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Summary: The best resource for understanding PTSD and it's affect!
Review: Four years ago my Vietnam Vet husband of 26 years invited me to a new VA couple's group through the PCT clinic. The director tried his best to give us the resources and help he could. He offered me a copy of Patience Mason's book. There is so much knowledge through information & personal accounts; I believe anyone who reads it will find "the light shining in the darkness" of living with a PTSD survivor. I have highly recommended it to all spouses, family members, friends, clergy, and therapists, as well as the Vets themselves who are looking for insight and support. Even better that it's now available in an affordable paperback!
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Summary: BEST HELP YOU CAN FIND
Review: I am officially an "expert" in combat PTSD with all sorts of fancy letters after my name, and I can say that Patience Mason's RECOVERING FROM THE WAR and Aphrodite Matsakis's VIETNAM WIVES [also available from Amazon.com] do more good than a planeload of folks like me. Nobody should have to go through it alone--not the veteran, not his or her spouse, not their children, parents, friends, employers, therapists. Healing (and protection against secondary traumatic stress) happens only in community--at least that's what I conclude from 11 years working with veterans. Both of these books are useful to not only their main audience, the veteran's spouse, but to veterans themselves and anyone else who wants to make their hearts wiser and their understanding deeper. I recommend these books frequently, and for years they were hard to find.Identifying information on reviewer: Jonathan Shay, M.D., Ph.D. is a psychiatrist whose only patients are Vietnam combat veterans in the Boston VA Outpatient Clinic. He is author of _Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character_ (available from Amazon.com)
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Summary: Recovering from the War: A Woman's Guide to Helping Your Vie
Review: I highly recommend this book to ANY combat veteran's wife and family. It should be required reading for any wife of a combat veteran even if her husband has not been diagnosed with PTSD.
I have been with my wife for ten years. Last year she took our children and left me becuase she thought that she was going to lose her mind. She always thought that if she could do better then I would be OK. It didn't work and I blamed her for everything.
When she left, I promised her that I would get counseling. I did and was diagnosed with PTSD. I've had it for twenty years and never knew. After three months, she returned home and began to study this book. She totally understands now and we are healing together. We are both amazed at how accurately this book portrays our own life.
She is now my BEST FRIEND and only support system (nobody else understands). We finally have a real relationship.
My wife gets frustrated when she re-calls all of the people who told her to leave me. If it wasn't for this book she may have. Thanks Ms. Mason for opening your life to help others. You have blessed another family.
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Summary: Excellent Book for Relatives of VietNam Vets
Review: Patience's book should be a text book for all Psychology curriculums in colleges and universities. Her knowledge and understanding of PTSD is vast. She expresses her empathy and understanding for veterans with PTSD, their friends and families and this is evident in her book. Her understanding of what families and friends also experience is "right there." I recently completed my Masters in Clinical Psychology and studied much about PTSD but no textbook, lecture or class taught me as much about PTSD as Patience's book. I also spent 3 years in Vietnam during the war as a civilian woman and have a great respect for veterans and their families and PTSD is of great interest to me. For any professor or teacher teaching about trauma, this book should be on your list of required reading for your students. A dynamic book!
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Summary: A book that really helps
Review: This book has been one of the most treasured, comforting and hope-giving literary works for me and many other women and families. Whenever I have mentioned this book to women who have been struggling with dealing with a loved one suffering with PTSD, they have described it as 'a manual' It is so filled with pratical information and real life experiences, that you feel compelled to read and reread every word. I checked it out at the public library and didn't want to return it, because I wanted to always have it on hand. But alas, I am aware that it would benefit so many others if I returned it. I have borrowed it again and again. I have been unable to find it,available in a bookstore, because the title has been changed and I was not aware of that. I am so very happy to find it available again, and the price is so reasonable, that I know I will be able to tell others and they too will want to purchase. Actually, I was given the job of tracking this book down, so that it might be purchased by the women in my spousal support group, and also by the facilitator. They will all be happy that I was successful in locating this book. Already I have three people committed to purchasing it. Thank you Patience Mason, for having the insight to write this book and to share it with all of us. I have also read Chickenhawk by Patience Masons' husband. It was a very powerful book also, but more difficult to read, for me. The events were so vivid, and the emotions so filled with pain , it helped to understand better the conflicts experienced and also the repercussions to the continuing lives of the Vet and their families.
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Summary: I'm not alone!
Review: This book is an excellent counseling tool for the spouses of combat veterans who live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have given this book the many spouses. Many say that the greatest thing the book does for them is help to show that they are not alone in their experience with the veteran PTSD sufferer. Patience Mason gives the spouse an understanding of what is going on that leads to a sense of comfort and the courage to continue the battle. The battle, is to find a way to stay with their vet and at the same time preserve their own sanity. This is the best book out there for contents and ease of reading!
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Summary: I'm not alone!
Review: This book is an excellent counseling tool for the spouses of combat veterans who live with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I have given this book the many spouses. Many say that the greatest thing the book does for them is help to show that they are not alone in their experience with the veteran PTSD sufferer. Patience Mason gives the spouse an understanding of what is going on that leads to a sense of comfort and the courage to continue the battle. The battle, is to find a way to stay with their vet and at the same time preserve their own sanity. This is the best book out there for contents and ease of reading!
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Summary: This book is the best!
Review: This book was so helpful to me... I keep buying it and giving it away! It is the best book I have read on coping with PTSD, and I have read them all. It tells you what to expect and why. Who to contact in the VA for help. What forms will need to be filled out and how to deal with all the government agencies. Also lists several self-help groups. Everything from A to Z. It will give you a whole new understanding of your father, brother, husband, or significant other.
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Summary: A readable summary of PTSD & the stress of Vietnam combat
Review: This is just about the only professional quality book on psychological problems I've ever seen that wasn't written by a psychologist. It's first-rate. Patience Mason plays it just right . . . in the first section of the book, she gets out of the way of the Vietnam vets, and lets them have their say. Later in the book, she gives form to their stories, and makes terrific sense of PTSD. It's better than *any* scientific journal article on PTSD, and it's completely accessible. There are even a couple of first-rate ideas that I have never seen in the professional literature. If you think that PTSD is part of you or you loved one's lives, the investment in this book will pay off in the first 30 minutes of reading.
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