Sane: Mental Illness, Addiction, and the 12 Steps


Marya Hornbacher - 2010
     In this beautifully written recovery handbook, New York Times best-selling author Marya Hornbacher applies the wisdom earned from her struggle with a severe mental illness and addiction to offer an honest and illuminating examination of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous for those with co-occurring addiction and mental health disorders. Relaying her recovery experiences, and those of the people with whom she has shared her journey, Hornbacher guides readers through the maze of special issues that make working each Step a unique challenge for those with co-occurring disorders. She addresses the difficulty that many with a mental illness have with finding support in a recovery program that often discourages talk about emotional problems, and the therapy and medication that they require. At the same time, Hornbacher reveals how the Twelve Steps can offer insights, spiritual sustenance, and practical guidance to enhance stability for those who truly have to approach sanity and sobriety one day at a time.

Positive Intelligence: Why Only 20% of Teams and Individuals Achieve Their True Potential and How You Can Achieve Yours


Shirzad Chamine - 2012
    His groundbreaking research exposes ten well-disguised mental Saboteurs. Nearly 95 percent of the executives in his Stanford lectures conclude that these Saboteurs cause “significant harm” to achieving their true potential. With Positive Intelligence, you can learn the secret to defeating these internal foes. Positive Intelligence (PQ)SM measures the percentage of time your mind is serving you as opposed to sabotaging you. While your IQ and EQ (emotional intelligence) contribute to your maximum potential, it is your PQ that determines how much of that potential you actually achieve.The great news is that you can improve your PQ significantly in as little as 21 days. With higher PQ, teams and professionals ranging from leaders to salespeople perform 30 to 35 percent better on average. Importantly, they also report being far happier and less stressed. The breakthrough tools and techniques in this book have been refined over years of coaching hundreds of CEOs and their executive teams. Shirzad tells many of their remarkable stories, showing how you too can take concrete steps to unleash the vast, untapped powers of your mind.Discover how to•    Identify and conquer your top Saboteurs. Common Saboteurs include the Judge, Controller, Victim, Avoider, and Pleaser.  •    Measure the Positive Intelligence score (PQ) for yourself or your team—and see how close you come to the critical tipping point required for peak performance.•    Increase PQ dramatically in as little as 21 days.•    Develop new brain “muscles,” and access 5 untapped powers with energizing mental “power games.”•    Apply PQ tools and techniques to increase both performance and fulfillment. Applications include team building, mastering workload, working with “difficult” people, improving work/life balance, reducing stress, and selling and persuading.

The 3-Day Effect


NOT A BOOK - 2018
    Whether it’s rafting down Utah’s Green River, backpacking in Arizona’s wilderness or walking through Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., scientists are finding that the more exposure humans have to nature, the more they will benefit from reduced anxiety, enhanced creativity and overall well-being. Trek with science journalist Florence Williams as she guides former Iraqi war veterans, sex trafficking survivors, and even a nature hater, on three-day nature excursions to see how the outdoors offers something like a miracle cure for an array of extreme and everyday ailments.

Mindful Drinking: How Cutting Down Can Change Your Life


Rosamund Dean - 2017
    Drinking less will improve your mood, your skin, your sex-drive and your body as well as reduce stress and anxiety.Whether you are sober-curious, or just want to cut down - Mindful Drinking: How Cutting Down Will Change Your Life shows not only why you should, but also how you can, in a way that will change your life forever.

Breaking the Cycle: Free Yourself from Sex Addiction, Porn Obsession, and Shame


George Collins - 2011
    But summoning the courage to find help for this condition can be even more of a challenge. If addictions to pornography, strip clubs, massage parlors, prostitutes, phone sex, or chat rooms have made you feel trapped, this book can help you find a way to break free.Written by a former sex addict who specializes in counseling people who suffer from sexually compulsive behavior, Breaking the Cycle presents a step-by-step plan to enjoying a life of productivity and purpose. You can free yourself from the powerful, compulsive urges that may have damaged your career, finances, or relationships with friends and family. The exercises in this book will show you how to regain control of your life and build meaningful intimate connections with others.

Grateful Life: The Secret to Happiness and the Science of Contentment


Nina Lesowitz - 2014
    In years of research and practice, authors Nina Lesowitz and Mary Beth Sammons have discovered that grateful living can transform lives. Grateful people are happier people. They are healthier and less stressed. They report much higher levels of satisfaction with their relationships and are less likely to credit luck with the good fortune of others.This book contains inspiring stories about those who exercise gratitude as a spiritual practice to rise out of adversity to new life. It also shows how grateful living is central to the good life and to attracting abundance. Filled with motivational quotes, resources, and exercises, The Grateful Life helps readers on their journey to creating the life they've always wanted.Taking the concept of Living Life as a Thank You to the next level, The Grateful Life includes absorbing and transformative stories from real people who unveil the secret to achieving successes both big and small.

Taking Charge of ADHD: The Complete, Authoritative Guide for Parents


Russell A. Barkley - 1995
    From internationally renowned ADHD expert Russell A. Barkley, the book empowers parents by arming them with the knowledge, expert guidance, and confidence they need. Included are:*A step-by-step plan for behavior management that has helped thousands of children.*Current information on medications, including coverage of Strattera and extended-release stimulants.*Strategies that help children succeed at school and in social situations.*Advances in research on the causes of ADHD.*Practical advice on managing stress and keeping peace in the family.*Descriptions of books, organizations, and Internet resources that families can trust.

NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity


Steve Silberman - 2015
      Along the way, he reveals the untold story of Hans Asperger, the father of Asperger’s syndrome, whose “little professors” were targeted by the darkest social-engineering experiment in human history; exposes the covert campaign by child psychiatrist Leo Kanner to suppress knowledge of the autism spectrum for fifty years; and casts light on the growing movement of "neurodiversity" activists seeking respect, support, technological innovation, accommodations in the workplace and in education, and the right to self-determination for those with cognitive differences.

The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness


J. Mark G. Williams - 2007
    This authoritative, easy-to-use self-help program is based on methods clinically proven to reduce the recurrence of chronic unhappiness. Informative chapters reveal the hidden psychological mechanisms that cause depression and demonstrate powerful ways to strengthen your resilience in the face of life's misfortunes. Kabat-Zinn lends his calm, familiar voice to the accompanying CD of guided meditations, making this a complete package for anyone looking to regain a sense of balance and contentment.

Journey to Health: How I lost half my body weight and found a new way of life (10 Minute)


Simone Anderson - 2018
    Her story went viral when she shared photos of the excess skin that remained after her weight loss. And when she was offered surgery to remove the skin, she documented the whole experience and got worldwide media attention.In this honest and moving book Simone tells her story. Her key messages of body positivity and learning to love yourself make this an inspiring read for anyone.

The Urge: Our History of Addiction


Carl Erik Fisher - 2022
    With uncommon empathy and erudition, Carl Erik Fisher draws on his own experience as a clinician, researcher, and alcoholic in recovery as he traces the history of a phenomenon that, centuries on, we hardly appear closer to understanding--let alone addressing effectively.As a psychiatrist-in-training fresh from medical school, Fisher was soon face-to-face with his own addiction crisis, one that nearly cost him everything. Desperate to make sense of the condition that had plagued his family for generations, he turned to the history of addiction, learning that the current quagmire is only the latest iteration of a centuries-old story: humans have struggled to define, treat, and control addictive behavior for most of recorded history, including well before the advent of modern science and medicine.A rich, sweeping history that probes not only medicine and science but also literature, religion, philosophy, and sociology, The Urge illuminates the extent to which the story of addiction has persistently reflected broader questions of what it means to be human and care for one another. Fisher introduces us to the people who have endeavored to address this complex condition through the ages: physicians and politicians, activists and artists, researchers and writers, and of course the legions of people who have struggled with their own addictions. He also examines the treatments and strategies that have produced hope and relief for many people with addiction, himself included. Only by reckoning with our history of addiction, he argues--our successes and our failures--can we light the way forward for those whose lives remain threatened by its hold.The Urge is at once an eye-opening history of ideas, a riveting personal story of addiction and recovery, and a clinician's urgent call for a more expansive, nuanced, and compassionate view of one of society's most intractable challenges.

The Emotional Compass: How to Think Better about Your Feelings


Ilse Sand - 2016
    Establishing that emotions are not always as appropriate as they first appear to be, the book encourages you to take a closer look at why you are feeling certain things, and how you can change how you feel. Especially written for highly sensitive people, guidance is included on how to identify the vulnerable feelings that often underlie our more volatile emotional states, and practical activities are suggested to help to embrace or reject sadness, delay impulsive actions, and allow yourself to be happy. Drawing on real-life examples throughout, the book offers you the means to improve your understanding of not only your own emotions and emotional actions, but those of others. The book will be immensely useful not only to people who feel things strongly, but to those who have trouble understanding or interpreting emotions and how to respond to the feelings they provoke.

Insight: Why We're Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and in Life


Tasha Eurich - 2017
    Do you know who you really are? Do you ever wonder how other people really see you? Though we are usually confident that we do, we are wrong more often than we think. And if we could see ourselves through others eyes, we might be really surprised. Yet regardless of our line of work or stage of life, success depends on understanding who we are and how we come across. Research shows that self-awareness means better work performance, smarter life choices, deeper, more meaningful relationships, and a more fulfilling career. There s just one problem: people can be remarkably poor judges of their behavior, performance, and impact on others. And despite the lip service given today to feedback, in the business world and beyond, it s rare to get candid, objective data on what we re doing well, and where we could stand to improve. Of course, at work and in life, we ve all come across people with a stunning lack of self-awareness but how often do we consider whether we might have the same problem? And if we did, how would we even know it? Drawing on her three-year, first-of-its-kind study of people who have dramatically improved their self-awareness, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich reveals why we don t know ourselves as well as we think and what to do about it. Alongside her research, she integrates hundreds of academic studies and her 15 years of work with Fortune 500 clients, challenging conventional wisdom to reveal many surprising truths like why introspection is the enemy of insight, how experience isn t a bullet train to self-knowledge, and just how far others will go to avoid telling us the truth about ourselves. Readers will learn battle-tested techniques and tools to improve self-awareness and thus their work performance, leadership skills, interpersonal relationships, and more. Insight is a guide surviving and thriving in an unaware world."

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness


Elyn R. Saks - 2007
    She has managed to achieve this in spite of being diagnosed as schizophrenic and given a "grave" prognosis—and suffering the effects of her illness throughout her life.Saks was only eight, and living an otherwise idyllic childhood in sunny 1960s Miami, when her first symptoms appeared in the form of obsessions and night terrors. But it was not until she reached Oxford University as a Marshall Scholar that her first full-blown episode, complete with voices in her head and terrifying suicidal fantasies, forced her into a psychiatric hospital.Saks would later attend Yale Law School where one night, during her first term, she had a breakdown that left her singing on the roof of the law school library at midnight. She was taken to the emergency room, force-fed antipsychotic medication, and tied hand-and-foot to the cold metal of a hospital bed. She spent the next five months in a psychiatric ward.So began Saks's long war with her own internal demons and the equally powerful forces of stigma. Today she is a chaired professor of law who researches and writes about the rights of the mentally ill. She is married to a wonderful man.In The Center Cannot Hold, Elyn Saks discusses frankly and movingly the paranoia, the inability to tell imaginary fears from real ones, and the voices in her head insisting she do terrible things, as well as the many obstacles she overcame to become the woman she is today. It is destined to become a classic in the genre.

Reaching Down the Rabbit Hole: A Renowned Neurologist Explains the Mystery and Drama of Brain Disease


Allan H. Ropper - 2014
    What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this book, Dr. Allan Ropper and Brian Burrell take the reader behind the scenes at Harvard Medical School's neurology unit to show how a seasoned diagnostician faces down bizarre, life-altering afflictions. Like Alice in Wonderland, Dr. Ropper inhabits a world where absurdities abound:• A figure skater whose body has become a ticking time-bomb • A salesman who drives around and around a traffic rotary, unable to get off • A college quarterback who can't stop calling the same play • A child molester who, after falling on the ice, is left with a brain that is very much dead inside a body that is very much alive • A mother of two young girls, diagnosed with ALS, who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth livingHow does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the reader into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.