Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul


Stuart M. Brown Jr. - 2009
    Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing with glee across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless and all-consuming. And, most important, it’s fun. As we become adults, taking time to play feels like a guilty pleasure—a distraction from “real” work and life. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. In fact, our ability to play throughout life is the single most important factor in determining our success and happiness. Dr. Brown has spent his career studying animal behavior and conducting more than six thousand “play histories” of humans from all walks of life—from serial murderers to Nobel Prize winners. Backed by the latest research, Play explains why play is essential to our social skills, adaptability, intelligence, creativity, ability to problem solve, and more. Play is hardwired into our brains—it is the mechanism by which we become resilient, smart, and adaptable people. Beyond play’s role in our personal fulfillment, its benefits have profound implications for child development and the way we parent, education and social policy, business innovation, productivity, and even the future of our society. From new research suggesting the direct role of three-dimensional-object play in shaping our brains to animal studies showing the startling effects of the lack of play, Brown provides a sweeping look at the latest breakthroughs in our understanding of the importance of this behavior. A fascinating blend of cutting-edge neuroscience, biology, psychology, social science, and inspiring human stories of the transformative power of play, this book proves why play just might be the most important work we can ever do.

In Session: The Bond Between Women and Their Therapists


Deborah A. Lott - 2000
    Why do so many women develop profound feelings for their therapists? What makes the therapy bond different from any other, and what factors make it therapeutic? In Session enters the consulting room and cuts straight to the heart of the complex psychotherapy relationship.

Uniquely Human: A Different Way of Seeing Autism


Barry M. Prizant - 2015
    This perspective leads to therapies focused on ridding individuals of autistic symptoms. In Uniquely Human, Dr. Barry M. Prizant suggests a major shift in understanding autism: Instead of classifying "autistic" behaviors as signs of pathology, he sees them as strategies to cope with a world that feels chaotic and overwhelming. Rather than curb these behaviors, it's better to enhance abilities, build on strengths, and offer supports that will naturally lead to more desirable behavior and a better quality of life. In fact, argues Dr. Prizant, attempts to eliminate autistic behaviors may actually interfere with important developmental processes.Including inspiring stories and practical advice drawn from Dr. Prizant's four-decade career working in universities, schools, hospitals, and in private practice, Uniquely Human offers a compassionate and insightful perspective that parents, professionals, and family members will find uplifting and hopeful.

Adult Children of Alcoholics


Janet Geringer Woititz - 1983
    In this updated edition of her bestseller she re-examines the movement and its inclusion of Adult Children from various dysfunctional family backgrounds who share the same characteristics. After decades of working with ACoAs she shares the recovery hints that she has found to work. Read Adult Children of Alcoholics to see where the journey began and for ideas on where to go from here.

Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide


Kay Redfield Jamison - 1999
    Night Falls Fast is tragically timely: suicide has become one of the most common killers of Americans between the ages of fifteen and forty-five.An internationally acknowledged authority on depressive illnesses, Dr. Jamison has also known suicide firsthand: after years of struggling with manic-depression, she tried at age twenty-eight to kill herself. Weaving together a historical and scientific exploration of the subject with personal essays on individual suicides, she brings not only her remarkable compassion and literary skill but also all of her knowledge and research to bear on this devastating problem. This is a book that helps us to understand the suicidal mind, to recognize and come to the aid of those at risk, and to comprehend the profound effects on those left behind. It is critical reading for parents, educators, and anyone wanting to understand this tragic epidemic.

Wired for Love: How Understanding Your Partner's Brain and Attachment Style Can Help You Defuse Conflict and Build a Secure Relationship


Stan Tatkin - 2012
    Every person is wired for love differently, with different habits, needs, and reactions to conflict. The good news is that most people's minds work in predictable ways and respond well to security, attachment, and rituals, making it possible to actually neurologically prime the brain for greater love and fewer conflicts.Wired for Love is a complete insider’s guide to understanding your partner’s brain and enjoying a romantic relationship built on love and trust. Synthesizing research findings on how and why love lasts drawn from neuroscience, attachment theory, and emotion regulation, this book presents ten guiding principles that can improve any relationship.Strengthen your relationship by:Creating and maintaining a safe “couple bubble” Using morning and evening rituals to stay connected Learning to fight so that nobody loses Becoming the expert on what makes your partner feel loved By learning to use simple gestures and words, readers can learn to put out emotional fires and help their partners feel more safe and secure. The no-fault view of conflict in this book encourages readers to move past a "warring brain" mentality and toward a more cooperative "loving brain" understanding of the relationship. This book is essential reading for couples and others interested in understanding the complex dynamics at work behind love and trust in intimate relationships.While there’s no doubt that love is an inexact science, if you can discover how you and your partner are wired differently, you can overcome your differences to create a lasting intimate connection.

Learning from the Patient


Patrick J. Casement - 1985
    The patient's unconscious contribution to analytic work is fully explored. Casement writes with unusual openness about what really happens in the consulting room, including mistakes--his own as well as others'. Everything in psychoanalytic theory and technique is up for questioning and for careful testing in the clinical setting. Casement provides fresh insights on familiar concepts as well as developing a number that are new; every concept is explained and illustrated with clinical examples.

Recovery of Your Inner Child: The Highly Acclaimed Method for Liberating Your Inner Self


Lucia Capacchione - 1991
    Usually hidden under our grown-up personas, the Inner Child holds the key to intimacy in relationships, physical and emotional well-being, recovery from addictions, and the creativity and wisdom of our inner selves. Recovery of Your Inner Child is the only book that shows you how to have a firsthand experience of your Inner Child—actually feeling its emotions and recapturing its sense of wonder—by writing and drawing with your non-dominant hand. Expanding on the highly acclaimed technique introduced in The Power of Your Other Hand, here Dr. Capacchione shares scores of hands-on activities that will help you to embrace your Vulnerable Child and your Angry Child, find the Nurturing Parent within, and finally discover the Creative and Magical Child that can heal your life.

Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis, First Edition: Responding to the Challenge of DSM-5


Allen Frances - 2013
    Covering every disorder routinely encountered in clinical practice, Frances provides the appropriate ICD-9-CM code for each one (the same code utilized in the DSM), a useful screening question, a colorful descriptive prototype, lucid diagnostic tips, and a discussion of other disorders that must be ruled out. The book closes with an index of the most common presenting symptoms, listing possible diagnoses that must be considered for each. Frances was instrumental in the development of past editions of the DSM and provides helpful cautions on questionable aspects of DSM-5.

The Intelligent Clinician's Guide to the DSM-5


Joel Paris - 2013
    Written by a celebrated professor of psychiatry, this reader-friendly book uses evidence-based critiques and new research to point out where DSM-5 is right, where it is wrong, and where the jury's still out. Along the way, The Intelligent Clinician's Guide to the DSM-5(R) sifts through the many public controversies and clinical debates surrounding the drafting of the manual and shows how they inform a modern understanding of psychiatric illness, diagnosis and treatment. This book is necessary reading for all mental health professionals as they grapple with the first major revision of the DSM to appear in over 30 years.

Brainspotting: The Revolutionary New Therapy for Rapid and Effective Change


David Grand - 2012
    Now Dr. David Grand presents the next leap forward in psychological care—combining the strengths of brain-based and talk therapies into a powerful technique he calls Brainspotting. In Brainspotting, Dr. Grand reveals the key insight that allowed him to develop this revolutionary therapeutic tool: that where we look reveals critical information about what's going on in our brain. Join him to learn about:The history of Brainspotting—how it evolved from EMDR practice as a more versatile tool for brain-based therapy• Brainspotting in action—case studies and evidence for the effectiveness of the technique• An overview of the different aspects of Brainspotting and how to use them• Between sessions—how clients can use Brainspotting on their own to reinforce and accelerate healing• Why working simultaneously with the right and left brain can lead to expanded creativity and athletic performance• How Brainspotting can be used to treat PTSD, anxiety, depression, addiction, physical pain, chronic illness, and much more"Brainspotting lets the therapist and client participate together in the healing process," explains Dr. Grand. "It allows us to harness the brain's natural ability for self-scanning, so we can activate, locate, and process the sources of trauma and distress in the body." With Brainspotting, this pioneering researcher introduces an invaluable tool that can support virtually any form of therapeutic practice—and greatly accelerate our ability to heal.

Cognitive Processing Therapy for PTSD: A Comprehensive Manual


Patricia A. Resick - 2016
    Written by the treatment's developers, the book includes session-by-session guidelines for implementation, complete with extensive sample dialogues and 40 reproducible client handouts. It explains the theoretical and empirical underpinnings of CPT and discusses how to adapt the approach for specific populations, such as combat veterans, sexual assault survivors, and culturally diverse clients. The large-size format facilitates photocopying and day-to-day use. Purchasers also get access to a Web page where they can download and print the reproducible materials. CPT is endorsed by the U.S. Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense, the International Society of Traumatic Stress Studies, and the U.K. National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) as a best practice for the treatment of PTSD.

Self-Therapy: A Step-By-Step Guide to Creating Inner Wholeness Using IFS, a New, Cutting-Edge Therapy


Jay Earley - 2009
    'Self-Therapy' makes the power of a cutting-edge psychotherapy approach accessible to everyone. Internal Family Systems Therapy (IFS) has been spreading rapidly across the country in the past decade. It is incredibly effective on a wide variety of life issues, such as self-esteem, procrastination, depression, and relationship issues. IFS is also user-friendly; it helps you to comprehend the complexity of your psyche. Dr. Earley shows how IFS is a complete method for psychological healing that you can use on your own. 'Self-Therapy' is also helpful for therapists because it presents the IFS model in such detail that it is a manual for the method. The fact that Jay Earley wrote this book is high praise for the IFS model because he was an accomplished writer and thinker long before encountering IFS. Jay's passion has been to introduce IFS to a lay audience so that people can work with their parts on their own. Through well-described experiential exercises and examples of actual IFS sessions, you will be able to enter your inner world, heal your extreme parts, and transform them into valuable resources. -Richard Schwartz, PhD, creator of IFS, from the Foreword

The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity


Esther Perel - 2017
    And yet, this extremely common human experience is so poorly understood. What are we to make of this time-honored taboo—universally forbidden yet universally practiced? Why do people cheat—even those in happy marriages? Why does an affair hurt so much? When we say infidelity, what exactly do we mean? Do our romantic expectations of marriage set us up for betrayal? Is there such a thing as an affair-proof marriage? Is it possible to love more than one person at once? Can an affair ever help a marriage? Perel weaves real-life case stories with incisive psychological and cultural analysis in this fast-paced and compelling book.For the past ten years, Perel has traveled the globe and worked with hundreds of couples who have grappled with infidelity. Betrayal hurts, she writes, but it can be healed. An affair can even be the doorway to a new marriage—with the same person. With the right approach, couples can grow and learn from these tumultuous experiences, together or apart.Affairs, she argues, have a lot to teach us about modern relationships—what we expect, what we think we want, and what we feel entitled to. They offer a unique window into our personal and cultural attitudes about love, lust, and commitment. Through examining illicit love from multiple angles, Perel invites readers into an honest, enlightened, and entertaining exploration of modern marriage in its many variations.Fiercely intelligent, The State of Affairs provides a daring framework for understanding the intricacies of love and desire. As Perel observes, “Love is messy; infidelity more so. But it is also a window, like no other, into the crevices of the human heart.”

Ethics In Counseling And Psychotherapy: Standards, Research And Emerging Issues


Elizabeth Reynolds Welfel - 1997
    Numerous case studies, followed by the author's analysis of the cases, helps you structure your thinking and apply professional standards to complex cases. Coverage includes ethics, legal research, and the professional literature in major topics in ethics (such as consent, confidentiality, and multiple relationships) and in applied settings (such as community mental health, private practice, schools, and teaching/research).