An insightful perspective on clinical and spiritual recovery.
A self-help book about using trauma as a catalyst for personal development.
Ungerland, a psychologist and seminar leader, offers a well-researched guide to a psychological theory called post-traumatic growth. She defines it as “an empirical model...for turning crisis into expansion” with seven stages, and she illustrates it with stories of several people who’ve emerged from traumas (whose names have been changed). Brad, for example, was a victim of fraud; Sarah lost her legs after being hit by a car; and Jane stayed in a dysfunctional marriage. The interview subjects show significant commonalities; for example, during the initial “immobilization” phase, patients believed that their issues were truly insurmountable, and only after mourning their losses could they move forward: “The truth will set us free, eventually, but first it will make us suffer,” Ungerland writes. Jane “spent years in denial” about her marriage before accepting its failure, but after a period of grief, she had an epiphany: “I knew that if I continued life as it was, I was going to get physically sick, that it could kill me. That was the morning that I started to be different.” This type of revelation takes place during the model’s third phase, Ungerland writes, “once we have reached a point of utter surrender.” During the remaining steps, subjects envisioned happier lives for themselves and developed useful traits, such as flexibility and autonomy. The book includes several unsurprising recommendations, such as meditation, journaling, and pursuing therapy. However, Ungerland adds depth to the book by incorporating poetry by Rumi, historical anecdotes, and colorful metaphors, as when she describes post-traumatic growth as “a GPS of the soul.” The seven stages can seem overly linear; surely, some patients regress before moving forward again, and this possibility remains unexplored. But the book is especially informative about escaping a mentality of victimhood, which requires hope: “Maybe the first step is to realize that we will somehow be held and nourished, often when we least expect it, by a friend or by a perfect stranger…or by a moonrise on a river…anything can heal us.”
An insightful perspective on clinical and spiritual recovery.Pub Date: June 2, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-59715-210-5
Page Count: 211
Publisher: Chapel Hill Press
Review Posted Online: Oct. 29, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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