Someone to Talk to - Finding Peace, Purpose, and Joy After Tragedy and Loss; A Recipe for Healing from Trauma and Grief - Softcover

White, Samantha M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0983214204 ISBN 13: 9780983214205

Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

Shattered by the tragic end of a happy marriage, betrayal by the next man she loved, and the violent death of her daughter, Samantha White put her life back together, piece by piece, even while plagued by illness, using a "recipe" for not only healing, but transforming the pain of tragedy and loss into new growth and spiritual deepening. Her recipe, for the reader who wishes to embark on a similar journey to peace, purpose, and joy, is included at the end of the book.

About this title

Review:

"It engaged me from the first page and kept me spellbound, and I hated to put it down until I reached its surprise happy ending. . . [A] significant contribution to the field." --S. J. Orenstein, LICSW, ACSW, NASW-MA Focus

From the Author:

My book Someone to Talk To: Finding Peace, Purpose, and Joy After Tragedy and Loss is unique in several ways. For one, it overlaps a number of genres. It's inspirational, it's self-help, it's multi-subject-related (the subjects including mental illness, grief, trauma, and psychotherapy) - but mostly, it's memoir. I'm a memoir junkie, my favorite reading is memoir, because I love getting to know people and their personal stories. I'm sure that's one of the principal reasons I became a therapist. I believe in the power of true stories to shed light on the human experience. And I had a story that wanted to be told. So that is one reason I wrote it.
While the story is for anyone, suffering or not, who enjoys a good read packed with drama and stark reality, with a happy ending, and all of it true, I'm hoping it will also be read by people who may be struggling with loss or trauma, who will find inspiration from hearing from someone who has also suffered, and came out the other side. Also, by confessing to my mistakes and my vulnerabilities and their consequences, I have made the case that therapists are human, that we experience the gamut of emotions, just as our clients do, that feeling bad is sometimes the healthiest response to terrible circumstances, and that people needn't add shame to the weight of their suffering, believing that no one else is going through what they are.
So the book is memoir, inspiration, and revelation of the private life of a therapist, and it has something else that takes it beyond those classifications, and that is the "recipe" described in my story and summarized at the end of the book. The "Recipe" is the name given to the plan I designed, by which I not only healed from what had crushed me, but grew beyond where I had been before my troubles started. So the first almost-two-hundred pages are a fast-paced story of my personal journey to the bottom of the pit of pain and loss, and my hard climb up, with a true and happy ending. Then the last eighteen pages comprise a little addendum called, "A Recipe for a Healed Life," that briefly recounts the plan I devised, and the steps I took, that brought me to this place of peace, purpose, and joy after tragedy and loss. It's there for the reader who wants to follow a similar plan, either just like mine or one of his or her own design, for what I call "healing beyond healing." To know what I mean by that, you would have to read the book.
I hope you enjoy the read and my story, and that it shines a light for you on the wonderful possibilities in life, no matter how bleak it can sometimes seem. Tragedy can reshape us, and we can discover that we're more resilient than we ever imagined.

About this edition

• Publisher: Virtualbookworm.com Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0983214204
• ISBN 13: 9780983214205
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216