Journeys Through Hell: Stories of Burn Survivors' Reconstruction of Self and Identity [Paperback]

Based on detailed interviews with twenty adult burn survivors,Journeys Through Hellexamines self, identity and social reality. Stouffer integrates theoretical perspectives with the survivors' own words to show how trauma affects the survivor's worldview, how support and acceptance are achieved, and how such an achievement is embedded within a social process involving not only the survivor but also doctors, nurses, therapists, friends and family members.Dennis J. Stoufferis a member of the Board of Directors of the Alisa Ann Ruch California Burn Foundation and an Emergency Planning and Management Specialist for Hughes Aircraft Company. He has a Ph.D. in Sociology (University of California, Union Institute) and has done extensive research on the long term consequences of burn injury.

This kind of personal testament, admixed with sociological knowledge, adds so much more to the knowledge of the field than the popular statistical aridities we generally get. This book is a major contribution and should be in the public eye as soon as possible. Norman R. Bernstein, Harvard Medical School

In describing how survivors cope with their altered lives,Journeys Through Hellserves as a model for how the survivor (of the holocaust, of rape, of a sudden disability resulting from an accident, possibly the acquiring of AIDS, etc.) discovers and constructs both personal and social meanings relative to his or her injury. This manuscript is indeed a significant contribution to scholarship. Louise Levesque-Lopman, Regis College

This is a brilliant, interpretive, pathbreaking study of catastrophic burn victims. Written from a victum's point of view, this existentially grounded inquiry charts the moral career of the burn survivor, showing how lives are shattered and then reassembled with dignity and new self-awareness, almost always with the help of loved ones and other co-survivors. A bench mark for future studies. Norman K. Denzin, Universitlƒ!