Coping with Physical Loss and Disability: A Workbook (New Horizons in Therapy) - Softcover

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Rick Ritter, MSW, a disabled veteran and social worker, has worked with more than a hundred clients who have experienced physical loss and disability. This workbook is a distillation of the very best questions and exercises to draw the client towards re-taking control of their life. He has competed in international events for disabled athletes. Ritter was also a major contributor to got parts? An Insider's Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder. He currently resides in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.

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A New Approach to Coping

This workbook provides more than 50 questions and exercises designed to empower those with physical loss and disability to bet-ter understand and accept their ongoing proc-esses of loss and recovery. The exercises in Coping with Physical Loss and Disability were distilled from ten years of clinical social work experience with clients suffering from quadriplegia, paraplegia, amputation, cancer, severe burns, HIV/AIDs, hepatitis, lupus, and neuro-muscular disorders. In fact, this work-book addresses the effects of any malady aris-ing from accident, injury, surgery, or disease.

What People Are Saying:

This workbook is a very good stimulus for focusing on issues that are crucial for better coping with loss and disability. Just putting the questions with the blanks together is a great opportunity for self-reflection and might greatly help people raise their consciousness. As I believe the saying goes 'If you do not help yourself, then no one will be able to help you.'
Beni R. Jakob, Ph.D, Israeli Arthritis Foundation (INBAR)

Ritter provides a valuable self-care plan for those suffering from the loss of physical capacity. He also shows readers how to find the mental, emotional and spiritual encouragement critical to the healing process. Georgiann Baldino, Author and cancer support-group facilitator

Losing one's bodily integrity or functioning ('physical loss') provokes mourning and a distorted self-image. The horror and recoil that disabilities elicit in the healthy only com-pound the victim's sense of deprivation and worthlessness. Though slender, the workbook is indispensable to victims of physical loss, their nearest and dearest, medical staff, and psychotherapists or grief counselors. Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited

Rick Ritter captures the depth of the emotional pain in the aftermath of physical loss and disability. This workbook format will surely provide a sense empowerment to those who feel helpless in these situations. Rev. James W. Clifton, Ph.D., LCSW
I found the workbook useful in address-ing the various aspects of the physical loss. The examples given by the author are very relevant and will help the sufferer relate to similar situations. I recommend the workbook to those who are trying to heal from past traumas or to those who are trying to help their near and dear heal. S.V. Swamy, Holistic Healer and editor of Homeopathy For Everyone This workbook is more than just a set of exercises, valuable as that can be. It is an inspiration, a guide, and in some cases may become a lifesaver. The author himself has suf-fered severe physical problems and has sur-mounted them. So he is not some 'expert' telling you what to do, but rather a guide who has been there himself. A lot of my work deals with chronic pain management and this work-book will be invaluable to my clients. Robert Rich, Ph.D., author of Cancer: A Personal Challenge This workbook is a tremendous resource that is practical and easy to use. The author shows his connection with this material in a way from which we can all benefit. Geneva Reynaga-Abiko, Psy.D., Clinical Psychologist University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Counseling Center This workbook helps people understand the grieving that occurs with physical loss and helps readers cope with their decreases in functioning. Additionally, the book asks peo-ple to search for positives that have happened, rather than dwelling totally in the negative. Susan Yost, LISW As a person with an acquired disability and a social worker who has experience work-ing with persons who have either acquired or congenital disabilities I see the usefulness and importance of Coping with Physical Loss and Disability: A Workbook. To date I have not seen another tool that can help people who have disabilities become self-aware and adjust to their new lives. This Workbook can help them to see how they still have strengths and abilities and move beyond being disabled to reestablish their self-acceptance and function-ality. If it had been written two decades earlier, this tool would have been very helpful to me after my motorcycle accident when I was 16. It would have helped me, and many of the cli-ents with disabilities I have worked with over the years, to focus on what I had left instead of wallowing on what I had lost. I will be us-ing this workbook with clients in the future and strongly recommend its use to any person who is working with persons with disabili-ties. Ian Landry, MSW, RSW Rick Ritter is able to provide us with an insightful road map to the growth process of individuals experiencing physical loss. As cli-nicians we often need to provide support to those who have experienced much more loss than we ever can imagine. This workbook is a masterpiece in helping us accomplish that pro-ficiency. Darlene DiGorio-Hevner, LCSW