If you or someone you love has suffered a traumatic event, you know the devastating impact it can have on your life and your spirit. Life-threatening accidents, illnesses, assaults, abusive relationships--or a tragedy like 9/11--all can leave deep emotional wounds that persist long after physical scars have healed. Survivors become "invisible heroes," courageously struggling to lead normal lives in spite of symptoms so baffling and disturbing that they sometimes doubt their own sanity.
Now there is new hope for the millions affected by posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Drawing on more than thirty years' experience as a therapist and on the most recent cutting-edge research, Belleruth Naparstek presents a clinically proven program for recovery using the potent tool of guided imagery. She reveals how guided imagery goes straight to the right side of the brain, where it impacts the nonverbal wiring of the nervous system itself, the key to alleviating suffering.
Filled with the voices of real trauma survivors and therapists whose lives and work have been changed by this approach, Invisible Heroes offers:
- New understanding of the physical, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral effects of PTSD, who is most susceptible, and why symptoms can get worse rather than better with time
- Important insights into how the brain and body respond to trauma, why conventional talk therapy can actually impede recovery, and why the nonverbal, image-based right brain is crucial to healing
- A step-by-step program with more than twenty scripts for guided-imagery exercises tailored to the three stages of recovery, from immediate relief of anxiety attacks, flashbacks, nightmares, and insomnia, to freedom from depression and isolation, to renewed engagement with life
- A helpful guide to the best of the new imagery-based therapies, and how to incorporate them into an overall recovery plan
Belleruth Naparstek concludes with the inspiring words of survivors who have found their way back to peace, purpose, and
a deep joy in living. Her compassionate, groundbreaking book can lead you and
those in your care to the same renewal and healing.
"From the Hardcover edition."
Industry Reviews
"The bad news is that stress-related disorders are epidemic in our society. The good news is the new array of therapies that are truly effective in healing them. INVISIBLE HEROES is a package of hope for anyone whose life is compromised by the insidious effects of emotional trauma. This is one of those blessed books that deserves to be called life-changing."--Larry Dossey, M.D., author of Healing Beyond the Body, Reinventing Medicine and Healing Words
"Belleruth Naparstek is both a compassionate therapist and authority on the role of imagery in health. Her new book on PTSD ingeniously combines her therapeutic work with the latest brain research on how to heal from trauma. The end result is a book full of wisdom, compassion, and practical solutions that can help anyone access their inner ability to heal even from worst case scenarios. The world certainly needs this information now more than ever."--Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of The Wisdom of Menopause and Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom
"Surgery is controlled trauma. Finally I understand why we cannot just "talk" patients back to full recovery. Here is a blue print for using the right brain to deliver health."--Mehmet Oz, M.D., author of Healing from The Heart "Belleruth Naparstek is a treasure, deeply engaged, boundlessly energetic, visionary. Her new work on trauma is as wise as it is practical. We are all in her debt."--James S. Gordon, MD, Founder and Director, Center for Mind-Body Medicine, author of Manifesto for a New Medicine
From the Hardcover edition.
