Böcker av Brenda Denzler

When Brenda Denzler got a diagnosis of inflammatory breast cancer at age 56, she was almost as terrified of her doctors and what they proposed to do to her as she was of the cancer itself. Fearing and mistrusting the only people who could (possibly) save her life, she found herself trapped in a bad dream from which she couldn't wake up--living out in her daily reality the events of the recurring nightmare that had disrupted her sleep for decades. As she soon discovered, the dark events that had dogged her dreams originated in events fifty years earlier, with other doctors and other nurses who had done things to her "for her own good." This is the story of Brenda's struggle to survive, not just physically, but, most importantly, psychologically in the face of her overwhelming terror of the doctors and nurses who, once again, wanted to do things to her "for her own good." It is also a searingly honest look at the ways that medicine--yesterday and today--too often needlessly traumatizes its patients. Brenda began her cancer treatments determined to fight to live. By the end, her medical encounters had left her feeling that perhaps it would be better if she had died. For My Own Good is a deep dive into the places where medical need and psychological damage overlap and compete for healing attention. It is also a call for a way of providing health care that runs less risk of traumatizing patients (and professionals). For My Own Good will have you closing the book so you can catch your breath, then compulsively picking it up again to read more. Whether you are one of the many thousands of people with PTSD due to traumatic medical treatment, their friends and family who have had to stand back powerlessly and watch, or a doctor or nurse who has struggled to treat a difficult patient with a traumatic medical past, Brenda's story rings a bell that we must not fail to hear.

UFO phenomena entered American consciousness at the beginning of the Cold War, when reports from astonished witnesses of encounters with unknown aerial objects captured the attention of the United States military and the imagination of the press and the public. But when UFOs appeared not to be hostile, and when some scientists pronounced the sightings to be of natural meteorological phenomena misidentified due to "e;Cold War jitters,"e; military interest declined sharply and, with it, further overt scientific interest. Yet sighting reports didn't stop and UFOs entered the public imagination as a cultural myth of the twentieth century. Brenda Denzler's comprehensive, clearly written, and compelling narrative provides the first sustained overview and valuation of the UFO/alien abduction movement as a social phenomenon positioned between scientific and religious perspectives. Demonstrating the unique place ufology occupies in the twentieth-century nexus between science and religion, Denzler surveys the sociological contours of its community, assesses its persistent attempt to achieve scientific legitimacy, and concludes with an examination of the movement's metaphysical or spiritual outlook. Her book is a substantial contribution to our understanding of American popular culture and the boundaries of American religion and to the debate about the nature of science and religion.Denzler presents a thorough and fascinating history of the UFO/abduction movement and traces the tensions between those who are deeply ambivalent about abduction narratives that seemingly erode their quest for scientific credibility, and the growing cultural power of those who claim to have been abducted. She locates the phenomenon within the context of American religious history and, using data gathered in surveys, sheds new light on the social profile of these UFO communities. The Lure of the Edge succeeds brilliantly in repositioning a cultural phenomenon considered by many to be bizarre and marginal into a central debate about the nature of science, technology, and the production of a modern myth.