Emotional Recovery After Natural Disasters: How to Get Back to Normal Life (An Idyll Arbor Personal Health Book)

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Summary: Immediate Help with Natural Disaster and Other Life Traumas
Review: Although the title of the book points to the treatment of trauma from natural disasters like fire, flood or earthquake, its use is easily extended to other large traumas in life: widowhood, layoff, shocking medical news like breast cancer. When I got my own shocking news, I so appreciated specific remedies which I could use right then and there - and which did much to alleviate my emotional pain and fear. For example, the "thought-voices" - those involuntary intrusions which surface day or night to send you dark, dreary and counterproductive messages - can and should be quieted to give you the space to get back on track, to get back into your life, quickly. There are techniques in this book to silence these unwanted messengers. A goal is to not linger in the trauma, not to be debilitated by it. With compassionate regard, Singer's style is clear, touching and well-written; she gets right to the point; her practices and techniques are grounded in decades of treating trauma victims; there is no "padding". I am generally super leery of therapy and self-help but give this book 5 stars and gratitude for its lucidity, practicality and the specific help that it gave me personally.

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Summary: With information, advice and counseling
Review: Natural disasters come in a wide variety of forms and degrees of severity. But there is one universal factor -- their devastating impact on the lives and emotions of the men, women and children who endure and survive them. In Emotional Recovery After Natural Disasters, Ilana Singer has written a unique self-help book of information, advice and counseling on how best to get back to a normal life after experiencing a flood, fire, hurricane, tornado, earthquake, or any other kind of natural disaster. Singer addresses "ordeal fatigue", depression as a response to trauma, the phenomena of "ambient anxiety", and more. Of special interest are the chapters "Children Speak"; Teens Speak"; "Senors and Trauma Recovery". Emotional Recovery After Natural Disasters is enhanced further with a chapter dedicated to "Frequently Asked Questions"; a glossary, a bibliography for further study, and an index. If you or a loved one is experiencing a delayed or impaired psychology/emotional recovery from a natural disaster experience, then I urge you to give a careful reading to Ilana Singer's Emotional Recovery After Natural Disasters.