Should traumatic memories be eradicated?
934478
The Memory Witch is an interesting story, very different than a lot of paranormal stories I've read. I kind of like how the whole book innocently leads you into the woods, then explodes in the end with the dark revelation. On some level, the revelation is predictable, but on another level, it's not. Because it's really brutal. The first sentence in the prologue: "I don't have a single remembrance before the age of eight," sets the stage for what is to come. However, the interesting thing about the story is the lack of melodrama in the build up. Emotionally frozen, the main character, Quinn, narrates her tale in a matter-of-fact voice that's sometimes breezy and disconnected, and at other times, angry and grim.

Should traumatic memories be eradicated?

The question lingers.

The Memory Witch does a wonderful job of showing us the potential effects of following such a course. Perhaps, peace of mind paid for with ignorance of Self and life experience isn't such a great deal.

The story ends with Quinn preparing to confront her newly remembered past.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:

"We're celebrating Quinn's first cast tonight."
Mason took a seat beside me. "You did? What was the spell?"
"Your aunt decided to practically dismember her left hand and I healed it." I didn't conceal the pride in my voice. Honestly, I was feeling pretty badass about the whole thing.

Mason snorted. "My aunt lives for theatrics."
"You're not kidding." I laughed. "You should see the getup she has me put on to meet with the clients."
"Don't pretend that you're not loving the adoration from the clients. Girls your age love their ego petted," Stella argued.
"I have to see it now," Mason insisted. "Will you try it on for me?"
"No way," I retorted.
"Go put it on. We'll see then if he can resist a witch," Stella urged.
"What does she mean?" Mason inquired.
"It's an enchanted headdress. Apparently. I'm such a troll that your aunt has to use magic to make me pretty enough for the visitors," I griped.
2203037
It never hurts to be reminded that we are not always just a  product of our pasts, but by acknowledging  and then erasing the shame of  painful memories and horrific childhood experiences, we can be free of the "never" way our life story is being written.
3799403
This book reminds me of the phrase, Knowledge is Power.  It details different types of trauma that can cause PTSD, provides help to understand it and to understand those who have been through it, and gives practical guidance for healing and hope.  It is written by a victim of trauma who is recovering from PTSD.  If you want to know the gritty truth about Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, you'll want to read these real portrayals of life after trauma.  -Merilee Nations
3759940
I read this book approximately a year after I'd learned (to my horror) that I had iatrogenic or therapy-induced DID and false memories of every hideous abuse imaginable.  At the time, the disorder was known as MPD.

The book, well-researched and sourced - assisted me in understanding how and why I fell for what I now know was untrue and downright nonsensical.  The anecdotes and stories about other women in similar circumstances helped me to understand I was not alone.

Although the name change from MPD to DID was made, the problematic "repressed memory" therapies didn't.  In fact, more questionable theories of treatment have emerged that continue to mass manufacture DID and false memories.  We now have several generations of patients who sadly will never grasp that their disorder was not naturally occurring or due to the abuses "remembered" with the help of recovered memory therapies.  Misinformation continues spreading via publications that do not inform the public about the probability of iatrogenics or that human memory is fallible and malleable.  The author certainly made great efforts to address the situation factually and for that, I remain very grateful.
362513
This book brings back so many memories of my own childhood and the long-term effects abuse has on one's life. Ironically only the abused happens to remember the vividness and malice of these actions, while the abuser continues to live in denial. This book is a true testament of how ones abusive childhood impacts their entire lives, and how important it is to "fight the demons" to become a better person. This life-long challenge is necessary in life to ensure good health, prosperity, and good family values. Easier said than done but the author proves that these negative influences that typically define individuals socially and economically can rather be used as motivation to persevere. Congratulations and life-long good wishes go out to the author. You are truly a role model for many silent sufferers and courageous for sharing this experience!
6529
This book is not only important for understanding Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI), recognizing it in a loved one or family member, and dealing with its effects on the person who has it and their family, but contains a personal family story woven throughout the discourse.  This lends authenticity to the conclusions and draws the reader into the book right from the start!  The book reveals the invisible damage and it's effects upon the warrior and their family, who may also suffer their own version of PTSD from the abnormal behavior of the veteran that they love.  However, many warriors and/or their family members may be uncomfortable with admitting the PTSD is there and seeking treatment for it, because unfortunately there is still a stigma attached to the injury as though it is something a person could choose not to have.  The veteran may be in denial themselves.

The premise of this book is to verify that the condition is real, it is not brought on by any weakness in the subject, and that it is treatable.  If not treated successfully, the toll it takes upon the warrior and the family can result in dissolution of the family relationships in fact if not legally!  There is much encouragement from the realization that humans are created in the image of God and thus are composed of body, soul and spirit.  Therefore, each of these components can and should be addressed and treated.  Counsel, medication and spiritual strengthening are all critical steps in recovery, relief and restoration of normalcy in the areas of restful and peaceful sleep, the healing of memories, and effective communication to strengthen relationships with both family and friends.

Another important lesson in this book is the role that forgiveness plays in effectively treating the wounded warrior and the wounded family.  Both parties are urged to practice forgiveness for the wrong behaviors and choices of each other.  Scripture is used to support the tremendous benefit of forgiveness and prayer in restoring some sense of normalcy to the life of the veteran and the family.  Each family member is affected by war coming home with the warrior.  Thus each one is able to participate in the healing required for a successful life after war.

This work is a quick read and easy to understand and take instruction from.  I recommend it for everyone.  The ideas and instructions in this book would be an effective guide for dealing with PTSD from other sources than war, such as an accident, assault or other event causing trauma and shock.  You will want to pass this book on so that it's influence can go further than just your personal library.

This book was provided by Revell for review without compensation.
275187
Dave Alber has created an effective, comprehensive way to relieve the effects of post traumatic stress disorder. For those searching for a way to let go and heal, don't hesitate to try his technique.
1232552
This is the BEST book for PTSD. The title is a bit misleading though. This is NOT a book about fasting, but it is a book about a therapeutic technique which releases traumatic memories of PTSD. Fasting is but one small part of the FIAR therapeutic technique. Don't buy this book looking for history and material on fasting. It covers the release of trauma ONLY. It gives a great history tracing psychology's attempt to find the solution to releasing trauma. Exploring a variety of techniques the book ends with a step by step approach to the therapeutic technique which allegedly releases these stubborn traumas permanently.

This technique is the result of the authors personal research. The author explains EMDR, hypnosis, psychoanalysis, cognitive therapy, etc. and then shows why they do not produce permanent relief. He outlines the eight traits commonly involved in producing lasting trauma and then proceeds to describe the Memory Creation System in which the amygdale transfers the warning signal of a threat and accompanying information to the hippocampus. The information and the memory created in the hippocampus is then transmitted to the cortex. The hypothalamus activates a flow of hormonal secretion of cortisol and grehlin which reacts toward the perceived event as traumatic and the Reevaluation and Final Refiling System stores it away in the subconscious as a traumatic memory.

When receiving trauma the brain enters the state of trauma. The author claims that to release it the brain must once again enter the state of trauma. This state is the state of fasting. The book cites that scientific research funded by the National Institutes of Health discovered fasting stresses us to a heightened state of motivation which nature intended to assist us in finding dinner instead of becoming dinner, by producing the stress hormone ghrelin.  Grehlin produces the state of trauma, thus fasting produces the state of trauma. It then describes that former psychological theories have failed to release trauma because they cause the client to merely remember it. The book states that the brain must experience psychological revivification of the event while in the state of trauma. After entering this state a step by step process is outlined in which it is released.

I found it to be a very innovative and original approached back by solid research. Again, don't buy this if you are looking for a fasting manual, this book is a psych book about PTSD.
1138366
This story had to be told. And yet, the most difficult thing is to tell something that you only wish to delete from memory and forget. Writing about it is not only therapeutic, it also helps the reader to recognize if they themselves are in the same predicament,or beginning to be there. A story like this, helps the reader who may be experiencing abuse, realize that they are Not alone, AND, it is not their fault. While experiencing abuse, it is difficult to see it for what it is. The perpetrator is very skilled in shifting the blame and making the abused feel guilty for all that is happening. Often the perpetrated like the two main ones in Nikki's case, are well liked in their social circles, and for this reason, the abused feels like no one will be likely to believe them. The truth is, when there are physical signs of abuse, medical personnel will believe and act if taken into the abused persons confidences. So there IS help from professionals. If you are in a predicament, speak up! Not only do you deserve to be heard,you also deserve to remove people like this before they cause harm to someone else.
393170
One of the most important topics of our world, that can explain most of the violence, narcissism, addiction and bullying, in my mind... it is a clinical work that translates for a nonclinical reader interested in how almost all of us are injured from childhood and how we can integrate and resolve these injuries so we don't continue to injure others in our adult life.  It acknowledges that our bodies, not just our minds are part of the process of healing and processing. It focuses on attachment issues with children and their parents, and the different stages of childhood that trauma affects, and how a clinician can work with a client, and how a client has been affected by the trauma in that childhood stage.
4014415
The neurotoxin insult on the developing brain from thousands of hitherto exotic substances is sobering to contemplate. This book is a well considered warning. One misunderstanding concerns the legacy of toxins that have been released and accumulated in the soil environment. That ignored fact is part of the continuing exposure problem to children especially those living in urban settings.
148984
When Sara Lewis had a car accident resulting in a brain injury in 1977, she didn't realize that she would have to cope with the resulting disabilities for the rest of her life.  In the 1970s brain trauma was little understood. It was only in 2004 that testing revealed that Sara had serious mental deficits both in information processing and in cognitive skills like executive functioning.

Her book is a must read for people who had brain injury thirty years ago. Because they received little or no help in dealing with brain damage, they may not understand the problems that have resulted. Saras book can help others to recognize and find compensatory strategies to deal with their disabilities.

.
2196764
Van Der Kolk, a leading researcher, and treater, of PTSD and other mental traumas, summarizes the latest findings on what works to help treat trauma, whether from the clinical lab with examination of the brain, treatment protocols with groups of patients, or actual individual and group therapy sessions.

If you're still struggling, you may have some new ideas here to either bring to a counselor or to try on your self at home if you're in the right conditions. (I see some things that could be adapted for journaling, more conscious self-talk, etc.)
4340480
Like an old-fashioned snake-oil salesman, this book promises a cure-all for every emotional ailment, yet it seldom delivers -- unless you count the delivery of harmful "blame the victim" messages.

Depressed because your husband broke his marriage vows? It's your fault for being such a possessive witch. Come to terms with the fact that he still sees the "other woman," and you'll find inner peace.

Angry because your drug-addicted daughter neglects her own child? Worried about the grandchild's welfare, and feeling burned out because you're already caring for three other neglected grandchildren? Heck, adopt this kid too! Raise four, five or more grandchildren! (Byron Katie actually suggests this.) Never mind that you're already at the end of your rope and that this simply enables your druggie daughter to kill herself while abandoning the baby she brought into the world.

Haunted by visions of surviving as an abandoned youngster in war-ravaged Europe? Hey, it wasn't really all that bad. Get over it. (Conveniently, Katie fails to address the man's anguished memories of seeing and hearing another six-year-old, and many women, being raped. Maybe she realizes that her facile dismissal of inner pain won't stretch this far.)

There is a kernel of truth in this book: in minor matters, your attitude alters your reality. You can and should question whether fleeting thoughts are true, or whether you're simply constructing a story that fits your narrative. Psychologists call this confirmation bias; we create a hypothesis to explain a situation, and thereafter we look for evidence to support our conclusions.

But Katie applies this technique to areas of serious pain: war trauma, incest, infidelity. She has no business counseling people in these matters, and once they've walked away from the brainwashing / bullying session, they're likely to feel much, much worse.
2991817
Nancy Bauser's "Acceptance Groups for Survivors: A Guide for Facilitators" is a book that lends help to victims who have survived harrowing accidents leading to disabilities. A victim of a devastating accident in which she sustained extensive brain injury, Bauser draws on her own experiences of trauma and recovery to formulate a program that assists victims of extensive injuries and trauma.

Bauser's book opens with a note about the need for victims to find self "acceptance" in order to recover. She says that the key to victims' returning to normalcy is their ability to accept themselves for what they are. She points out that the process of rehabilitation essentially consists of recognition, admittance, and acceptance. This book follows a step-by-step approach to be put to use in a series of twenty-four sessions. Each weekly session is designed to guide facilitators in their attempts to help survivors as they come to terms with their loss by grieving and overcoming it. She mentions that with patience, facilitators can help survivors develop their inner strengths so that they can form and achieve noteworthy goals. Once survivors are able to come to terms with themselves, they try to cope with people around them. Survivors may struggle to be accepted by other people, but this problem can be solved with the assistance of support groups. Bauser suggests that survivors get involved in volunteer work; so that they realize that they too have the potential to make valuable contributions to society. Active participation in charity work can help survivors recognize the value of support groups and make the most of the interactive sessions.

Written in a straightforward manner, this book reaches out to other survivors and lends them a helping hand in bringing their lives back on track. The empathetic treatment of the subject and hands-on approach make this book a valuable guide for survivors and rehabilitation experts alike.
3857340
Military mental health experts tell us that the "signature injuries" in returning veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will be posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI).  If that's true, then books like the present come at just the right time.  Both editors of Combat Stress Injury have boots-on-the-ground military experience, as well as being a practicing psychologist (Figley) and physician (Nash), and it shows in their selection of chapters addressing PTSD and related mental health syndromes associated with combat.
 The book is divided into three sections.  The first covers the biological, psychological, and social aspects of combat stress.  The level of detail in these chapters might overwhelm the average mental health clinician seeking a basic summary of stress and trauma psychophysiology, but the comprehensiveness of coverage provides a solid scientific foundation for anyone who still thinks that "stress" is some airy-fairy concept cooked up by mental health academics with too much free time.  Indeed, a theme that runs through this book is that an adverse reaction to the experience of combat should not necessarily be seen as a "disorder" per se, but rather represents a psychological injury as real as a fractured skull or amputated leg.  Also discusse is the individual variability of resilience: why some service members succumb to combat stress injury, while others seem to adapt, and a few even grow stronger.
 The chapters in Section II offer a set of studies, including one on the delayed effects of combat stress on long-term mortality, i.e. combat stress can act as a sleeper weapon, coming back to bite the veteran at the tail end of his or her life.  Another chapter debunks the clinical myth that physical injury mitigates the effect of psychological trauma supposedly because the veteran now has something "real" to justify his disability.  If anything, the research shows that physical and psychological injuries are additive: one worsens the effect of the other, and each needs to be taken seriously.  Trauma leaves a wide wake, and a third chapter in this section reports on the effects of secondary traumatization on spouses of injured veterans.
 Section III details a variety of prevention, intervention, and treatment programs for combat stress injury being field-tested for use with military service members.  These include medication management, peer support programs, experiential treatments for combat stress, virtual reality applications, a comprehensive trauma risk management (TRIM) program used by the Royal Marines, the utility of using friends and families as  resources, and the role of spiritual counseling.
 No book has everything, and I would have liked to see a chapter or two on applications of individual counseling and therapy approaches to combat stress, which would be of most interest to practicing clinicians who treat military veterans and service members.  But this book is a great place to start for professionals who are serious about understanding the unique tribulations of our uniformed service members who live with the prospect of death and disablement to preserve what we all value.
- Laurence Miller, PhD, International Journal of Emergency Mental Health
3997498
Joy Schaverien, a Jungian psychoanalyst, has written a thought-provoking analysis of the psychological impact of boarding schools in Boarding School Syndrome: The Psychological Trauma of the Privileged Child (London: Routledge, 2015). Based on observations from her practice, the book is intended to inform psychotherapists and counsellors in considering the implications of board school experiences on discernable patterns within the social and intimate behaviors of their patients. She emphasizes five themes: homesickness, captivity, homelessness, the childs relationship with his/her body, and intimacy, and alerts therapists to ways an ex-boarder may gloss over traumatic experiences during analysis. I attended a boarding school from grades 1-8 that was established by the mission under which my parents served; my mother and uncle attended boarding school in Canada beginning at age 3 while their parents were missionaries in Nigeria. The family has some experience with the ideas discussed in this book.

For those of us less inclined to track down cited research studies, many of Schaveriens remarks may resonate with our own experiences of navigating life post-boarding school and provide useful ways to think about ourselves. The author describes the boarding school experience as socially condoned abandonment of the very young that leaves a child who has lost everything feeling bereaved and betrayed. Even though parents may be visibly unhappy by leaving their child at the boarding school, the question the child cannot answer is, why am I sent away? Not only is the child losing the people and place that were home, he or she is also losing the status of being a child, with a unique place within a family. Instead of being permitted to mourn these losses, the child is expected to grow up and not express fear or sadness. At the mission boarding school, we had the additional overlay of Gods will over the parental decision making our unhappiness a sinful response.

Many of the boarding school experiences described by the people in Schaveriens analysis were harsher and more problematic than anything I remember from attending the mission boarding school, however she notes that the repeated experience of returning home as a stranger and then leaving, just as the child has settled back in, builds a psychological pattern, an expectation of being left that is often unconsciously active later in life. One of Schaveriens clients described have a Boarding School Self and a Home Self which resulted in a carefully maintained emotional distance not only between the two selves but also with anyone else.

In a particularly helpful explanation, Schaverien states that what is lost in boarding school is the narrative function for emotional experience. Those who attend a day school often arrive home eager to recount the story of their day. The ups and downs are processed as they tell their experiences to their parents. In this way, these emotional events become part of a personal narrative. One result of losing the emotional narrative is that ex-boarders learn to hide their emotions and to comply with rules so that the self becomes invisible. The implications of this behavior can be devastating in forming personal relationships and even productive work patterns.

Schaverien includes a short chapter on Children of Empire whose homelessness derives from belonging neither at the homeland nor at the overseas post. I still find it easier to identify with what I am not: not Nigerian, not American, and, since I was part of the pre-1960 colony, not British. I found the book very helpful in trying to come to terms with my years at the mission boarding school.