could afford to, I'd send copies to the 100 people I care about most. And to every VA Hospital, domestic violence center, homeless shelter and free clinic in America. And I'd be grateful to be able to do it.

This book summarizes succinctly for me the best of the new therapies and puts the older therapies into contemporary context, in an easy to read, sensitive manner, including rivetting personal accounts of overcoming huge odds. It oriented me in the NEW (what a relief) psychiatry/psychology which is not all talk or all drugs. Some of these methods operate quickly. Hope! Are inexpensive, for those of us with poor, at best, insurance. Hope! Informed me about drugs and doctors for good decision making. Empower! Whether you are pro or anti psychiatry, you will immediately have methods at your disposal that will help you understand how you and others may work, on your own or with help, through extreme difficulties or trauma and regain optimism! I have used Belleruth Naparstek's guided imagery tapes since 1994 but it was this book which put the process into perspective so I could understand and further heal. Without intending to be, this book is also an easy introduction into the most promising new brain research - Robert Ornstein etc., which explains how we think/feel via our physiology. This is not difficult to understand science this is applied science and applied to you. In these challenging times,personal and global, this understanding is essential.

I am an unreal, real survivor, and I am very grateful for Naparstek`s book. I have suffered many prolonged and intense traumas. By the time I was eighteen years old, I had endured war, several killer illnesses, starvation, intense floggings, homelessness, school failure and slavery. (Slavery in the literal meaning of this word.) These experiences created many "ghosts" in my soul. Because I have never had any counseling, it took me a long time to even find them. For years I did not even know that they existed.

I mainly bought "Invisible Heroes," because its title is similar to my own memoir "Heroes from the Attic," and also because this book would enlighten me about my own traumas and triumphs. And it has done so beyond my greatest expectations. I have read it, and I will continue to study it. I will do so, mainly because it has confirmed that many of my "ghosts" are not really such. They are actual physical (electro-chemical) conditions in my brain and nervous systems.

This book has also confirmed that I am very lucky and very blessed. My traumas have given me many of the special gifts, which are described in Belleruth's Chapter 16, "Surprise Blessings: Gifts in the Rubble." Now I can prove that my discernments, which "normal" people don't have, are real, and that they might consider what I will have to say. Such, as for example, "the air in this building is polluted and in the log-run will make you sick." Years in advance I have predicted that such and such persons will get cancer. And sadly they did.

Thank you, dear author, your book will make my life a lot easier.

Invisible Heroes

Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal, is a scientifically based book that teaches the therapeutic methods of guided imagery in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After reading a very positive review in Publisher's Weekly, I had high expectations for a groundbreaking book. What I found was a paradox of superb prose, metaphysical grand theft, and a text sometimes as laborious to read as the federal tax code.

To my utter surprise, the cutting edge imagery described in Invisible Heroes is really hybridized Buddhist-Vedic mediation techniques that have been used for thousands of years. What Belleruth Naparstek and her colleagues have done is to create a type of clinical Buddhism. The author explains the similarity of guided imagery, mindfulness meditation, and general meditation. She is careful to draw a clear distinction between guided imagery and the more New Age field of visualization. Make no mistake, they are the same thing; the only differences between guided imagery, visualization, and meditation is their name. Guided imagery is the medical establishment's preferred designation, as visualization and meditation are perceived as New Age and spiritual. It's apparent that the author has studied and collaborated with some experts in meditation.

It's also perfectly understandable and reasonable that Naparstek presents her broad-based imagery program and methods as non-religious so as to attract the widest audience. However, it's patently obvious that the techniques presented in Invisible Heroes incorporate dhyana meditation (focus on a singular point/idea for spiritual liberation), a mild form of yogic breath control for maximum relaxation, and some good old-fashioned self-hypnosis. These well-known and ancient Buddhist-Vedic practices have been repackaged into an expedient, modern clinical therapy, replete with up-to-the-minute medical jargon and supporting science. The true origins of her imagery should pose no obstacle to the end user because the methods are effective, regardless of the terminology. Her therapy adapted for resolving psychological disorder rather than for cancer treatment, is virtually indistinguishable from the Simonton Method of guided imagery that came out in the early 70s.

What is presented in Invisible Heroes is well written and solid, but not really new. The guided imagery scenarios she presents are open-ended and gentle. They have also proven to be extremely beneficial to sufferers of PTSD. What's fascinating about this book is the effect of guided imagery on brain chemistry. Her rock-solid scientific approach makes it hard for skeptics to dismiss her thesis. With that said, there are a number of other contemporary books that explore guided imagery with equal depth, efficiency, and that include possible answers as to why tragedy occurred to begin with and how to cut that suffering at an even deeper level. A few examples of groundbreaking mind-body healing books include "Creative Visualization" by Shakti Gawain; "Quantum Healing" by Deepak Chopra; "Modern Buddhist Healing" by Charles Atkins; "Love, Medicine & Miracles" by Bernie Siegel, M.D; "The Relaxation Response" by Hebert Benson, M.D; and "Healing Yourself" by Martin Rossman - to name a few."

With all the new cases of PTSD returning from Iraq - not to mention the dearth of undiagnosed Viet Nam veterans still wrestling with what the old-timers used to call "shell shock", this book is sound in principle, helpful, and important.

As a therapist who works with many trauma survivors, I believe this book should be required reading for every clinician. Survivors will be able to feel validated in their suffering, understand why talking alone has not helped, and access clear ways to move past their symptoms.

I have been reading Invisible Heros non-stop and wish I had

it 18 years ago when I had to find my own way through the maze of disconected therapies on my healing jouney. What a great validation and clarity of both my PTSD and what seemed to heal. Many others who never found their own way, now have more hope for healing and a functional life.

Required reading for neurologists, physicians, therapists, massage therapists/bodyworkers and all in the helping professions. Not one could connect all the dots or even spoke of PTSD when my "normal" life shattered with an illness.

I had a partial right temporal lobectomy, which offered many wonderful mystical momemts of grace (and it's just getting cable channels to access what's already there!) and light as I was cracked open to re-experience the terror of sexual abuse as a 3-6 year old. The pieces of my life very painfully and slowly fell into place over the years, requiring extreme resiliance, self-reliance and persistance to save my own life.

Some say I only had something wrong with my brain. I say, yes, a mass of tangled blood vessels where memory and emotion cross. All part of the "story" emerging when I went unconsciouss and then tried to cut it out of my head. I do believe that the body responds and physical symptoms of trauma can be life threatening.

I'm now a successful corporate executive with much to be grateful for. I continue to dabble along the fringes of PTSD, although mostly healed. Guided visualizations have always been a staple in my arsenal of trial and error resources.

This approach and book is defintely doing God's work, as the terror, grief and dysfunction of PTSD was far harder than brain surgery - although itself clearly an additional trauma. In Gratitude!

This is a comprehensive, wonderful book, which should be on the shelf of every clinician, both medical and psychological, as well as being read by all patients suffering from PTSD. In addition to making elusive, complex psychological syndromes utterly lucid to the reader, Belleruth integrates the emerging pertinent scientific data seamlessly with poignant case vignettes. As if that were not enough, the writing style is, in itself, a delightful elixir, which goes down easily making what could be a ponderous tome into a riveting page-turner that feeds the mind and stirs heart and soul.

Naperstek's book is a very readable, straightforward analysis of the symptomatology of PTSD and of the various non-verbal therapies now available to treat the disorder. It's an extremely effective synthesis of the current state of therapeutic approaches to PTSD treatment, including very recent remarkable advances in the brain scanning technologies that have given scientists and medical professionals extraordinary access to the brain's activities involving PTSD triggers, areas of the brain affected by those stimuli, and a very convincing argument for non-verbal therapeutic practices (as opposed to "talk therapy").

I am very pleased to have read the clear explanations of what is happening in the body/mind/spirit of people who have PTSD symptoms. Just by itself, even without the added bonus of the suggestions for using imagery to heal, a better understanding of the physiology of PTSD helped me.

I am a survivor of multiple severe childhood traumas. I suffered from severe PTSD symptoms for about 10 years, before the research in this book was available. Ultimately, I learned to get back to a more functional life by using medications a learning how to avoid situations that triggered panic for me.

I am utterly delighted to learn about the physiological explanations behind the symptoms I had. When it was happening, it was a very confusing experience, filled with feelings of shame. It is such a relief to know that those symptoms were physical events, not, as it seemed at the time, personal or moral failures of self-control.

The discussion about how therapists can avoid making the symptoms worse was also important to me. I realize that my own experience of therapy made my symptoms worse for a long time. I realize that at that time, the things my therapist did were standard therapy, and were the best she knew how to do; if she had known something different she would have used it. I'm very glad something better is available now.

The imagery suggestions have given me a lot of hope. I hope that I can get to a point where my PTSD symptoms are no longer an issue for me. I hope I can be free to go into situations I now avoid. I even hope I can eventually stop taking the medication I now use.