Book picks similar to
Bone: Dying Into Life by Marion Woodman
memoir
psychology
spirituality
self-help
The Dark Side of the Mind: True Stories from My Life as a Forensic Psychologist
Kerry Daynes - 2019
The job: to delve into the psyche of convicted men and women to try to understand what lies behind their often brutal actions. Follow in the footsteps of Kerry Daynes, one of the most sought-after forensic psychologists in the business and consultant on major police investigations. Kerry's job has taken her to the cells of maximum-security prisons, police interview rooms, the wards of secure hospitals and the witness box of the court room. Her work has helped solve a cold case, convict the guilty and prevent a vicious attack. Spending every moment of your life staring into the darker side of life comes with a price. Kerry's frank memoir gives an unforgettable insight into the personal and professional dangers in store for a female psychologist working with some of the most disturbing men and women.
Building a Life Worth Living: A Memoir
Marsha M. Linehan - 2020
"Because if you were, it would give all of us so much hope."Over the years, DBT had saved the lives of countless people fighting depression and suicidal thoughts, but Linehan had never revealed that her pioneering work was inspired by her own desperate struggles as a young woman. Only when she received this question did she finally decide to tell her story.In this remarkable and inspiring memoir, Linehan describes how, when she was eighteen years old, she began an abrupt downward spiral from popular teenager to suicidal young woman. After several miserable years in a psychiatric institute, Linehan made a vow that if she could get out of emotional hell, she would try to find a way to help others get out of hell too, and to build a life worth living. She went on to put herself through night school and college, living at a YWCA and often scraping together spare change to buy food. She went on to get her PhD in psychology, specializing in behavior therapy. In the 1980s, she achieved a breakthrough when she developed Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, a therapeutic approach that combines acceptance of the self and ways to change. Linehan included mindfulness as a key component in therapy treatment, along with original and specific life-skill techniques. She says, You can't think yourself into new ways of acting; you can only act yourself into new ways of thinking.Throughout her extraordinary scientific career, Marsha Linehan remained a woman of deep spirituality. Her powerful and moving story is one of faith and perseverance. Linehan shows, in Building a Life Worth Living, how the principles of DBT really work--and how, using her life skills and techniques, people can build lives worth living.
Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity
David Lynch - 2006
Lynch writes for the first time about his more than three-decade commitment to Transcendental Meditation and the difference it has made in his creative process.In brief chapters, Lynch explains the development of his ideas - where they came from, how he grasps them, and which ones appeal to him the most. He specifically discusses how he puts his thoughts into action and how he engages with others around him. Finally, he considers the self and the surrounding world - and how the process of "diving within" that has so deeply affected his own work can directly benefit others.Catching the Big Fish comes as a revelation to the legion of fans who have longed to better understand Lynch's personal vision. And it is equally intriguing to those who wonder how they can nurture their own creativity.
Yes to Life: In Spite of Everything
Viktor E. Frankl - 1946
Frankl held a series of public lectures in Vienna. The psychiatrist, who would soon become world famous, explained his central thoughts on meaning, resilience, and the importance of embracing life even in the face of great adversity.Published here for the very first time in English, Frankl's words resonate as strongly today--as the world faces a coronavirus pandemic, social isolation, and great economic uncertainty--as they did in 1946. He offers an insightful exploration of the maxim "Live as if you were living for the second time," and he unfolds his basic conviction that every crisis contains opportunity. Despite the unspeakable horrors of the camps, Frankl learned from the strength of his fellow inmates that it is always possible to "say yes to life"--a profound and timeless lesson for us all.
Nox
Anne Carson - 2010
The poem describes coming to terms with his loss through the lens of her translation of Poem 101 by Catullus “for his brother who died in the Troad.” Nox is a work of poetry, but arrives as a fascinating and unique physical object. Carson pasted old letters, family photos, collages and sketches on pages. The poems, typed on a computer, were added to this illustrated “book” creating a visual and reading experience so amazing as to open up our concept of poetry.
This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers
K.J. Ramsey - 2020
We silently, secretly wither under the pressure of living as though suffering is a predicament we can avoid or annihilate by having enough faith or trying harder. When your prayers for healing haven't been answered, the fog of depression isn't lifting, your marriage is ending in divorce, or grief won't go away, it's easy to feel you've failed God or, worse, he's failed you. If God loves us, why does he allow us to hurt?Over a decade ago chronic illness plunged therapist and writer K.J. Ramsey straight into this paradox. Before her illness, faith made sense. But when pain came and never left, K.J. had to find a way across the widening canyon that seemed to separate God's goodness from her excruciating circumstances.She wanted to conquer suffering. Instead, she encountered the God who chose it. She wanted to make pain past-tense. Instead, God invited her into a bigger story.This Too Shall Last offers an antidote to our cultural idolatry of effort and ease. Through personal story and insights from neuroscience and theology, Ramsey invites us to let our tears become lenses of the wonder that before God ever rescues us, he stands in solidarity with us. We are all mid-story in circumstances we did not choose, wondering when our hard things will end and where grace will come if they don't. Together, we can encounter grace in the middle, where living with suffering that lingers can mean receiving God's presence that lasts.What if the church treated suffering like a story to tell rather than a secret to keep until it passes?
Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good
Tina Turner - 2020
In Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Tina shows how all of us can overcome life’s obstacles—even change the impossible to possible—and transform our lives. She explains how we, too, can realize our dreams, empowering us with spiritual tools and sage advice to enrich our unique paths.For decades, Tina Turner has shined brightly as an example of someone who can generate hope from nothing, break through all limitations, and achieve success that endures. Drawing on the lessons of her own experiences—rising out of sorrowful lows to stratospheric heights—Tina illuminates the practical principles of Buddhism and how, since 1973, they’ve helped her elevate from despair, adversity, and poverty to joy, stability, and prosperity.Now, Tina offers the wisdom gained throughout her extraordinary life in Happiness Becomes You, making this the perfect gift of inspiration for you and those you love.“Each of us is born, I believe, with a unique mission, a purpose in life that only we can fulfill. We are linked by a shared responsibility: to help our human family grow kinder and happier.” — from the Introduction
Gross Anatomy: Dispatches from the Front (and Back)
Mara Altman - 2018
Mara Altman's volatile and apprehensive relationship with her body has led her to wonder about a lot of stuff over the years. Like, who decided that women shouldn't have body hair? And how sweaty is too sweaty? Also, why is breast cleavage sexy but camel toe revolting? Isn't it all just cleavage? These questions and others like them have led to the comforting and sometimes smelly revelations that constitute Gross Anatomy, an essay collection about what it's like to operate the bags of meat we call our bodies.Divided into two sections, "The Top Half" and "The Bottom Half," with cartoons scattered throughout, Altman's book takes the reader on a wild and relatable journey from head to toe—as she attempts to strike up a peace accord with our grody bits.With a combination of personal anecdotes and fascinating research, Gross Anatomy holds up a magnifying glass to our beliefs, practices, biases, and body parts and shows us the naked truth: that there is greatness in our grossness.
Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God
Sarah Bessey - 2019
Sarah Bessey was in her sweet spot: a popular author, sought-after speaker and preacher, and an active and engaged mother of four, married to the love of her life. Raised within the Word of Faith and prosperity movements, which declared that obedience to God led to untold blessings, her life seemed to prove the preachers of her childhood were right. Then she was in a car accident with life-shattering consequences, and everything she thought she knew about God and faith was upended.Weaving together theology and memoir in her trademark narrative style, Sarah tells us the whole story of the car accident that changed her body and ultimately changed her life. The road of healing leads to Rome where she met the Pope (it’s complicated) and encountered the Holy Spirit in the last place she expected. She writes about her miraculous healing, learning to live with chronic pain, and the ways God unexpectedly makes us whole in the midst of suffering. She invites us to a path of knowing God that is filled with ordinary miracles, hope in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, surprising holiness, and other completely reasonable things.Insightful, profound, and unexpected, Miracles and Other Reasonable Things is a wild spirit-filled story of what it means to live with both grief and faith in our hands as we wrestle with God.
Moranifesto
Caitlin Moran - 2016
Surely capitalism is due an upgrade or two?’When Caitlin Moran sat down to choose her favourite pieces for her new book she realised that they all seemed to join up. Turns out, it’s the same old problems and the same old ass-hats.Then she thought of the word ‘Moranifesto’, and she knew what she had to do…This is Caitlin’s engaging and amusing rallying call for our times. Combining the best of her recent columns with lots of new writing unique to this book, Caitlin deals with topics as pressing and diverse as 1980s swearing, benefits, boarding schools, and why the internet is like a drunken toddler.And whilst never afraid to address the big issues of the day – such as Benedict Cumberbatch and duffel coats – Caitlin also makes a passionate effort to understand our 21st century society and presents us with her ‘Moranifesto’ for making the world a better place.The polite revolution starts here! Please.
This Is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike.
Augusten Burroughs - 2012
If you have ever wondered, How am I supposed to survive this? This is How.
What I Know for Sure
Oprah Winfrey - 2014
Over the years, she has made history with a legendary talk show - the highest-rated program of its kind, launched her own television network, become the nation's only African-American billionaire, and been awarded both an honorary degree by Harvard University and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. From all her experiences, she has gleaned life lessons—which, for fourteen years, she's shared in O, The Oprah Magazine's widely popular "What I Know For Sure" column, a monthly source of inspiration and revelation.Now, for the first time, these thoughtful gems have been revised, updated, and collected in What I Know For Sure, a beautiful cloth bound book with a ribbon marker, packed with insight and revelation from Oprah Winfrey. Organized by theme—joy, resilience, connection, gratitude, possibility, awe, clarity, and power—these essays offer a rare, powerful and intimate glimpse into the heart and mind of one of the world's most extraordinary women—while providing readers a guide to becoming their best selves. Candid, moving, exhilarating, uplifting, and frequently humorous, the words Oprah shares in What I Know For Sure shimmer with the sort of truth that readers will turn to again and again.
Cheer Up, Love: Adventures in Depression with the Crab of Hate
Susan Calman - 2016
Her solo stand up show, Susan Calman is Convicted, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and dealt with subjects like the death penalty, appearance and depression. The reaction to the show she wrote about mental health was so positive that she wanted to expand on the show and write a more detailed account of surviving when you're the world's most negative person. The Crab of Hate is the personification of Calman's depression and her version of the notorious Black Dog. A constant companion in her life, the Crab has provided her with the best, and very worst of times. This is a very personal memoir of how, after many years and with a lot of help and talking, she has embraced her dark side and realised that she can be the most joyous sad person you'll ever meet.
Down Came the Rain: My Journey Through Postpartum Depression
Brooke Shields - 2005
When Brooke Shields welcomed her newborn daughter, Rowan Francis, into the world, something unexpected followed--a crippling depression. Now, for the first time ever, in Down Came the Rain, Brooke talks about the trials, tribulations, and finally the triumphs that occurred before, during, and after the birth of her daughter.
The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook
Bruce D. Perry - 2007
In The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, he tells their stories of trauma and transformation through the lens of science, revealing the brain's astonishing capacity for healing. Deftly combining unforgettable case histories with his own compassionate, insightful strategies for rehabilitation, Perry explains what exactly happens to the brain when a child is exposed to extreme stress-and reveals the unexpected measures that can be taken to ease a child's pain and help him grow into a healthy adult. Through the stories of children who recover-physically, mentally, and emotionally-from the most devastating circumstances, Perry shows how simple things like surroundings, affection, language, and touch can deeply impact the developing brain, for better or for worse. In this deeply informed and moving book, Bruce Perry dramatically demonstrates that only when we understand the science of the mind can we hope to heal the spirit of even the most wounded child.