Your Life After Trauma: Powerful Practices to Reclaim Your Identity - Hardcover

Rosenthal, Michele

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393709000 ISBN 13: 9780393709001

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2015

Synopsis

Restoring your sense of self after trauma.

“In 1981 as a thirteen-year-old child I was given a routine antibiotic for a routine infection and suffered anything but a routine reaction. An undiscovered allergy to the medication turned me into a full-body burn victim almost overnight. By the time I was released from the hospital I had lost 100% of my epidermis. Even more importantly, I had completely lost myself.”

Now a professional coach who specializes in helping trauma victims rebuild their lives, Michele Rosenthal struggled with the effects of medically-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) for over 25 years before reaching a full recovery. Today, she is 100% free of symptoms of PTSD. In this book, she applies her personal experience and professional wisdom to offer readers an invaluable roadmap to overcoming their own trauma, in particular the loss of sense of self that often accompanies it.

If you suffer from the effects of trauma or PTSD, whether it was caused by a single-incident like a car accident, or from chronic childhood abuse, domestic violence, illness, or war trauma, you are well aware of how disconnected you feel from the person you most deeply wish to be. Trauma interrupts―even hijacks―your identity. To cope, you may rely on mechanisms to keep your emotions, triggers, and responses in check, but these very habits can often prevent the true restoration of safety, stability, and inner connection. How can you rediscover your sense of self so that you honor who you were before the trauma (even if that trauma began at birth), understand who you are at this very moment, and determine who you want to be going forward?

Like a therapist in your back pocket, Your Life After Trauma guides you in finding answers to these tough questions. Expertly written by a helping professional who keenly understands the post-trauma identity crisis that is so common among trauma and PTSD sufferers, it is a simple, practical, hands-on recovery workbook. Filled with self-assessment questionnaires, exercises, tips, and tools―not to mention insightful personal and professional vignettes―it takes readers through a step-by-step process of healing the identity crisis, from understanding some of the basic brain science behind trauma and why you feel the way you do, to recognizing who you were (or had the potential to be) before the trauma, who you are today, after the trauma, and who you want to become. With this book by your side, it is possible to regain a sense of calm, confidence, and control on your road to recovery.

About this title

About the Author

Michele Rosenthal, a certified professional coach and PTSD recovery specialist, hosts a popular weekly radio program, Changing Direction. She is a former faculty member of the Clinical Development Institute for Timberline Knolls, a popular keynote speaker, frequent blogger and contributor to a variety of health and wellness websites, and author of Before The World Intruded: Conquering the Past and Creating the Future. Visit her at YourLifeAfterTraumaBook.com.

Review

“This book is fantastic . . . . I can say with certainty that [it] does live up to its promise and more. Readers will gain an understanding of how trauma affects their identity through moving, true-life stories. The book also provides insight into the science behind PTSD symptoms. . . . [R]evolutionary . . . . What makes this book stand out is that it . . . truly helps readers to create a blue print of their future selves.”
- Psychology Today

“Your Life After Trauma . . . is a heartfelt and intelligent guide to finding yourself after trauma takes away your sense of security, control, and identity. . . . [T]he author’s approach to trauma makes identity the key to unlocking the power to heal and her book, which does double-duty as a workbook, offers a broad range of valuable insights and compassionate advice. . . . Therapy Soup gives Your Life After Trauma 5 Cups of Soup out of 5, because it offers thoughtful, practical, and grounding advice for trauma recovery.”
- PsychCentral's "Therapy Soup"

“This book would be especially useful to therapists whose clients are willing to work to overcome their PTSD, but prefer to be more self-directed. Therapists can extract individual exercises to assist in servicing their clients, or even create their own exercises from ideas/concepts found in the book.”
- Somatic Psychotherapy Today

“[E]ssential reading for anyone with post-traumatic stress disorder who wants to come back to life... For those who feel powerless, Michele provides paths toward greater self-understanding, awareness, and hope. I feel safer just knowing that whatever happens (and in life, something will always happen) that a blueprint for transformation like Your Life After Trauma exists.”
- Patty Chang Anker, author of Some Nerve: Lessons Learned While Becoming Brave,

“Crisis in identity is a significant setback for many people following trauma, often occurring with debilitating shame and low self-worth. Your Life After Trauma not only provides a comprehensive approach to reclaiming or remaking identity following trauma, it fills a void in the literature on a central, but sometimes neglected aspect of recovery.”
- "Trauma's Labyrinth" by Laura K. Kerr, PhD

“As I navigated my own journey post-trauma and sought to put together the pieces of my own 'new normal,' I would have loved to have such a clearly outlined path to healing and acceptance as detailed in Rosenthal's new book. No one ever expects the bad thing will happen to them, but in the aftermath of trauma we are all changed in profound and impactful ways. Rosenthal's important book provides us all with a roadmap for going forward so that we can gracefully accept and evolve into our own best next stage. This study of trauma and identity is really the cutting edge of where the field is going and Rosenthal's work has applications for all of us, no matter what the specifics of our journeys.””
- Lee Woodruff, bestselling author of Those We Love Most

“There is life after trauma. My own PTSD taught me that the isolation and aloneness that are part of PTSD can be countered by companionship, community, and supportive love from others. Michele Rosenthal's Your Life After Trauma shows how PTSD, whatever the cause, can be transformed from weakness to strength, and how one can grow strong from the breaks.”
- Larry Dossey, MD, author of One Mind

“Michele Rosenthal has written a wise, compassionate, and comprehensive book on the profound loss of identity that occurs with posttraumatic stress, and offers a grounded, realistic approach for establishing a new sense of self that acknowledges and integrates the trauma, yet isn't defined by it. Her many case examples clarify her ideas and demonstrate the depth of her understanding, and her self-coaching tips and stress reduction practices reinforce the practical, hands-on value of this impressive book.”
- Belleruth Naparstek, author of Invisible Heroes: Survivors of Trauma and How They Heal and creator of the Health Journeys guided imagery audio series

“We can all use life coaches to guide us through life's traumatic moments and experiences. Michele Rosenthal has lived the experience and her book Your Life After Trauma is an excellent resource for those trying to heal and find their authenticity. She shows readers how to eliminate what is destroying them to save their lives. Not until your mind becomes quiet and free of PTSD can you see your true image and your genuine beauty and value. When you are willing to learn from your journey it will lead you to nourish your life just as hunger leads you to nourish your body. Michele's wisdom can make it happen for you.”
- Bernie Siegel, MD, author of The Art of Healing and A Book of Miracles

Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0393709000
• ISBN 13: 9780393709001
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 312