Born for Love: Why Empathy Is Essential--and Endangered


Bruce D. Perry - 2009
    Perry and award-winning science journalist Maia Szalavitz interweave research and stories from Perry's practice with cutting-edge scientific studies and historical examples to explain how empathy develops, why it is essential for our development into healthy adults, and how it is threatened in the modern world.Perry and Szalavitz show that compassion underlies the qualities that make society work—trust, altruism, collaboration, love, charity—and how difficulties related to empathy are key factors in social problems such as war, crime, racism, and mental illness. Even physical health, from infectious diseases to heart attacks, is deeply affected by our human connections to one another.As Born for Love reveals, recent changes in technology, child-rearing practices, education, and lifestyles are starting to rob children of necessary human contact and deep relationships—the essential foundation for empathy and a caring, healthy society. Sounding an important warning bell, Born for Love offers practical ideas for combating the negative influences of modern life and fostering positive social change to benefit us all.

The Science of Trust: Emotional Attunement for Couples


John M. Gottman - 2011
    In this groundbreaking book, he presents a new approach to understanding and changing couples: a fundamental social skill called “emotional attunement,” which describes a couple’s ability to fully process and move on from negative emotional events, ultimately creating a stronger relationship.Gottman draws from this longitudinal research and theory to show how emotional attunement can downregulate negative affect, help couples focus on positive traits and memories, and even help prevent domestic violence. He offers a detailed intervention devised to cultivate attunement, thereby helping couples connect, respect, and show affection. Emotional attunement is extended to tackle the subjects of flooding, the story we tell ourselves about our relationship, conflict, personality, changing relationships, and gender. Gottman also explains how to create emotional attunement when it is missing, to lay a foundation that will carry the relationship through difficult times.Gottman encourages couples to cultivate attunement through awareness, tolerance, understanding, non-defensive listening, and empathy. These qualities, he argues, inspire confidence in couples, and the sense that despite the inevitable struggles, the relationship is enduring and resilient.This book, an essential follow-up to his 1999 The Marriage Clinic, offers therapists, students, and researchers detailed intervention for working with couples, and offers couples a roadmap to a stronger future together.

Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love


Amir Levine - 2010
    F. Heller reveal how an understanding of attachment theory-the most advanced relationship science in existence today-can help us find and sustain love. Attachment theory forms the basis for many bestselling books on the parent/child relationship, but there has yet to be an accessible guide to what this fascinating science has to tell us about adult romantic relationships-until now.Attachment theory owes its inception to British psychologist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who in the 1950s examined the tremendous impact that our early relationships with our parents or caregivers has on the people we become. Also central to attachment theory is the discovery that our need to be in a close relationship with one or more individuals is embedded in our genes.In Attached, Levine and Heller trace how these evolutionary influences continue to shape who we are in our relationships today. According to attachment theory, every person behaves in relationships in one of three distinct ways:*ANXIOUS people are often preoccupied with their relationships and tend to worry about their partner's ability to love them back.*AVOIDANT people equate intimacy with a loss of independence and constantly try to minimize closeness.*SECURE people feel comfortable with intimacy and are usually warm and loving.Attached guides readers in determining what attachment style they and their mate (or potential mates) follow. It also offers readers a wealth of advice on how to navigate their relationships more wisely given their attachment style and that of their partner. An insightful look at the science behind love, Attached offers readers a road map for building stronger, more fulfilling connections.

The Sexual Healing Journey: A Guide for Survivors of Sexual Abuse


Wendy Maltz - 1991
    A step-by-step guide to recovery from sexual abuse offers first-person accounts of women and men at every stage of the sexual healing journey,

Attachment in Psychotherapy


David J. Wallin - 2007
    Advancing a model of treatment as transformation through relationship, the author integrates attachment theory with neuroscience, trauma studies, relational psychotherapy, and the psychology of mindfulness. Vivid case material illustrates how therapists can tailor interventions to fit the attachment needs of their patients, thus helping them to generate the internalized secure base for which their early relationships provided no foundation. Demonstrating the clinical uses of a focus on nonverbal interaction, the book describes powerful techniques for working with the emotional responses and bodily experiences of patient and therapist alike.

Overcoming Trauma through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body


David Emerson - 2011
    In order to fully heal from trauma, a connection must be made with oneself, including one’s body. The trauma-sensitive yoga described in this book moves beyond traditional talk therapies that focus on the mind, by bringing the body actively into the healing process. This allows trauma survivors to cultivate a more positive relationship to their body through gentle breath, mindfulness, and movement practices. Overcoming Trauma through Yoga is a book for survivors, clinicians, and yoga instructors who are interested in mind/body healing. It introduces trauma-sensitive yoga, a modified approach to yoga developed in collaboration between yoga teachers and clinicians at the Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute, led by yoga teacher David Emerson, along with medical doctor Bessel van der Kolk. The book begins with an in-depth description of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), including a description of how trauma is held in the body and the need for body-based treatment. It offers a brief history of yoga, describes various styles of yoga commonly found in Western practice, and identifies four key themes of trauma-sensitive yoga. Chair-based exercises are described that can be incorporated into individual or group therapy, targeting specific treatment goals, and modifications are offered for mat-based yoga classes. Each exercise includes trauma-sensitive language to introduce the practice, as well as photographs to illustrate the poses. The practices have been offered to a wide range of individuals and groups, including men and women, teens, returning veterans, and others. Rounded out by valuable quotes and case stories, the book presents mindfulness, breathing, and yoga exercises that can be used by home practitioners, yoga teachers, and therapists as a way to cultivate awareness, tolerance, and an increased acceptance of the self.

The Deepest Well: Healing the Long-Term Effects of Childhood Adversity


Nadine Burke Harris - 2018
    Nadine Burke Harris was already known as a crusading physician delivering targeted care to vulnerable children. But it was Diego — a boy who had stopped growing after a sexual assault — who galvanized her journey to uncover the connections between toxic stress and lifelong illnesses.The news of Burke Harris’s research is just how deeply our bodies can be imprinted by ACEs—adverse childhood experiences like abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, and divorce. Childhood adversity changes our biological systems, and lasts a lifetime.  For anyone who has faced a difficult childhood, or who cares about the millions of children who do, the scientific insight and innovative, acclaimed health interventions in The Deepest Well represent hope for preventing lifelong illness for those we love and for generations to come​.

The Emotionally Abusive Relationship: How to Stop Being Abused and How to Stop Abusing


Beverly Engel - 2002
    -Susan Forward, author of Emotional Blackmail Praise for the emotionally abusive relationship In this book, Beverly Engel clearly and with caring offers step-by-step strategies to stop emotional abuse. . . helping both victims and abusers to identify the patterns of this painful and traumatic type of abuse. This book is a guide both for individuals and for couples stuck in the tragic patterns of emotional abuse. -Marti Loring, Ph.D., author of Emotional Abuse and coeditor of The Journal of Emotional Abuse This groundbreaking book succeeds in helping people stop emotional abuse by focusing on both the abuser and the abused and showing each party what emotional abuse is, how it affects the relationship, and how to stop it. Its unique focus on the dynamic relationship makes it more likely that each person will grasp the tools for change and really use them. -Randi Kreger, author of The Stop Walking on Eggshells Workbook and owner of BPDCentral.com The number of people who become involved with partners who abuse them emotionally and/or who are emotionally abusive themselves is phenomenal, and yet emotional abuse is the least understood form of abuse. In this breakthrough book, Beverly Engel, one of the world's leading experts on the subject, shows us what it is and what to do about it. Whether you suspect you are being emotionally abused, fear that you might be emotionally abusing your partner, or think that both you and your partner are emotionally abusing each other, this book is for you. The Emotionally Abusive Relationship will tell you how to identify emotional abuse and how to find the roots of your behavior. Combining dramatic personal stories with action steps to heal, Engel provides prescriptive strategies that will allow you and your partner to work together to stop bringing out the worst in each other and stop the abuse. By teaching those who are being emotionally abused how to help themselves and those who are being emotionally abusive how to stop abusing, The Emotionally Abusive Relationship offers the expert guidance and support you need.

Necessary Endings: The Employees, Businesses, and Relationships That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Move Forward


Henry Cloud - 2011
    Cloud challenges readers to achieve the personal and professional growth they both desire and deserve—and gives crucial insight on how to make those tough decisions that are standing in the way of a more successful business and, ultimately, a better life.

Coping with Difficult People


Robert M. Bramson - 2012
    Robert Bramson's  proven-effective techniques are guaranteed to help  you right the balance and take charge of your  life. Learn how to: Stand up to anyone --  without fighting. Blunt a sniper's  attack. Get a clam to talk. Cut off a  Sherman tank at the pass. Manage  bulldozers. Get stallers off the dime.  Move a complainer into a problem-solving  mode. Learn the six basic steps that allow you to  cope with just about anyone. Reclaim the power  the rightfully belongs to you in any relationship!

Getting the Love You Want : A Guide for Couples


Harville Hendrix - 2005
    In this groundbreaking book, Dr Harville Hendrix shares with you what he has learned about the psychology of love during more than thirty years of working as a therapist and helps you transform your relationship into a lasting source of love and companionship. For this edition of his classic book, Dr Hendrix and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, have added a new introduction describing the powerful influence this book has had on so many people over the years. With its step-by-step programme, GETTING THE LOVE YOU WANT will help you create a loving, supportive and revitalized partnership.

Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers


Gordon Neufeld - 2004
    This “peer orientation” undermines family cohesion, interferes with healthy development, and fosters a hostile and sexualized youth culture. Children end up becoming overly conformist, desensitized, and alienated, and being “cool” matters more to them than anything else.  Hold On to Your Kids explains the causes of this crucial breakdown of parental influence—and demonstrates ways to “reattach” to sons and daughters, establish the proper hierarchy in the home, make kids feel safe and understood, and earn back your children’s loyalty and love. This updated edition also specifically addresses the unprecedented parenting challenges posed by the rise of digital devices and social media. By helping to reawaken instincts innate to us all, Neufeld and Maté will empower parents to be what nature intended: a true source of contact, security, and warmth for their children.

I Need Your Love - Is That True?: How to Stop Seeking Love, Approval, and Appreciation and Start Finding Them Instead


Byron Katie - 2005
    Now, I Need Your Love—Is That True? examines a universal, age-old source of anxiety: our relationships with others. In this groundbreaking book, Katie helps you question everything you have been taught to do to gain love and approval. In doing this, you discover how to find genuine love and connection. The usual advice offered in self-help books and reinforced by our culture advocates a stressful, all-consuming quest for love and approval. We are advised to learn self-marketing and manipulative skills—how to attract, impress, seduce, and often pretend to be something we aren’t. This approach doesn’t work. It leaves millions of walking wounded—those who, having failed to find love or appreciation, blame themselves and conclude that they are unworthy of love. I Need Your Love—Is That True? helps you illuminate every area in your life where you seem to lack what you long for most—the love of your spouse, the respect of your child, a lover’s tenderness, or the esteem of your boss. Through its penetrating inquiry, you will quickly discover the falseness of the accepted ways of seeking love and approval, and also of the mythology that equates love with need. Using the method in this book, you will inquire into painful beliefs that you’ve based your whole life on—and be delighted to see them evaporate. Katie shows you how unraveling the knots in the search for love, approval, and appreciation brings real love and puts you in charge of your own happiness.“Everyone agrees that love is wonderful, except when it’s terrible. People spend their whole lives tantalized by love—seeking it, trying to hold on to it, or trying to get over it. Not far behind love, as major preoccupations, come approval and appreciation. From childhood on, most people spend much of their energy in a relentless pursuit of these things, trying out different methods to be noticed, to please, to impress, and to win other people’s love, thinking that’s just the way life is. This effort can become so constant and unquestioned that we barely notice it anymore.This book takes a close look at what works and what doesn’t in the quest for love and approval. It will help you find a way to be happier in love and more effective in all your relationships. What you learn here will bring fulfillment to all kinds of relationships, including romantic love, dating, marriage, work, and friendship.” —Byron KatieFrom the Hardcover edition.

Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle


Emily Nagoski - 2019
    Many women in America have experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them. How can you “love your body” when every magazine cover has ten diet tips for becoming “your best self”? How do you “lean in” at work when you’re already operating at 110 percent and aren’t recognized for it? How can you live happily and healthily in a sexist world that is constantly telling you you’re too fat, too needy, too noisy, and too selfish?Sisters Emily Nagoski, PhD, and Amelia Nagoski, DMA, are here to help end the cycle of feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. Instead of asking us to ignore the very real obstacles and societal pressures that stand between women and well-being, they explain with compassion and optimism what we’re up against—and show us how to fight back. In these pages you’ll learn• what you can do to complete the biological stress cycle—and return your body to a state of relaxation• how to manage the “monitor” in your brain that regulates the emotion of frustration• how the Bikini Industrial Complex makes it difficult for women to love their bodies—and how to defend yourself against it• why rest, human connection, and befriending your inner critic are keys to recovering and preventing burnoutWith the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.” Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.

Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror


Judith Lewis Herman - 1992
    In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.