Turning Tragedy into Victory: Lessons Learned from Cops Who Have Fallen Enforcing the Law

An Unchanged Mind begins with a clinical riddle: Why are American teenagers failing to develop normally through adolescence? We are presented with case studies from a therapeutic boarding school for troubled teenagers: All new students had been deemed treatment "failures" after conventional psychiatric care. All were bright teenagers, full of promise, not obviously "ill." Yet they found themselves unprepared for the challenges of modern adolescence and inevitably failed―at school, at home, and among their peers socially. An Unchanged Mind is the discovery of the essence of this problem―disrupted maturation and resulting immaturity. The book explains the problem carefully, with a brief review of normal development and an examination of the delays today's teenagers are suffering: the causes of those delays and how they produce a flawed approach to living. There is a solution. With a sustained push to help troubled kids catch up, symptoms abate, academic and interpersonal functioning improve, and parents pronounce their teens miraculously recovered. This remedy is not a matter of pharmacology―and the cure is not in pills. The remedy is, instead, to grow up.

Larry Blum is a clinical psychologist who has devoted his life’s work to the safety and wellbeing of those who serve in law enforcement. Since 1981, he has treated hundreds of peace officers in the aftermath of lethal force encounters, traumatic crisis incidents, and the day-to-day challenges of police work. He has been recognized for his expertise in providing consultation and training to local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies in the management of police work stress.