Customer Reviews

Recovering from the War: A Guide for All Veterans, Family Members, Friends and Therapists

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4 star:		(1)
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I am officially an "expert" in combat PTSD with all sorts of fancy letters after my name, and I can say that Patience Mason's RECOVERING FROM THE WAR and Aphrodite Matsakis's VIETNAM WIVES [also available from Amazon.com] do more good than a planeload of folks like me. Nobody should have to go through it alone--not the veteran, not his or her spouse, not their children, parents, friends, employers, therapists. Healing (and protection against secondary traumatic stress) happens only in community--at least that's what I conclude from 11 years working with veterans. Both of these books are useful to not only their main audience, the veteran's spouse, but to veterans themselves and anyone else who wants to make their hearts wiser and their understanding deeper. I recommend these books frequently, and for years they were hard to find.

Identifying information on reviewer:

Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D. is a psychiatrist whose only patients are Vietnam combat veterans in the Boston VA Outpatient Clinic. He is author of _Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character_ (available from Amazon.com)

This book is an excellent counseling tool for the spouses of combat veterans who live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have given this book the many spouses. Many say that the greatest thing the book does for them is help to show that they are not alone in their experience with the veteran PTSD sufferer. Patience Mason gives the spouse an understanding of what is going on that leads to a sense of comfort and the courage to continue the battle. The battle, is to find a way to stay with their vet and at the same time preserve their own sanity. This is the best book out there for contents and ease of reading!

Patience's book should be a text book for all Psychology curriculums in colleges and universities. Her knowledge and understanding of PTSD is vast. She expresses her empathy and understanding for veterans with PTSD, their friends and families and this is evident in her book. Her understanding of what families and friends also experience is "right there." I recently completed my Masters in Clinical Psychology and studied much about PTSD but no textbook, lecture or class taught me as much about PTSD as Patience's book. I also spent 3 years in Vietnam during the war as a civilian woman and have a great respect for veterans and their families and PTSD is of great interest to me. For any professor or teacher teaching about trauma, this book should be on your list of required reading for your students. A dynamic book!

This book is highly recommended to anyone who has a relative who served in the VietNam war. It provides incredible insight on what a VietNam vet is feeling, seeing, thinking. You will gaina a better understanding on how the "war" changed/affected the VietNam vet's life. The VietNam vet is not like any other vet - he/she's experienced so much in such a way unlike any vet of any other war. It helps us understand what he/she hears and sees. This book will help you better understand your vet, and appreciate him/her more. Find a way to get this book if you have a VietNam vet in your life.

I had no idea I had PTSD for 30 years . After my diagnosis this year I needed help for myself and my wife. This book has helped us both learn to live with this terrible disorder. Before ordering the book Patience talked to us on the phone for a long time offering her help and best wishes. A must read for anyone tthat wants to understand PTSD

This is just about the only professional quality book on psychological problems I've ever seen that wasn't written by a psychologist. It's first-rate. Patience Mason plays it just right . . . in the first section of the book, she gets out of the way of the Vietnam vets, and lets them have their say. Later in the book, she gives form to their stories, and makes terrific sense of PTSD. It's better than *any* scientific journal article on PTSD, and it's completely accessible. There are even a couple of first-rate ideas that I have never seen in the professional literature. If you think that PTSD is part of you or you loved one's lives, the investment in this book will pay off in the first 30 minutes of reading.

This book has been one of the most treasured, comforting and hope-giving literary works for me and many other women and families. Whenever I have mentioned this book to women who have been struggling with dealing with a loved one suffering with PTSD, they have described it as 'a manual' It is so filled with pratical information and real life experiences, that you feel compelled to read and reread every word. I checked it out at the public library and didn't want to return it, because I wanted to always have it on hand. But alas, I am aware that it would benefit so many others if I returned it. I have borrowed it again and again. I have been unable to find it,available in a bookstore, because the title has been changed and I was not aware of that. I am so very happy to find it available again, and the price is so reasonable, that I know I will be able to tell others and they too will want to purchase. Actually, I was given the job of tracking this book down, so that it might be purchased by the women in my spousal support group, and also by the facilitator. They will all be happy that I was successful in locating this book. Already I have three people committed to purchasing it. Thank you Patience Mason, for having the insight to write this book and to share it with all of us. I have also read Chickenhawk by Patience Masons' husband. It was a very powerful book also, but more difficult to read, for me. The events were so vivid, and the emotions so filled with pain , it helped to understand better the conflicts experienced and also the repercussions to the continuing lives of the Vet and their families.

This book was so helpful to me... I keep buying it and giving it away! It is the best book I have read on coping with PTSD, and I have read them all. It tells you what to expect and why. Who to contact in the VA for help. What forms will need to be filled out and how to deal with all the government agencies. Also lists several self-help groups. Everything from A to Z. It will give you a whole new understanding of your father, brother, husband, or significant other.

Four years ago my Vietnam Vet husband of 26 years invited me to a new VA couple's group through the PCT clinic. The director tried his best to give us the resources and help he could. He offered me a copy of Patience Mason's book. There is so much knowledge through information & personal accounts; I believe anyone who reads it will find "the light shining in the darkness" of living with a PTSD survivor. I have highly recommended it to all spouses, family members, friends, clergy, and therapists, as well as the Vets themselves who are looking for insight and support. Even better that it's now available in an affordable paperback!

Patience has been able to visualize and understand the realities of what has happened to the Vets who served in Vietnam, either directly or indirectly. She will cause you to remember those things which were long forgotten, or filed away deep in your mind. I want to read this book again and again, to help bring my life back out of the dark. THANK YOU Patience