Beyond Invisible Walls

Reviews / Votes

"Beyond Invisible Walls is a stunning, groundbreaking accomplishment. Lindy and Lifton, two pioneers in the field of traumatic stress research, have blended clinical insights into the ways in which totalitarian nation states create trauma to manipulate individuals, cultures, and intergenerational patterns of communication. This brilliant book pushes the envelope of understanding psychological trauma and post-traumatic effects to society. It develops new conceptual paradigms of trauma, psychotherapy, and psychohistory. This book will be a classic and is a 'must read'." -- John P. Wilson, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Cleveland State University, and Past-President, International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies
"Beyond Invisible Walls: The Psychological Legacy ofSoviet Trauma, Eastern European Therapists and TheirPatients, is a huge book, many times larger than its 251 pages. It raises a multitude of issues, such as the effects of trauma and loss, the role of the outer world in the development of self, the correspondents of the analysts, and patients, experience, and the resilience of the human being subject to the most extreme conditions. The reader does not expect any final resolution but is left deeply appreciative of the attempts and hungry for more. Clearly, this book is not a final product. One fervently hopes that it will be widely read and a beginning." -- The American Journal of Psychoanalysis
"The editors went through a commendable effort to locate Eastern European practitioners and recover their voices. This psychohistorical approach is an exemplary attempt to do "history from below" by linking individual biographies to political culture. The various contributions deal with such diverse aspects as the links between childrearing practices, pathology, and the political system, and the effect of dislocation, war, and torture on individual patients. Some of the chapters (especially the chapter on Romania) can be harrowing reading, attesting to the grossest of human rights abuses." -- Journal of History of the Behavioral Sciences, Spring 2003