Erikson's concept of the stages of human development has deeply influenced the field of contemporary psychology. Here, with new material by Joan M. Erikson, is an expanded edition of his final work. The Life Cycle Completed eloquently closes the circle of Erikson's theories, outlining the unique rewards and challenges—for both individuals and society—of very old age.

    Over 80 per cent of adults in the UK use caffeine every day, but when does this habit become a reliance? Caffeine is a bitter addictive drug which attacks the central nervous system and makes you jittery. Fooling you into thinking you are more alert, caffeine will often disrupt your sleep and actually increase overall fatigue. Quite simply, it's bad for you with no real benefits.In The Easy Way to Quit Caffeine, Allen Carr addresses the difficulties that coffee-drinkers and soda consumers face in trying to quit caffeine. By explaining what caffeine does to your body, and providing simple step-by-step instructions to free you from your addiction, Carr shows you how to lead a happier, healthier and more chilled life.

    But Susan Forward pulls no punches when it comes to those whose deficiencies cripple their children emotionally. Her brisk, unreserved guide to overcoming the stultifying agony of parental manipulation—from power trips to guilt trips and all other killers of self worth—will help deal with the pain of childhood and move beyond the frustrating relationship patterns learned at home.Source: Amazon.com

    At the same time, it is the story of a personal journey through the dream world by the author and several of his patients and students. Robert Bosnak offers exercises and strategies for studying dreams, including:- Remembering and recording dreams - Analyzing a written dream text - Studying a series of dreams for its underlying themes - Using the techniques of active imagination and amplification - Working on dreams alone, in pairs, and in groupsThrough this Little Course in Dreams it becomes clear that the imagination is a powerful force that simultaneously poisons us and provides the remedies to the soul's ills. Dreamwork thus opens the way to the healing and transformation of the soul.

    Co-Creating Change includes clinical vignettes that illustrate hundreds of therapeutic impasses taken from actual sessions, showing how to understand patients and how to intervene effectively. The book provides clear, systematic steps for assessing patients' needs and intervening to develop an effective relationship for change. Co-Creating Change presents an integrative theory that uses elements of behavior therapy, cognitive therapy, emotion-focused therapy, psychoanalysis, and mindfulness. This empirically validated treatment is effective with a wide range of patients.

    More than that, it revealed self-mutilation as a comprehensible, treatable disorder, no longer to be evaded by the public and neglected by professionals. Using copious examples from his practice, Steven Levenkron traces the factors that predispose a personality to self-mutilation: genetics, family experience, childhood trauma, and parental behavior. Written for sufferers, parents, friends, and therapists, Cutting explains why the disorder manifests in self-harming behaviors and describes how patients can be helped.

    Encouraging a child to bypass grief without completion can cause unseen long-term damage. When Children Grieve helps parents break through the misinformation that surrounds the topic of grief. It pinpoints the six major myths that hamper children in adapting to life’s inevitable losses. Practical and compassionate, it guides parents in creating emotional safety and spells out specific actions to help children move forward successfully.

    While Hollywood regularly cashes in on teenage anxiety through its Scream franchise, pharmaceutical companies churn out new drugs such as Paxil to combat newly diagnosed anxieties.On Anxiety takes a fascinating, psychological plunge behind the scenes of our panic stricken culture and into anxious minds, asking who and what is responsible. Putting anxiety on the couch, Renata Salecl asks some much-needed questions: Is anxiety about the absence of authority or too much of it? Do the media report anxiety or create it? Are drugs a cure for anxiety or its cause? Is anxiety about being yourself or someone else, and is anxiety really the ultimate obstacle to happiness? Drawing on vivid examples from films such as the X Files and Cyrano de Bergerac, drugs used on soldiers to combat anxiety, the anxieties of love and motherhood, and fake Holocaust memoirs, Renata Salecl argues that what really produces anxiety is the attempt to get rid of it. Erudite and compelling, On Anxiety is essential reading for anyone interested in philosophy, psychology and the cultural phenomenon of anxiety today.

    When First Presbyterian Church in Altadena, California, was asked to provide a mission study report for its pastor nominating committee, the congregation was afraid they would find themselves engaging in busy work and producing a report that would wind up in a file gathering dust. They then asked professor Mark Lau Branson to consult with them on writing this report. He invited them to join in a process of Appreciative Inquiry--a transformational organization change process--which resulted in a major shift in congregational conversations and a new sense of hope. Memories, Hopes, and Conversations recounts the experience of First Presbyterian and outlines a process that any congregation can utilize to harness the energies of the congregation at all levels of its common life. Branson first leads readers through the foundations of Appreciative Inquiry and bracingly explores biblical texts for understanding the practice in a faith context. He then outlines and illustrates a four-step process--Initiate, Inquire, Imagine, Innovate--that creatively employs constructive conversations and questions to evoke storytelling and spur imaginations. Branson persuasively demonstrates how concentrating on needs and problems can mire a congregation in discouragement and distract it from noticing innate strengths. By focusing on memories of the congregation at its best, members are able to construct "provocative proposals" to help shape the church's future. Grounded in solid theory and real-life practice, Memories, Hopes, and Conversations is a groundbreaking work of narrative leadership and the first book to apply the principles of Appreciative Inquiry to the lives of congregations.

    Stores are deserted, restaurants quiet--and for patients of distinguished psychoanalyst and author Glen Gabbard, desperate calls for help go unreturned. Why, Dr. Gabbard wondered, have the misadventures of a middle-aged thug won the largest audience in HBO history? What is it about the characters and their relationships that draws us in so completely? What can we learn about ourselves from going inside the heads of these outlaws from New Jersey? In The Psychology of the Sopranos Dr. Gabbard draws on his vast professional experience (and his near-obsessive preoccupation with Tony's two "families") to delve into the psychology of the characters, the show's depiction of therapy, and how "The Sopranos" dramatically showcases the psychological ambiguities and conflicts in our own lives. Indeed, part of the show's popularity, he argues, is the spotlight it throws on viewers' psychological issues--from panic attacks and existential angst to codes of honor and moral indiscretions. With his tongue planted only lightly in his cheek, Gabbard poses the questions so many of us have pondered on Monday mornings: Is Tony's therapy working? And how is it possible for him and his "families" to reconcile the mundane and the monstrous? His answers will surprise and delight loyal fans. This book was not prepared, licensed, approved, or endorsed by any entity involved in creating or producing the "Sopranos" television series.Mafia don Tony Soprano, his family, his work "associates," and his therapist, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, have captured the imagination (and the fanatical devotion) of more than 11 million viewers. The show has garnered rave reviews for its writing and acting and has won a loyal following of educated viewers, who appreciate the sharp wit, the Machiavellian plot turns, and the Shakespearean character development of this extraordinarily well-crafted drama. Find the answers in The Psychology of the Sopranos: Is Tony a psychopath--or is he an American everyman putting bread on the table in the best way he knows how? Is Livia a modern-day Medea or a victim caught in mob mentality? Is Carmella an accomplice or an innocent? Who's more corrupt, Tony Soprano or Father Phil? Is Tony doomed to desire women who make him feel as bad as Mom did? Can a man who commits bad acts still teach his children to be good?

    In Letters to a Young Therapist, Dr. Pipher shares what she has learned in thirty years as a therapist, helping warring families, alienated adolescents, and harried professionals restore peace and beauty to their lives. Letters to a Young Therapist gives voice to her practice with an exhilarating mix of storytelling and sharp-eyed observation. And while her letters are addressed to an imagined young therapist, every one of us can take something away from them. Long before "positive psychology" became a buzzword, Dr. Pipher practiced a refreshingly inventive therapy--fiercely optimistic, free of dogma or psychobabble, and laced with generous warmth and practical common sense. But not until now has this gifted healer described her unique perspective on how therapy can help us revitalize our emotional landscape in an increasingly stressful world. Whether she's recommending daily swims for a sluggish teenager, encouraging a timid husband to become bolder, or simply bearing witness to a bereaved parent's sorrow, Dr. Pipher's compassion and insight shine from every page of this thoughtful and engaging book.

    The first chapter outlines the theoretical foundations for IPA. It discusses phenomenology, hermeneutics, and idiography and how they have been taken up by IPA. The next four chapters provide detailed, step by step guidelines to conducting IPA research: study design, data collection and interviewing, data analysis, and writing up. In the next section, the authors give extended worked examples from their own studies in health, sexuality, psychological distress, and identity to illustrate the breadth and depth of IPA research. The final section of the book considers how IPA connects with other contemporary qualitative approaches like discourse and narrative analysis and how it addresses issues to do with validity.

    Even modern neuroscience has tended, until recently, to concentrate on the cognitive aspects of brain function, disregarding emotions. This attitude began to change with the publication of Descartes’ Error in 1995. Antonio Damasio—"one of the world’s leading neurologists" (The New York Times)—challenged traditional ideas about the connection between emotions and rationality. In this wondrously engaging book, Damasio takes the reader on a journey of scientific discovery through a series of case studies, demonstrating what many of us have long suspected: emotions are not a luxury, they are essential to rational thinking and to normal social behavior.

    From as early as one month old, he was gravely ill with one illness after another. By the time he was three years old, he had been hospitalized more times than she could count. He would get better and then suddenly relapse with no reasonable explanation. When her granddaughter was born, she too started having alarming health problems. She had known that her daughter-in-law seemed to exaggerate but never could she have imagined this. The children’s mother was so cunning and crafty in her manipulative deception that she fooled dozens of medical professionals along the way. After three years of her grandson being constantly sick with countless hospitalizations, this grandmother was faced with the horrifying realization; that her grandchildren were sick because their mother was making them sick. Then the real fight began. Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy is one of the cruelest forms of child abuse imaginable. It is very difficult to prove and even harder to prosecute. This story chronicles a woman’s journey as she discovers that her two grandchildren are victims of this abuse that most people have never even heard of. Her faith in God kept her going as she turned their tragedies and trials into triumph. Follow her journey of faith as she fights to rescue, protect, and bring healing to her grandchildren’s broken spirits and shattered little souls.

    Jeffrey Kottler provides a candid account of the profound ways in which therapists influence clients and, in turn, are impacted personally and professionally by these encounters. He shows how therapists can learn, develop, and grow during the process of therapy and explains how practitioners can use the professional skills and insights gained from their sessions to address their own personal issues, realize positive change in themselves, and so become better helpers for others. This thoroughly revised edition includes discussion about how the business and practice of therapy has changed in recent years, the effects of technology and managed care, the breakdown of theoretical orientation, and the greater client diversity represented in contemporary practice.