Product Description
As Dr. Mark Goulston tells his patients who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), "The fact that you’re still afraid doesn’t mean you’re in any danger. It just takes the will and the way for your heart and soul to accept what the logical part of your mind already knows." In Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder For Dummies, Dr. Goulston helps you find the will and shows you the way.

A traumatic event can turn your world upside down, but there is a path out of PTSD. This reassuring guide presents the latest on effective treatments that help you combat fear, stop stress in its tracks, and bring joy back into your life. You'll learn how to:

Identify PTSD symptoms and get a diagnosis
Understand PTSD and the nature of trauma
Develop a PTSD treatment plan
Choose the ideal therapist for you
Decide whether cognitive behavior therapy is right for you
Weight the pros and cons of PTSD medications
Cope with flashbacks, nightmares, and disruptive thoughts
Maximize your healing
Manage your recovery, both during and after treatment
Help a partner, child or other loved one triumph over PTSD
Know when you're getting better
Get your life back on track

Whether you're a trauma survivor with PTSD or the caregiver of a PTSD sufferer, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder For Dummies, gives you the tools you need to win the battle against this disabling condition.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 2 reviews)

Finally, someone who TRULY understands and offers REAL HELP

Flashbacks are like a time machine. You literally re-live it in every way down to your visceral responses and the same exact thoughts going through your mind. We attempt to scramble back into the present tense ASAP. This was (and sometimes still is) the hardest aspect of PTSD to get under control.
Your book (and years of therapy and ongoing self-directed effort)taught me to acknowledge the unwanted memories as brain blips because of cataloging.....(i.e. a sexual snarl provoking a memories of all that molestation or torture makes a young girl rememember AND feel.....)It's not only my body "replaying" the sensations, it's also the EMOTIONAL/visceral responses......i.e. feeling scared, helpless, unimportant, unloved.....these I now realize that the physical memories (burning, violence, starvation, etc...) are ALWAYS accompanied by what you think and the emotional component.
So, it's not only remembering and re-experiencing what they did to your body, it's ALSO what you concluded about yourself, the world......and what to expect next......I'm not articulate at all.....but it's these emotions that are reexperienced in my body that I ALWAYS have to recognize aren't true any more. I call them the emotional reverbations of random memories......This has helped me to learn what to acknowledge as pertaining to `now' and what got accidentally misfired.......That was and is my lynchpin to feeling capable and able to appreciate my life. The best thing is............I notice that everything is less intense and floats by more easily.............I can't thank you enough...........True, my therapies helped, but......reading your book seemed to present it as "OK and doable"........I think it was because you wrote it like the reader was talking to a friend and it's OK to have challenges like this. THANK YOU!
In summary, I must remember that these are outdated "life templates". I just let them pass as such. I no longer try to PUSH them away. My gentle recogniation has actually made them recur less frequently and with less visceral impact and they "dissolve" more quickly as well. Your "acceptace" advice is, ironically, the most curative! I wish all PTSD's could know this.
I owe you much that I love about life now.....including me! *blush*

June 30, 2008

easy informative read..

This was an easy & very interesting read. I finished it in one weekend. It was in simplified terms, and chock full of good information.
May 09, 2008

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