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
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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