Many people with BPD excel in academics and careers while revealing erratic, self-destructive, and sometimes violent behavior only to those withwhom they are intimate. Others have trouble simply holding down a job or staying in school.Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder is a compassionate and informative guide to understanding this profoundly unsettling--and widely misunderstood--mental illness, believed to affect approximately 6% of the general population. Rather than viewing people with BPD as manipulative opponents in abitter struggle, or pitying them as emotional invalids, Valerie Porr cites cutting-edge science to show that BPD is a true neurobiological disorder and not, as many come to believe, a character flaw or the result of bad parenting. Porr then clearly and accessibly explains what BPD is, whichtherapies have proven effective, and how to rise above the weighty stigma associated with the disorder. Offering families and loved ones supportive guidance that both acknowledges the difficulties they face and shows how they can be overcome, Porr teaches empirically-supported and effective copingbehaviors and interpersonal skills, such as new ways of talking about emotions, how to be aware of nonverbal communication, and validating difficult experiences. These skills are derived from Dialectical Behavior Therapy and Mentalization-based Therapy, two evidence-based treatments that have provenhighly successful in reducing family conflict while increasing trust. Overcoming Borderline Personality Disorder is an empowering and hopeful resource for those who wish to gain better understanding of the BPD experience--and to make use of these insights in day-to-day family interactions.Winner of the ABCT Self Help Book Seal of Merit Award 2011

    They found it too difficult or too frightening or just decided that for them it was too late. But as a therapist and trauma survivor herself, Dr. Schmelzer wants us to know that it is never too late to heal from trauma, whether it is the suffering caused within an abusive relationship or PTSD resulting from combat. Sometimes what feels like a big setback is actually an unexpected difficult step forward. So she wrote Journey Through Trauma specifically for survivors--to help them understand the terrain of the healing process and stay on the path. There are three basic principles that every trauma survivor should know: Healing is possible. It requires courage. And it cannot be done alone. Traumas that happen more than once--child abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence, gang violence, even war--are all relational traumas. They happened inside a relationship and therefore must be healed inside a relationship, whether that relationship is with a therapist or within a group. Journey Through Trauma gives us a map to help guide us through that healing process, see where the hard parts show up, and persevere in the process of getting well. We learn the five phases that every survivor must negotiate along the way and come to understand that since the cycle of healing is not linear, circling back around to a previous stage does not mean defeat - it actually means progress as well as facing new challenges. Authoritative and accessible, Journey Through Trauma provides support for survivors and their loved ones through one of the most challenging but necessary processes of healing that anyone can face.

    From our earliest years, we develop an attachment style that follows us through life, replaying in our daily emotional landscape, our relationships, and how we feel about ourselves. And in the wake of a traumatic event—such as a car accident, severe illness, loss of a loved one, or experience of abuse—that attachment style can deeply influence what happens next. In The Power of Attachment, Dr. Diane Poole Heller, a pioneer in attachment theory and trauma resolution, shows how overwhelming experiences can disrupt our most important connections— with the parts of ourselves within, with the physical world around us, and with others. The good news is that we can restore and reconnect at all levels, regardless of our past. Here, you’ll learn key insights and practices to help you: • Restore the broken connections caused by trauma • Get embodied and grounded in your body • Integrate the parts of yourself that feel wounded and fragmented • Emerge from grief, fear, and powerlessness to regain strength, joy, and resiliency • Reclaim access to your inner resources and spiritual nature "We are fundamentally designed to heal," teaches Dr. Heller. "Even if our childhood is less than ideal, our secure attachment system is biologically programmed in us, and our job is to simply find out what’s interfering with it—and learn what we can do to make those secure tendencies more dominant." With expertise drawn from Dr. Heller’s research, clinical work, and training programs, this book invites you to begin that journey back to wholeness.

    Too good. Clearly, the title struck a chord, because children often seem to dislike family therapy. And who could fault them for it? The fact is that many family therapists either exclude young children or do not know how to involve them actively in family sessions.... "This is where Dr. Gil's new book succeeds so wonderfully. By drawing on her extensive training and experience as both a child therapist and a family therapist, she shows us how to use all family members' capacities for expressive play simultaneously. Never before have we been treated to such a variety of family play techniques that are presented in such vivid clinical detail....Her methods are captivating to read about and described with sufficient depth so that the reader can visualize their application in everyday clinical situations." --From the Foreword by Robert-Jay Green, Ph.D.In Play in Family Therapy, Dr. Eliana Gil provides a hands-on guide to a wealth of play therapy techniques for working with children ages 3 to 12, and shows how to adapt these techniques to conjoint family therapy. Illustrating the inexhaustible potential that play techniques hold for enhancing relatedness, communication, and understanding among families, this essential new volume represents a major step toward merging child and family therapy.Chapters in Part One cover the history of play therapy and the integration of play into family therapy. In Part Two, clinical vignettes illustrate in user-friendly detail the application of such techniques as puppet interviews, art therapy, and story-telling. Dr. Gil covers the presenting problems and family configurations clinicians are likely to encounter when working with children. Throughout, the text describes the problems that may arise--such as family members' reluctance to use play--and shows how to overcome them by setting a positive tone and conveying the expectation that families will find play enjoyable and rewarding.Providing clinicians with useful play techniques with which to expand their repertoire of family interventions, this work will be invaluable to all therapists and students who work with children and their families.

    (The somewhat confusing title is from a line in Zorba the Greek in which the title character refers to the ups and downs of family life as "the full catastrophe.") But this book is also a terrific introduction for anyone who has considered meditating but was afraid it would be too difficult or would include religious practices they found foreign. Kabat-Zinn focuses on "mindfulness," a concept that involves living in the moment, paying attention, and simply "being" rather than "doing." While you can practice anything "mindfully," from taking a walk to cleaning your house, Kabat-Zinn presents several meditation techniques that focus the attention most clearly, whether it's on a simple phrase, your breathing, or various parts of your body. The book goes into detail about how hospital patients have either improved their health or simply come to feel better despite their illness by using these techniques, but these meditations can help anyone deal with stress and gain a calmer outlook on life. "When we use the word healing to describe the experiences of people in the stress clinic, what we mean above all is that they are undergoing a profound transformation of view," Kabat-Zinn writes. "Out of this shift in perspective comes an ability to act with greater balance and inner security in the world." --Ben Kallenreissue 2005

    Anxiety. Chronic Pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the roots of these difficulties may not reside in our immediate life experience or in chemical imbalances in our brains—but in the lives of our parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents. The latest scientific research, now making headlines, supports what many have long intuited—that traumatic experience can be passed down through generations. It Didn’t Start with You builds on the work of leading experts in post-traumatic stress, including Mount Sinai School of Medicine neuroscientist Rachel Yehuda and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. Even if the person who suffered the original trauma has died, or the story has been forgotten or silenced, memory and feelings can live on. These emotional legacies are often hidden, encoded in everything from gene expression to everyday language, and they play a far greater role in our emotional and physical health than has ever before been understood.   As a pioneer in the field of inherited family trauma, Mark Wolynn has worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for over twenty years. It Didn’t Start with You offers a pragmatic and prescriptive guide to his method, the Core Language Approach. Diagnostic self-inventories provide a way to uncover the fears and anxieties conveyed through everyday words, behaviors, and physical symptoms. Techniques for developing a genogram or extended family tree create a map of experiences going back through the generations. And visualization, active imagination, and direct dialogue create pathways to reconnection, integration, and reclaiming life and health. It Didn’t Start With You is a transformative approach to resolving longstanding difficulties that in many cases, traditional therapy, drugs, or other interventions have not had the capacity to touch.

    In Hold Me Tight, Dr. Sue Johnson presents Emotionally Focused Therapy to the general public for the first time. Johnson teaches that the way to save and enrich a relationship is to reestablish safe emotional connection and preserve the attachment bond. With this in mind, she focuses on key moments in a relationship-from "Recognizing the Demon Dialogue" to "Revisiting a Rocky Moment" -- and uses them as touch points for seven healing conversations.Through case studies from her practice, illuminating advice, and practical exercises, couples will learn how to nurture their relationships and ensure a lifetime of love.

    This new manual offers straight-forward explanations and illustrates a wide variety of applications. Easy to read and highly practical.Step-by-step techniquesAnnotated case examplesUnique meditationsDownloadable exercises, worksheetsIFS is Evidence-BasedThirty years ago, IFS creator Richard Schwartz, PhD, listened to his clients describing the behaviors and fears of their most extreme parts. He found that the inner world of all his clients was characterized by parts who had a positive intent for the client but had taken on extreme roles in an effort to be safe. He also discovered that these extreme parts would become less disruptive and more cooperative once their concerns were addressed and they felt safer.IFS views psychic multiplicity as the norm: we all have parts. In addition, every part has a good intention for the client, and every part has value. When clients listen to all their parts, they can heal their wounded parts.Today, IFS, which has established a legacy of efficiency and effectiveness in treating many mental health issues, is being heralded by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk as a treatment that all clinicians should know.

    Here is the culmination of his life's work: the seven principles that guide couples on the path toward a harmonious and long-lasting relationship. Packed with practical questionnaires and exercises, The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work is the definitive guide for anyone who wants their relationship to attain its highest potential.

    Whether we are afraid of the dark or being alone, of failure or commitment, of public speaking or flying, fear dominates our lives, affecting nearly every decision we make.Combining compelling stories from the author′s twenty-five-year practice, examples from his own struggles with addiction and depression, and practical exercises and tools, Embracing Fear does not pretend to teach the impossible and eliminate fear, but rather shows us that once we understand it we can live beyond its tyrannical control. Instead of repressing or ignoring the voices of panic and dread, we learn that it is only through facing, exploring, accepting, and responding to fear that we free ourselves from its paralyzing grip.

    

    Narcissistic families have a parental system that is, for whatever reason (job stress, alcoholism, drug abuse, mental illness, physical disability, lack of parenting skills, self-centered immaturity), primarily involved in getting its own needs met. The children in such narcissistic family systems try to earn love, attention and approval by satisfying their parents' needs, thus never developing the ability to recognize their own needs or create strategies for getting them met. By outlining the theoretical framework of their model and using dozens of illustrative clinical examples, the authors clearly illuminate specific practice guidelines for treating these individuals. Stephanie Donaldson-Pressman is a therapist, consultant, and trainer. She is known for her work with dysfunctional families, particularly with survivors of incest. Robert M. Pressman is the editor-in-chief and president of the Joint Commission for the Development of the Treatment and Statistical Manual for Behavioral and Mental Disorders.

    It details why men become emotionally unavailable and specifies the actions that can be taken by both men and women to realize improvement.The Emotionally Unavailable Man helps men get their "power," stop avoiding difficult situations, calm their partner's anger, learn how to say "No," set and maintain appropriate boundaries, be more effective at work, increase and enhance the sex in their relationship, and feel personal freedom and happiness.It helps women determine if their partner is capable of being emotionally available, decide what they can -- and cannot -- do to help, discover how to lose their anger, exercise mutuality and safety, learn how to recognize and confront their own resistances, restore hope about long-term change, and gain clarity about their future.

    In this edition, many details have been updated to reflect the latest finds from ongoing research, including new material about the sexual side of antidepressants.

    Thousands of people around the world have written to Eger to tell her how The Choice moved them and inspired them to confront their own past and try to heal their pain; and to ask her to write another, more “how-to” book. Now, in The Gift, Eger expands on her message of healing and provides a hands-on guide that gently encourages us to change the thoughts and behaviors that may be keeping us imprisoned in the past. Eger explains that the worst prison she experienced is not the prison that Nazis put her in but the one she created for herself, the prison within her own mind. She describes the twelve most pervasive imprisoning beliefs she has known—including fear, grief, anger, secrets, stress, guilt, shame, and avoidance—and the tools she has discovered to deal with these universal challenges. Accompanied by stories from Eger’s own life and the lives of her patients each chapter includes thought-provoking questions and takeaways, such as: -Would you like to be married to you? -Are you evolving or revolving? -You can’t heal what you can’t feel. Filled with empathy, insight, and humor, The Gift captures the vulnerability and common challenges we all face and provides encouragement and advice for breaking out of our personal prisons to find healing and enjoy life.