Crazy Visitation: A Chronicle of Illness and Recovery

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Summary: Emotionally rewarding, highly recommended reading
Review: Crazy Visitation: A Chronicle Of Illness And Recovery is the personal story of author Saundra Murray Nettles, who lived with an encroaching brain tumor affecting her memory, personality, mood, and physical well-being for years before its diagnosis and removal. Pieced together through written records and the recollection of others as well as the author's own memory, Crazy Visitation is the story of both sickness and the long road to healing. A deeply moving and uplifting book, Crazy Visitation is emotionally rewarding, highly recommended reading.

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Summary: Through Pain there is strength, courage and renewal
Review: This book offers an intimate and "real" view of what it means to suffer, strive to maintain dignity, fight the oppressive forces in our lives and survive! Saundra Murray Nettle's reflections are inspiring. I was inspired to keep fighting, keep searching for what is good and loving and to stay engaged with living life.

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Summary: "Crazy Visitation": A Quiet Storm of Inspiration
Review: What Saundra Murray Nettles has done in her narrative, "Crazy Visitations", is transcend the inherent, self-imposed limitation of western psychology... what she has done is summon the courage to open a path to bring spirit into psychology. Summoning this courage is, in itself, a miracle given the fact that so many African-American women suffer from a rare and lethal strain of fear; the by-product of innumerous years of unfathomable racism, sexism, and oppression. Yet, Dr. Nettles emerges... a beautiful warrior-poet willing to follow her inner-compass toward reconstruction. What makes Dr. Nettles' narrative so compelling is that she has managed to prepare a pathway for spirit to take its rightful place as focus point of the field of psychology. After reading her story, it is quite evident that human beings cannot define or attempt to fully understand their true selves in terms of behavior, innate abilities and processes, and/or personality traits, because these things are easily manipulated by outside persons and/or objects (e.g. "an orange-sized meningioma"). Apparently there is something more to the human experience than meets the eye - an eye that has for far too long been pathologically concerned with finding physical, empirical "proof." I believe that "something more" is spirit. This word has not had any place whatsoever in the field and I believe this is why western psychology will always fall short of finding those "universal truths" it so relentlessly pursues. The absence of spirit in the field has led us to a plateau where there is an abundance of empirical data, but limited, superficial progress in using that information to better humanity. Psychologists must realize their role as healers and, even further, understand the profound implications of this role. Dr. Nettles' narrative makes it unquestionably clear that this is thoroughly understood in her spirit and is beginning to take verbal shape in her consciousness. She has taken the time to critically reflect on her experiences, not as isolated events, but rather as a process that is constantly moving her toward her highest good. As such, Dr. Nettles is in a state of continual healing and renewal that radiates to all that come to know her story. I once heard something to the effect that it was truly sad that so many wonderful, brilliant people pass through this life nameless -- leaving behind a legacy of profound achievement and decency -- before anyone got a chance to simply say, "thank you." Right now, Saundra Murray Nettles, I say thank you. You are an inspiration and I am so grateful that our paths have crossed.