Thriving Through Crisis: Turn Tragedy and Trauma into Growth and Change

Rating:
Summary: A keeper
Review: As a therapist for thirty years, I have seen a lot of self help books come and go. This practical guide for getting through trauma is a keeper. It has wisdom, reassurance and inspiration, and demonstrates that crisis can open the door to transformative change.

Peppered with great quotes, exercises and stories of clients and friends who have survived all manner of traumatic experiences,this book is the perfect thing to put in the hands of someone still reeling from one of life's blows. It is accessible, respectful and concrete. I am recommending it to my clients enthusiastically.

Rating:
Summary: Warning - Reading this could move you beyond your pain!
Review: This book is a generous and compassionate offering that has much to offer anyone struggling with pain and crisis in their lives. The author invites readers who are dealing with a crisis to consider it to be an opportunity for personal growth and service to others.

Unlike many "self-help" books, this book does not seek to deny a person's pain. It does not seek to explain it or offer any reason "why" trauma happens in a person's life. It honors each person's pain and challenges the reader to move through it.

I find this book asks a person in crisis two powerful questions; "Who do you choose to be in the face of your life-pain and how do you want to respond?"

The reader is not just left with these questions, however but is shown how to answer these questions for themselves. This book respectfully guides the reader through a journey of discovering their own answers and challenges the self-limiting answers of victim-hood along the way.

I find this book to be a highly readable (but not simplistic) guide from a person who has "been there" and is still on his own path. The wisdom contained in Thriving Through Crisis are the very things I have learned through years of being in therapy and being a therapist.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must say that I consider myself a colleague of this author. I have benefited from his seminars and have worked with him on a number of projects. I have found his creativity, respect and compassion to be authentic.

I intend on recommending this book to anyone who is struggling with a crisis in their life. I gladly recommend it to you.