Book review—Wounded Spirits

A short review of the book "Wounded Spirits" by Douglas J. Carragher Th. D. It is subtitled "A Biblical approach to dealing with the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)."



The author is a Sergeant Major, U.S. Army (Ret), who now is the general director of Armed Forces Baptist Missions, mission's speaker, teacher, Biblical counselor, and Christian military advocate.

The book has 8 chapters. Each chapter deals with a particular topic dealing with the person suffering from PTSD and a solution. The topics deal with suicide, fear, guilt which includes survivor's guilt, anger, nightmares, conflicts, and apathy. The template he follows is to introduce a topic, define it, perhaps have an example, and then offer a solution. The solutions are based on Scripture. At the end of each chapter are a few questions which makes this suitable for personal study or group study.

The chapter on anger is probably the best. Carragher lists 6 biblical explanations for anger and 3 things one must do to deal with anger. Anger is an overwhelming societal problem and would be helpful if everyone read/studied it.

In some ways the chapters are a little too short. I believe it would be helpful, to me anyway, to have a few examples and testimonies. There are a few but more would illustrate the suffering these people have to put up with. He deals with the main start of any solution—the Gospel of Jesus in every chapter; perhaps these were given in a sermon or topical sermon series. The solutions are good. They are based on the Scriptures, which is the operator's manual for issues we face in life.

The short questions at the end of each chapter will lead to further discussion and solutions.

This book is a wonderful start to understand and provide counsel for a serious and increasingly common disorder.

As I mentioned before it would have be helpful to include case studies and more examples to help understand each topic. The ones that the author gives are brief. The case studies would be helpful to see the help Scriptural counsel gives.

Overall I recommend this book for anyone who suffers from PTSD, has a family member suffering from this, does counseling, or wishes to further their understanding of this suffering condition.