Books on PTSD
Recommended Titles for the VA Clinician
by Fred Lerner, D.L.S., and Julian Ford, Ph.D
There is no shortage of books on post-traumatic stress disorder. The National Center for PTSD has hundreds of them in our Resource Center.
We have
selected fifteen titles that, in our opinion, would form the backbone of the VA clinician's working library. Please consider this list just a
beginning, and consult our Web site and PILOTS database for other books and articles in your particular areas of interest.
PTSD in General.
In Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society, edited by Bessel van der Kolk and colleagues,
several of the world's leading experts on PTSD attempt to summarize the current state of knowledge about the effects of trauma on psychological,
biological, and social systems, and to examine the interrelationships among these different realms. They present a range of treatment options
that have been developed for different trauma populations over the past two decades.
The scientific aspects of traumatic stress are covered by Matthew Friedman and colleagues in Neurobiological and Clinical Consequences of
Stress. They examine basic science studies of stress from a variety of approaches, and describe animal models of neurobiological processes
that have heuristic value for clinical theory on the pathophysiology of PTSD. Later chapters discuss laboratory and clinical abnormalities detected
in human subjects exposed to normal stressors and in PTSD patients exposed to traumatic stressors. Research findings applicable to the detection,
diagnosis, and psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy of PTSD are also reviewed.
Donald Meichenbaum's A Clinical Handbook/Practical Therapist Manual for Assessing and Treating Adults with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
(PTSD) is intended to make mental health professionals "more expert" in working with traumatized clients. Its emphasis is on making the decisions
that arise in clinical practice, providing practical tools and procedures for hands-on clinical work.
Special Veteran Populations
In Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation, Richard A. Kulka and colleagues present findings from the National Vietnam Veterans Readustment
Study, which was mandated by the U.S. Congress in 1983 to establish the prevalence and incidence of PTSD and other psychological problems in
readjusting to civilian life among Vietnam veterans. This is the most detailed epidemiological survey of Vietnam era veterans. Its focus was on
white, black, and Hispanic veterans. The NCPTSD's Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans Project applied the same methodology to determine the extent of PTSD
among American Indian and Asian-Pacific Islander Vietnam veterans. Its findings were published in the
Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans Project Final Report .
Jonathan Shay presents a different approach to the Vietnam experience in Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character .
He attempts to apply the perspective of the combat soldier to understanding Homer's Iliad . Shay suggests that catastrophic war experiences can cause
lifelong disabling psychiatric symptoms and damage even the healthiest and hardiest of individuals.
As part of a court settlement, the Agent Orange Class Assistance Program conducted a national symposium on providing services to Vietnam
veterans and their families. The Legacy of Vietnam Veterans and Their Families collects 41 papers from that 1994 symposium, which emphasized
the problems faced by veterans' spouses and children.
Robert Ursano and Ann Norwood have brought together a collection of essays on a more recent veteran population in Emotional Aftermath
of the Persian Gulf War . The psychiatric and psychological effects seen before and after combat--in those about to leave for war and in those
returning from war, as well as in their children and families--are highlighted, as are the potential long-term effects as suggested by studies of
previous war veterans. Whenever possible, attempts are made to quantify the nature of the stressor and the individual or community response to
trauma.
Other Special Populations
Judith Herman's Trauma and Recovery describes from a feminist clinician and scholar's viewpoint the psychological harm suffered by people
who have endured prolonged, repeated abuse. Herman develops an overview of the healing process and offers a new conceptual framework for psychotherapy
with traumatized people.
Ethnocultural Aspects of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Issues, Research, and Clinical Applications , edited by Anthony J. Marsella and
colleagues, deals with ethnocultural variations and similarities in the etiology, distribution, expression, clinical diagnosis, and treatment of
PTSD and related stress disorders.
Assessment
John P. Wilson and Terence M. Keane offer a comprehensive treatment of assessment issues in Assessing Psychological Trauma and PTSD.
They and their contributors address psychological and psychophysiological techniques in general, and then discuss their application to specific
populations. They devote chapters to several of the most important questionnaire, interview, behavior sampling, and projective assessment
instruments.
Brief descriptions and reviews of 98 instruments used in the assessment of trauma, stress, and PTSD may be found in B. Hudnall Stamm's
Measurement of Stress, Trauma, and Adaptation , which includes the full text of several of the instruments.
Therapeutic Approaches .
In Stress Response Syndromes , Mardi Horowitz describes a pioneering theory of traumatic stress, which emphasizes the intrusive repetitions
and denial that are the two extremes of response to stressful life events. He discusses the implications of this model for focused, brief,
psychodynamic psychotherapy.
Lisa McCann and Laurie Anne Pearlman use "constructivist self development theory" (CSDT) as a theoretical model in Psychological Trauma
and the Adult Survivor: Theory, Therapy, and Transformation. They propose that adaptation to trauma is a result of a complex interplay between
life experiences and the developing self, and that individuals possess an inherent capacity to construct their own personal realities as they
interact with their environment. McCann and Pearlman then offer a CSDT-based concept of therapy for trauma survivors.
Special Issues
Confronting Clinicians. Countertransference in the Treatment of PTSD, edited by John Wilson and Jacob Lindy, is a book about what
clinicians go through as they listen to and work with trauma patients and how their own experiences may help or hinder the recovery process.
After outlining the general issues raised historically and currently in the areas of countertransference and trauma, the book examines the
special forces at work in countertransference when helping women and children who have witnessed, or been the victims of, sexual, physical,
and emotional abuse. Several chapters examine countertransference arising in those who treat the survivors of political violence and war. A
concluding section addresses countertransference in rescue workers, mental health providers, and other "at-risk" professionals. (For a summary
of recent research on "helping-induced trauma," see B. Hudnall Stamm's article on "Work-Related
Secondary Traumatic Stress" in the Spring 1997 issue of the PTSD Research Quarterly .)
C.B. Scrignar's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Legal Issues is based on the proposition that "clinicians
who evaluate and treat PTSD patients will unavoidably become involved in matters related to legal issues." Thus in addition to diagnosis and
treatment, his book focuses on the forensic evaluation and the expert witness, personal injury litigation and workers' compensation, the plaintiff
and the defense in civil cases, and on PTSD in criminal cases.
NCPTSD Information Resources
In addition to the books that we have mentioned, there are several resources produced by the National Center for PTSD that clinicians will
find useful in their daily work. Each issue of the PTSD Research Quarterly reviews and summarizes important
research publications in a particular area of traumatic stress work. The NCPClinical Quarterly publishes
short articles on issues that arise on the front lines of working with traumatized veterans and family members. Both these publications are
available on the NCPTSD's World Wide Web site at <http://www.dartmouth.edu/dms/ptsd/>.
The NCPTSD's Web site also offers access to the PILOTS database, an online index to the world's
traumatic stress literature, as well as brief search guidelines and detailed instructions for using the database effectively. And the Web site
offers a variety of fact sheets, which may copied and distributed to clients and colleagues, and other publications derived from the NCPTSD's
research and clinical activities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Friedman, Matthew J.; Charney, Dennis S.; Deutch, Ariel Y. (eds.). Neurobiological and Clinical Consequences of Stress: From Normal Adaptation
to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder . Philadelphia: Lippincott-Rasven, 1995. ($135.00 cloth, ISBN 0-7817-0177-5)
Herman, Judith Lewis. Trauma and Recovery . New York: BasicBooks, 1992. (O.P. cloth, ISBN 0-465-08765-5; $14.00 paper, ISBN 0-465-08730-2)
Horowitz, Mardi Jon. Stress Response Syndromes , 3d ed. Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson, 1997. ($40.00 paper, ISBN 0-7657-0025-5)
Kulka, Richard A.; Schlenger, William E.; Fairbank, John A.; Hough, Richard L.; Jordan, B. Kathleen; Marmar, Charles R.; Weiss, Daniel S. Trauma and the Vietnam War Generation: Report of Findings from the National Vietnam Veterans Readjustment Study . New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990. ($34.95 cloth, ISBN 0-87630-573-7)
Marsella, Anthony J.; Friedman, Matthew J.; Gerrity, Ellen T.; Scurfield, Raymond M. (eds.). Ethnocultural Aspects of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Issues, Research, and Clinical Applications . Washington: American Psychological Association, 1996. ($49.95 cloth, ISBN 1-55798-319-4)
McCann, I. Lisa; Pearlman, Laurie Anne. Psychological Trauma and the Adult Survivor: Theory, Therapy, and Transformation . New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1990. ($43.95 cloth, ISBN 0-87630-594-X)
Meichenbaum, Donald. A Clinical Handbook/Practical Therapist Manual for Assessing and Treating Adults with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) . Waterloo, Ontario: Institute Press, 1994. ($45.00 paper; ISBN 0-9698840-0-1)
National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; NCPTSD for American Indian and Alaska Native Mental Health Research. Matsunaga Vietnam Veterans Project Final Report . White River Junction, Vermont: National Center for PTSD, 1997. (For sale by the National Technical Information Service, Springfield, Virginia 22161. $19.50 microfiche, $49.00 paper, PB98-126295. Available on interlibrary loan from the PTSD Resource Center, National Center for PTSD (116D), VA Medical Center, White River Junction, Vermont 05009)
Rhoades, Dennis K.; Leaveck, Michael R.; Hudson, James C. (eds.). The Legacy of Vietnam Veterans and Their Families: Survivors of War, Catalysts for Change . Washington: Agent Orange Class Assistance Program, 1995. (For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office, Superintendent of Documents. O.P. cloth, ISBN 0-9647667-0-1; $34.00 paper, ISBN 0-9647667-1-X, SN 028-004-00090-7)
Scrignar, C.B. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Diagnosis, Treatment, and Legal Issues , 3d ed. New Orleans: Bruno Press, 1996. ($59.95 cloth, ISBN 0-945032-05-6; $39.95 paper, ISBN 0-945032-06-4)
Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character . New York: Atheneum, 1994 ($20.00 cloth, ISBN 0-689-12182-2; $12.00 paper, Touchstone Press ISBN 0-684-81321-1)
Stamm, B. Hudnall (ed.). Measurement of Stress, Trauma, and Adaptation . Lutherville, Maryland: Sidran Press, 1996. ($55.00 paper, ISBN 1-886968-02-0)
Ursano, Robert J.; Norwood, Ann E. (eds.). Emotional Aftermath of the Persian Gulf War: Veterans, Families, Communities, and Nations . Washington: American Psychiatric Press, 1996. ($72.95 cloth, ISBN 0-88048-652-X)
Van der Kolk, Bessel; McFarlane, Alexander C.; and Weisaeth, Lars (eds.) Traumatic Stress: The Effects of Overwhelming Experience on Mind, Body, and Society . New York: Guilford Press, 1996 ($55.00 cloth, ISBN 1-57230-088-4)
Wilson, John P.; Keane, Terence M. (eds.). Assessing Psychological Trauma and PTSD . New York: Guilford Press, 1997 ($55.00 cloth, ISBN 1-57230-162-7) Wilson, John P.; Lindy, Jacob D. (eds.). Countertransference in the Treatment of PTSD . New York: Guilford Press, 1994. ($44.00 cloth, ISBN 0-89862-369-3)
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