The Empath's Survival Guide: Life Strategies for Sensitive People


Judith Orloff - 2017
    Judith Orloff. "But for empaths it goes much further. We actually feel others' emotions, energy, and physical symptoms in our own bodies, without the usual defenses that most people have." The Empath's Survival Guide is an invaluable resource for empaths and anyone who wants to nurture their empathy and develop coping skills in our high-stimulus world--while fully embracing their gifts of intuition, compassion, creativity, and spiritual connection.This practical, empowering, and loving book was created to support empaths through their unique challenges and help loved ones better understand the empath's needs and gifts. Dr. Orloff offers crucial practices, including:- Exercises to help you identify your empath type and where you are on the empathy spectrum - Tools for protecting yourself from sensory overload, exhaustion, addictions, and compassion fatigue while replenishing your vital energy - Simple, effective strategies to stop absorbing stress and physical symptoms from others and protect yourself from narcissists and other energy vampires - How to find the right work that feeds you - How to navigate intimate relationships without feeling overwhelmed - Guidance for parenting and raising empathic children - Awakening the empath's gift of intuition and deepening your spiritual connection to all living beingsFor any sensitive person who's been told to "grow a thick skin," here is a lifelong guide for staying fully open while building resilience, exploring your gifts of depth and compassion, and feeling welcome and valued by a world that desperately needs what you have to offer.

It's OK That You're Not OK: Meeting Grief and Loss in a Culture That Doesn't Understand


Megan Devine - 2017
    Having experienced grief from both sides—as both a therapist and as a woman who witnessed the accidental drowning of her beloved partner—Megan writes with deep insight about the unspoken truths of loss, love, and healing. She debunks the culturally prescribed goal of returning to a normal, "happy" life, replacing it with a far healthier middle path, one that invites us to build a life alongside grief rather than seeking to overcome it. On this unabridged audio recording read by the author, Megan offers stories, research, life tips, and creative and mindfulness-based practices to guide us through an experience we all must face. With Megan’s gentle but direct guidance, you’ll learn: • Why well-meaning advice, therapy, and spiritual wisdom so often end up making it harder for people in grief • How challenging the myths of grief—doing away with stages, timetables, and unrealistic ideals about how grief should unfold—allows us to accept it as a mystery to be honored instead of a problem to solve • Practical guidance for managing stress, improving sleep, and decreasing anxiety without trying to "fix" your pain Many people who have suffered a loss feel judged, dismissed, and misunderstood by a culture that wants to "solve" grief. Megan writes, "Grief no more needs a solution than love needs a solution." It’s OK That You’re Not OK is a book for grieving people, those who love them, and all those seeking to love themselves—and each other—better.

Master Your Emotions: A Practical Guide to Overcome Negativity and Better Manage Your Feelings


Thibaut Meurisse - 2018
    Weighed down by negativity? Are painful emotions keeping you from doing the things you love? Author and founder of WhatIsPersonalDevelopment.org Thibaut Meurisse wants to help you take back your life. Through his latest book, you

Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN


Tara Brach - 2019
    Each step in the meditation practice (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture) is brought to life by memorable stories shared by Tara and her students as they deal with feelings of overwhelm, loss, and self-aversion, with painful relationships, and past trauma--and as they discover step-by-step the sources of love, forgiveness, compassion, and deep wisdom alive within all of us.

Anxiety: The Missing Stage of Grief: A Revolutionary Approach to Understanding and Healing the Impact of Loss


Claire Bidwell Smith - 2018
    Significant loss and unresolved grief are primary underpinnings of anxiety, something that grief expert Claire Bidwell Smith discovered in her own life and in her practice with her therapy clients. Now, using research and real life stories, Smith breaks down the physiology of anxiety, giving you a concrete foundation of understanding in order to help you heal. Starting with the basics of What Is Anxiety? and What Is Grief? and moving to concrete approaches such as Making Amends, Taking Charge, and Retraining Your Brain, Anxiety takes a big step beyond Elisabeth KüRoss's widely accepted five stages to unpack everything from our age-old fears about mortality to the bare vulnerability a loss can make us feel. With concrete tools and coping strategies for panic attacks, getting a handle on anxious thoughts, and more, Smith bridges these two emotions in a way that is deeply empathetic and eminently practical.

On Being a Therapist


Jeffrey A. Kottler - 1986
    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.

The Explosive Child: A New Approach for Understanding and Parenting Easily Frustrated, Chronically Inflexible Children


Ross W. Greene - 1998
    An experienced therapist offers groundbreaking and compassionate techniques for helping chronically inflexible children, who suffer from excessively immoderate tempers, showing how brain-based deficits contribute to these problems and offering positive and constructive ways to calm things down.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Techniques for Retraining Your Brain


Jason M. Satterfield - 2015
    CBT illuminates the links between thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and physical health and uses those connections to develop concrete plans for self-improvement. Built on a solid foundation of neurological and behavioral research, CBT is an approach almost anyone can use for promoting greater mental health and improving quality of life. In 24 engaging half-hour lectures, you'll build a robust and effective self-improvement toolkit with the expert guidance of Professor Satterfield of the University of California, San Francisco. You will explore CBT's roots in Socratic and stoic philosophy, build a toolkit of CBT techniques, and hear about the latest research about its outcomes. Additionally this intriguing and practical course allows you to take on the role of medical student, physician, psychologist, and patient. Throughout the course you'll explore issues that cause people to seek out therapy. In some cases you'll get to hear Dr. Satterfield working with a patient, and in others you'll be delving into research to find what causes issues and how CBT helps to resolve them. Everyone has something about their life that they would like to improve. With the tools in CBT and the desire to make your situation better, you can create lasting change in your life.

Understanding the Borderline Mother


Christine Ann Lawson - 2000
    Recognizing her face, her voice, the meaning of her moods, and her facial expressions is crucial to survival. Dr. Christine Ann Lawson vividly describes how mothers who suffer from borderline personality disorder produce children who may flounder in life even as adults, futilely struggling to reach the safety of a parental harbor, unable to recognize that their borderline parent lacks a pier, or even a discernible shore. Four character profiles describe different symptom clusters that include the waif mother, the hermit mother, the queen mother, and the witch. Children of borderlines are at risk for developing this complex and devastating personality disorder themselves. Dr. Lawson's recommendations for prevention include empathic understanding of the borderline mother and early intervention with her children to ground them in reality and counteract the often dangerous effects of living with a "make-believe" mother. Some readers may recognize their mothers as well as themselves in this book. They will also find specific suggestions for creating healthier relationships. Addressing the adult children of borderlines and the therapists who work with them, Dr. Lawson shows how to care for the waif without rescuing her, to attend to the hermit without feeding her fear, to love the queen without becoming her subject, and to live with the witch without becoming her victim. A Jason Aronson Book

Disarming the Narcissist: Surviving and Thriving with the Self-Absorbed


Wendy T. Behary - 2008
    So how do you handle the narcissistic people in your life? You might interact with them in social or professional settings, and you might even love one—so ignoring them isn’t really a practical solution. They're frustrating, and maybe even intimidating, but ultimately, you need to find a way of communicating effectively with them.Disarming the Narcissist, Second Edition, will show you how to move past the narcissist's defenses using compassionate, empathetic communication. You'll learn how narcissists view the world, how to navigate their coping styles, and why, oftentimes, it's sad and lonely being a narcissist. By learning to anticipate and avoid certain hot-button issues, you'll be able to relate to narcissists without triggering aggression. By validating some common narcissistic concerns, you'll also find out how to be heard in conversation with a narcissist.This book will help you learn to meet your own needs while side-stepping unproductive power struggles and senseless arguments with someone who is at the center of his or her own universe. This new edition also includes new chapters on dealing with narcissistic women, aggressive and abusive narcissists, strategies for safety, and the link between narcissism and sex addiction.Finally, you'll learn how to set limits with your narcissist and when it's time to draw the line on unacceptable behavior.

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts


Sally M. Winston - 2017
    Thoughts can seem like messages—are they trying to tell you something? But the truth is that they are just thoughts, and don’t necessarily mean anything. Sane and good people have them. If you are someone who is plagued by thoughts you don’t want—thoughts that scare you, or thoughts you can’t tell anyone about—this book may change your life.In this compassionate guide, you’ll discover the different kinds of disturbing thoughts, myths that surround your thoughts, and how your brain has a tendency to get “stuck” in a cycle of unwanted rumination. You’ll also learn why common techniques to get rid of these thoughts can backfire. And finally, you’ll learn powerful cognitive behavioral skills to help you cope with and move beyond your thoughts, so you can focus on living the life you want. Your thoughts will still occur, but you will be better able to cope with them—without dread, guilt, or shame.If you have unwanted thoughts, you should remember that you aren’t alone. In fact, there are millions of people just like you—good people who have awful thoughts, gentle people with violent thoughts, and sane people with “crazy” thoughts. This book will show you how to move past your thoughts so you can reclaim your life!

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.

Brain Lock: Free Yourself from Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior


Jeffrey M. Schwartz - 1996
    

Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others


Laura Van Dernoot Lipsky - 2007
    We may feel tired, cynical, numb, or like we can never do enough. These, and other symptoms, affect us individually and collectively, sapping the energy and effectiveness we so desperately need if we are to benefit humankind, other animals, and the planet itself. Through Trauma Stewardship, we are called to meet these challenges in an intentional way--not by becoming overwhelmed but by developing a quality of mindful presence. Joining the wisdom of ancient cultural traditions with modern psychological research, Lipsky offers a variety of simple and profound practices that will allow us to remake ourselves--and ultimately the world.

Taking Charge of Adult ADHD


Russell A. Barkley - 2010
    Fortunately, effective help is out there. No one is a better guide to how to get the best care—and what sufferers can do for themselves—than renowned ADHD researcher/clinician Russell A. Barkley. Dr. Barkley provides step-by-step strategies for managing symptoms and reducing their harmful impact. Readers get hands-on self-assessment tools and skills-building exercises, plus clear answers to frequently asked questions about medications and other treatments. Specific techniques are presented for overcoming challenges in critical areas where people with the disorder often struggle—work, finances, relationships, and more. Finally, an authoritative one-stop resource for adults with ADHD who are ready to take back their lives.See also Dr. Barkley's bestselling resource on childhood ADHD, Taking Charge of ADHD, Third Edition: The Complete, Authoritative Guide for Parents.