Bouncing Back from Trauma

"Help for taking back the life you want to live after trauma."

Exposure to traumatic events is a natural part of police work. Building individual capacity through increased psychological flexibility before and after trauma exposure is critical to sustaining a mission-ready police force.

Bouncing Back from Trauma is the essential step-by-step guide to help police officers recover from trauma, grow, and live life with more purpose and vitality. In this easy-to-follow self-help approach, you'll feel empowered to take charge of your well-being, learn to overcome ineffective and self-defeating patterns of behavior, re-engage with who and what's important to you, and be more likely to remain employed and continue to serve your community.

Other uniformed service professionals who have experienced trauma can use this book: military service members, veterans, firefighters, and rescue workers (paramedics and emergency medical technicians). Other trauma workers, such as emergency room nurses, doctors, mental health professionals, and disaster relief workers, can also use it. This book can help family members, friends, and mental health professionals provide a supportive environment in which you can recover.

In Bouncing Back from Trauma, clinical psychologist and retired police officer, Frank Gallo, brings you through training that features specific exercises, metaphors, stories, and language that simply work because they rest on the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and the ACT Matrix. This book is the first ACT self-help workbook for police officers and other uniformed service professionals recovering from traumatic stress. It will give you the tools to live more fully, feeling greater purpose at work and everywhere else in life.

The exercises and worksheets inside this book and more resources are available at bluelifeacademy.com.

Frank J. Gallo, PhD, is the Director of Clinical Operations at the Brattleboro Retreat (VT). The Retreat is one of the oldest psychiatric hospitals in the country, providing inpatient, outpatient, and residential levels of care. Dr. Gallo also provides senior leadership of the Retreat's specialized and dedicated treatment program for law enforcement, fire, military, corrections, and emergency medical service personnel.

His clinical experience includes directing the Traumatic Stress Recovery Center at the Center for Human Development (MA) and directing the psychological health program at the Massachusetts Air National Guard 104th Fighter Wing.

In addition to Dr. Gallo's clinical experience, he was an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Western New England University-a tenured position he left to dedicate his work to helping uniformed service professionals. Dr. Gallo is a retired police officer from the Cranston, RI, Police Department. His law enforcement experience included uniformed patrol, community policing, detective work, staff training, and work on the special reaction team that involved using specialized tactics and weapons to resolve high-threat situations.

Dr. Gallo is the author of numerous articles in the field of police psychology and police training manuals. He has provided recruit and in-service training for uniformed service professionals. He has presented and consulted nationally and internationally on issues related to policing and the use of force, and nationally on the use of acceptance and commitment therapy in uniformed service settings.