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BOOKS ON POSTTRAUMATIC STRESS:

For Clients: 

        This workbook was written by folks who are excellent researchers and dedicated clinicians.  It outlines some of the steps that go into effective treatment of posttraumatic stress.  It's well worth looking at, and you and your psychologist may want to incorporate elements from it into treatment.  

For Professionals:

Neurobiological and Clinical Consequences of Stress (Eds. Friedman, Charney, & Deutch) No picture was available for this book.  This book does a scholarly job of covering PTSD from a cellular level to an examination of behavioral theory.  There are clear, intelligent, and useful summaries of relevant behavioral theory that have been distilled from articles that, in their original form, sometimes made my molars ache.  

       Trauma and Recovery (Judith Hermann).  A classic in the trauma literature.  In our opinion, one of the gifts of this book is its empathy for the experience of trauma, and Hermann's understanding of trauma a personal, interpersonal, and cultural levels.

Shattered Assumptions (Ronnie Janoff-Bulman).  Janoff-Bulman focuses on the concept that, often, traumatic experiences can shake a person's fundamental beliefs about the world, about others, and about one's self.  It can be terrifying to come face to face with an experience that annihilates one's ability to assume that the world is safe, that other's won't do harm, and that we can protect ourselves and have some control and predictability in our lives.

    Traumatic Stress (Eds. Van Der Kolk & McFarlane).  This book is an edited volume with excellent information about a number or areas of study in PTSD.  It includes Van Der Kolk's chapter, "The Body Keeps the Score."  I believe this chapter is an revision of an article he wrote by the same title.  It offers some excellent thoughts on interactions between mind and brain, experience and biology in PTSD.  Several other chapters are also excellent.                                     

Effective Treatments for PTSD.  A thorough review of outcome studies on treatment for PTSD.  If you don't have time to follow the treatment literature as its published, this summaries in this book are the next best thing.  As is appropriate, Foa's thorough and rigorous research on Prolonged Exposure is acknowledged and noted as the best-supported treatment available.  If you have training in conducting or critiquing research, checking the articles cited in this book can be very helpful.  While the summaries provided here are a good starting place, in our opinion there is no substitute for reading and critiquing the journal articles and attending presentations by the authors.   

    Psychobiology of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.  A collection of exceptionally fine chapters on biological research in PTSD.  Even if biology is not your cup of tea and terms like "HPA Axis" and "GCR downregulation" mean nothing to you, it's worth taking a look at this book.  Looking into some of the psychophysiology of PTSD can be extremely helpful in understanding PTSD and informing treatment.

Treating the Trauma of Rape.  The first few chapters of this book do a nice job summarizing information about PTSD and treatment, and the remainder of the book outlines Foa & Rothbaum's protocol for PTSD.  It's a very helpful touchstone.  One approach that can be rewarding is to also check into some of the articles Foa, Kozak, Lang, Mowrer, and others have written that inform the theory upon which Prolonged Exposure is based.  The work, and it's coalescence into an effective treatment, is a brilliant application of behavioral theory.

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The information posted on this site reflects our understanding of peer-reviewed research and generally accepted principles in psychology.  It is not intended to be used for self-treatment or as a substitute for individualized assessment and treatment by a licensed professional, and should not be construed as professional advice.

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