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The Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Sourcebook: A Guide to Healing, Recovery, and Growth
$21.95
Issued ten years ago, the first edition of Schiraldi's PTSD Sourcebook became (at least over time) the "industry standard" orientation text for new counselors and therapists in the VA Healthcare System. Then, as now, it was both comprehensive and easy to understand.

I wondered (in about 2000 or 2001) why it wasn't used as a complete "patient education" piece, but over time, I came to understand that the VA is =very= conservative about such matters. With good reason, at least in some respects: There was material in the first edition that was surely capable of triggering PTSD symptoms in readers who had not yet progressed far enough in therapy to defend against such triggering.

While not a substantial revision of the original, the second edition does add a number of simplified descriptions of therapeutic techniques as well as mentions here and there of newer efficacy research to support these and previously included methods. That said, the second edition continues to be the single best, mass-market text available for understanding PTSD's causes and conditions, as well as doing something meaningful about it.

With regard to the controversy over triggering, my suggestion is simply that while PTSD sufferers with denser, more primitive ego defenses (e.g.: dissociation, rage, nihilistic depressive orientation) require some work before tackling a book like this, most sufferers - and family members alike - will be hugely rewarded for diving in here. Schiraldi's book is "practical" and "hands-on," as opposed to "heavily neurobiological" or "interactionally theoretical."

This is not Bessel van der Kolk's (wonderful) =Traumatic Stress= or even Matthew Friedman's terrific little =Post-Traumatic and Acute Stress Disorders=. But, as a clinician, I found it (once again) to be a very effective re-orientation toward discussing PTSD and its component issues =with= those who are neither neuropsychologists or theory-soaked experts on interactional traumatization, let alone psychopharmacologists.

Schiraldi neatly distills the whole gamut of topics on nature and nurture, as well as stress and de-stress, into one- and two-syllable verbiage we can use to make sense of it all the same way the =patient= will have to make sense of it.

Do I have issues with the book? Of course. Shiraldi does tend towards the VAHS culture's view that one size fits all here and there. And some clinicians who have not themselves worked through their all-or-nothing orientations may get the idea that the author has covered all of the possible bases. He has not. But if he tried to do so, the book would be impossibly large, as well as needlessly difficult for lay readers.

That's a critique, however, that can be made of nearly any mass market book on such a complex subject. On the whole, this is a valuable and worthwhile read for clinicians and patients alike.

Merriweather Post Pavilion
$15.98
Spacey, Repetitive, and non melodic i just can't imagine why NPR gave this a top 50 album. There's nothing great on any level and i'm a huge fan off weird off the wall indie type bands but this is just not good.

Moonrays 91249 Solar Powered Plastic Post Cap Lamp Light, Black
$9.79
Bought 2 Moonrays solar lights. The amount of light given out is as expected. However, one light worked for about 1 week and then just stopped working. Second light didn't work for 1 week and then just started working. I know these were cheap solar lights but they are extremely unreliable. I also notice rain penetrated one of the lights - so they can't be sealed too well.

The Post-American World
$15.95
Whenever I see Fareed Zakaria on CNN or read one of his magazine or journal articles, I'm always very impressed. Earlier this year, he wrote a cover story for Newsweek called "The Capitalist Manifesto," and it was phenomenal. Zakaria knows how to take a complex subject and condense it down in a small amount of time or number of pages so that someone with very little background knowledge can begin to grasp the issue. The problem that becomes obvious very quickly in the Post-American World is that once Zakaria moves beyond the length of a long article, he starts to ramble and it becomes a chore to finish reading what he's started.

It's not that he doesn't know what he's talking about. He has some fantastic insights, but he's written a 259 page book that could have easily been reduced to 100 pages and no one would have missed what was cut out. His premise is simple (and one that most would consider accurate): that the world is changing and other countries like India and China are witnessing their global power and influence increase relative to that of the United States. Other than the specific chapters that deal with India and China, the rest of the book wanders of into vague territory that's a mixture of surface-level historical analysis mixed with observations of the current world, and all with very little in the way of cited sources. After finishing the book, I found it very hard to remember specific points or details. The chapters aren't divided into smaller sections (with a few exceptions) so the result is a very unorganized book that seems much longer than it is.

The worst part about this for me is that this is an important topic that needs to be explored in-depth. Zakaria unfortunately only scratches the surface due to the fact that this type of format is miles away from the format and style that he's proven himself so capable of succeeding at on numerous occasions. I would highly recommend seeking out his articles or watching his Sunday program on CNN, but this book will provide very little in the way of new information or ideas if you're already somewhat familiar with current events and modern global history.