Books like Broken People — picked by fans

Colonel Grossman's work, with Loren Christensen, discusses, in practical if sometimes harsh terms, the realities of psychology in combat, hard realities encountered by military personnel and by law enforcement officers. 

This is a critical work for anyone interested in the realities of the human mind in battle, and especially for those mental health personnel who may have to deal with the harsh realities of violence in mental health settings without personal experience or personal understanding of the field realities of combat and violence.

This book should be required reading for anyone dealing with military or law enforcement personnel in the mental health realm.

A former Apache helicopter pilot with multiple deployments under his belt, Don combines his, “been there, done that” with, “write what you know.”

Fans of relentless action and adrenaline should not pass up on Bentley’s Matt Drake series. Or his Jack Ryan Jr. books carrying on the Tom Clancy legacy. Or the next installment of the Mitch Rapp series as he takes over for Vince Flynn’s legacy. Seriously, Don is a busy man. 

In Without Sanction, Bentley’s protagonist experiences both mental and physical manifestations of PTSD, but it’s Don’s description of survivor’s guilt that is truly chilling in its accuracy and moving in its portrayal.

As you read the account of what Drake now has to live with, what he wrestles with on a daily basis, it brings about in the reader a sense of foreboding as close to the real thing as you might imagine.

Only those who… show more.

Bob Schmidt is a licensed professional counselor in Sandy Hook, Connecticut who has worked diligently to help shooting survivors and their families as well as others in the community with their emotional needs. He is known for utilizing state-of-the-art trauma therapy such as “Tapping,” (Emotional Freedom Technique), which has proven successful in treating PTSD. This book includes a wealth of examples of wellness techniques and trauma-response activities that have proven helpful in relieving high levels of stress and PTSD. These activities make individuals more resilient, so they are better prepared to face life’s challenges and learn to accept the ones they cannot change. Resiliency is one of the keys to happiness, and is increasingly found as a productive way to prepare for any possible disturbing event in the future. 

This book reveals how the body stores emotional and traumatic memories long after the mind tries to forget them.

Van der Kolk explains why symptoms like anxiety, emotional numbness, anger, or disconnection can surface years later.

Many men who “push through” or never talk about their trauma find clarity in this book’s explanation of how stress affects the brain and nervous system. It helps readers understand themselves physically and emotionally, while giving hope that healing is possible through therapy, mindfulness, and self-awareness.

I discovered this book before almost anyone else in a New Age store that sold jewelry and cards and had a small selection of books. When I picked it up and saw two tigers on the cover, I had to buy it.

As soon as I read it, I thought, “This is the most useful way of thinking about and working with trauma that I have ever seen. When I called to try to join a training program, I was told there was no training program yet. I kept checking, then finally gave up.

It took several years before Peter Levine finally started a training program, and I signed up. Somatic Experiencing has deeply influenced my work.

What I love about Jennifer’s writing is that her stories focus on the hope in recovery, with the climactic moment usually happening early on. Cora is kidnapped with her brother-in-law-to-be (Dean) by a prolific serial killer.

The story follows their journey, which is fraught with the pitfalls and messiness of the human condition. Both characters make mistakes, and it is one of those books you really want to throw at the wall out of desperation. This book makes you feel all your feelings. It shows the reader that everyone reacts differently, and sometimes love, even from unexpected places, can be immensely healing.

Oh, the delicious snark of it all. Murderbot may—or may not—have a human heart, but what it does have is attitude with a capital A.

System Collapse focuses on the further adventures of the cyberbot security unit that has hacked itself free from dangerous behavioral controls and named itself Murderbot. The gender-free bot is suffering from PTSD resulting in memory lapses and odd behavior that endangers not only Murderbot but the humans they're protecting from being killed/enslaved by evil Corporate raiders and/or contaminated by deadly alien biotech.

Some of the funniest moments come when human characters try to get touchy-feely with Murderbot, much to their horror. Honestly, Murderbot would rather just watch soap operas with buddy/significant other, ART, the AI ship they live on. It helps to have read the previous 6 books to know who all the characters are and their histories.

I love this workbook because it is straightforward in defining childhood developmental trauma. It explains the Autonomic Nervous System and how trauma stays stuck in the body today. I use diagrams and simple worksheets to explain why my clients feel the way they do.

I like that it explains that trauma is not just working out through the brain but includes the body, most importantly. I also believe that true healing from trauma has to include somatic body-based work, which this workbook explains. 

A different look at the dream of being in the big leagues, this time not from an umpire but the person who puts the field in field of dreams.

David Mellor was a talented player whose aspirations were crushed, literally, after a car struck him in a McDonald’s parking lot. Setbacks, traumas, and unbelievably getting mowed down again by a deranged driver, he unwarily suffered PTSD.

Through it all he persevered to rise up as the Head Groundskeeper of his beloved Boston Red Sox, renowned as one of the best in all of baseball. 

First published in 1992, this book tied hidden individual trauma to other, more recognized, and accepted forms of trauma, such as combat and terrorism. Beautifully written and insightful, it broadened our understanding of trauma and made the case for taking domestic violence, rape, and sexual abuse more seriously than the culture at large had heretofore taken it.

As someone who lived through the era where women were advised if they were raped to “lie back and enjoy it,” the book brought a dose of reality to the surreal assumptions of people who minimized and excused domestic battery, rape, and sexual assault.

The book also addressed why efforts are so often made to silence survivors. Perhaps the most famous quote from the book is, "It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire… show more.