Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame: A Relational/Neurobiological Approach


Patricia A. DeYoung - 2015
    It resists self-help and undermines even intensive psychoanalysis.  Patricia A. DeYoung's cutting-edge book gives chronic shame the serious attention it deserves, integrating new brain science with an inclusive tradition of relational psychotherapy. She looks behind the myriad symptoms of shame to its relational essence. As DeYoung describes how chronic shame is wired into the brain and developed in personality, she clarifies complex concepts and makes them available for everyday therapy practice.  Grounded in clinical experience and alive with case examples, Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame is highly readable and immediately helpful. Patricia A. DeYoung's clear, engaging writing helps readers recognize the presence of shame in the therapy room, think through its origins and effects in their clients' lives, and decide how best to work with those clients. Therapists will find that Understanding and Treating Chronic Shame enhances the scope of their practice and efficacy with this client group, which comprises a large part of most therapy practices. Challenging, enlightening, and nourishing, this book belongs in the library of every shame-aware therapist.

The Little CBT Workbook


Michael Sinclair - 2012
    With interactive exercises and checklists, this book is suitable for self-teaching or for supplementing a CBT course.

Difficult Personalities: A Practical Guide to Managing the Hurtful Behavior of Others (and Maybe Your Own)


Helen McGrath - 2000
    And most of us hurt others occasionally, too. Now, authors Dr. Helen McGrath, a clinical psychologist and professor, and Hazel Edwards, a professional writer, offer this highly readable, extremely practical guide to dealing with the difficult personalities we encounter every day—in others, and in ourselves.Taking the American Psychiatric Association's widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) as its starting point, Difficult Personalities helpfully outlines over a dozen different personality traits and types, detailing their common characteristics and underlying motivations. It also equips readers with numerous strategies for dealing with difficult behavior, including:Anger and conflict managementOptimism and assertion trainingRational and empathic thinkingReexamining your own personalityReaders will also benefit from sections on making difficult decisions and maintaining romantic relationships. Perfect for anyone who has ever wished that other people came with a handbook, Difficult Personalities illuminates the personality differences that so often serve as barriers to cooperation in the workplace and harmony at home.

Overcoming Trauma and PTSD: A Workbook Integrating Skills from ACT, DBT, and CBT


Sheela Raja - 2012
    The truth is that there is no right or wrong way to react to trauma; but there are ways that you can heal from your experience, and uncover your own capacity for resilience, growth, and recovery. Overcoming Trauma and PTSD offers proven-effective treatments based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you overcome both the physical and emotional symptoms of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This book will help you find relief from painful flashbacks, insomnia, or other symptoms you might be experiencing. Also included are worksheets, checklists, and exercises to help you start feeling better and begin your journey on the road to recovery. This book will help you manage your anxiety and stop avoiding certain situations, cope with painful memories and nightmares, and determine if you need to see a therapist. Perhaps most importantly, it will help you to develop a support system so that you can you heal and move forward.

Helping Teens Who Cut: Understanding and Ending Self-Injury


Michael Hollander - 2008
    What can you do to help when every attempt to address the behavior seems to push him or her further away? In this compassionate, straightforward book, Dr. Michael Hollander, a leading authority on self-injury, spells out the facts about cutting--and what to do to make it stop. You’ll learn how overwhelming emotions lead some teens to hurt themselves, and how proven treatments--chief among them dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)--can help your child become well again. Helping Teens Who Cut demonstrates how to talk to your teen about cutting without making it worse, and explains exactly what to look for in a therapist or treatment program. Drawing on decades of clinical experience as well as the latest research, Dr. Hollander provides concrete ways to help your son or daughter cope with extreme emotions without resorting to self-injury. You’ll also learn practical communication and problem-solving skills that can reduce family stress, making it easier to care for yourself and your teen during the recovery process. Winner--American Journal of Nursing Book of the Year Award

Learning to Slow Down and Pay Attention: A Kid's Book about ADHD


Kathleen G. Nadeau - 1993
    While the majority of what's written about ADHD emphasizes behaviors that bother adults, this book emphasises those aspects of ADHD that are troublesome to the children, trying to look at the world more from their point of view.

Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom


William Glasser - 1998
    William Glasser offers a new psychology that, if practiced, could reverse our widespread inability to get along with one another, an inability that is the source of almost all unhappiness.For progress in human relationships, he explains that we must give up the punishing, relationship–destroying external control psychology. For example, if you are in an unhappy relationship right now, he proposes that one or both of you could be using external control psychology on the other. He goes further. And suggests that misery is always related to a current unsatisfying relationship. Contrary to what you may believe, your troubles are always now, never in the past. No one can change what happened yesterday.

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.

I'm OK - You're OK


Thomas A. Harris - 1967
    “Happy childhood” notwithstanding, says Harris, most of us are living out the not ok feelings of a defenseless child wholly dependent on ok others (parents) for stroking and caring. At some stage early in our lives we adopt a “position” about ourselves which very significantly determines how we feel about ourselves, particularly in relation to other people. And for a huge portion of the population, that position is that I’m Not OK-You’re OK. This negative Life Position, shared by successful and unsuccessful people alike, contaminates our rational adult potential, leaving us vulnerable to the inappropriate, emotional reactions of our child and the uncritically learned behavior programmed into our parent. By exploring the four basic “life positions,” we can radically change our lives.

Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing


David A. Treleaven - 2018
    At the same time, trauma remains a fact of life: the majority of us will experience a traumatic event in our lifetime, and up to 20% of us will develop posttraumatic stress. This means that anywhere mindfulness is being practiced, someone in the room is likely to be struggling with trauma.At first glance, this appears to be a good thing: trauma creates stress, and mindfulness is a proven tool for reducing it. But the reality is not so simple.Drawing on a decade of research and clinical experience, psychotherapist and educator David Treleaven shows that mindfulness meditation—practiced without an awareness of trauma—can exacerbate symptoms of traumatic stress. Instructed to pay close, sustained attention to their inner world, survivors can experience flashbacks, dissociation, and even retraumatization.This raises a crucial question for mindfulness teachers, trauma professionals, and survivors everywhere: How can we minimize the potential dangers of mindfulness for survivors while leveraging its powerful benefits?Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness offers answers to this question. Part I provides an insightful and concise review of the histories of mindfulness and trauma, including the way modern neuroscience is shaping our understanding of both. Through grounded scholarship and wide-ranging case examples, Treleaven illustrates the ways mindfulness can help—or hinder—trauma recovery.Part II distills these insights into five key principles for trauma-sensitive mindfulness. Covering the role of attention, arousal, relationship, dissociation, and social context within trauma-informed practice, Treleaven offers 36 specific modifications designed to support survivors’ safety and stability. The result is a groundbreaking and practical approach that empowers those looking to practice mindfulness in a safe, transformative way.

Healing the Child Within: Discovery and Recovery for Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families


Charles L. Whitfield - 1987
    Whitfield provides a clear and effective introduction to the basic principles of recovery. This book is a modern classic, as fresh and useful today as it was more than a decade ago when first published. Here, frontline physician and therapist Charles Whitfield describes the process of wounding that the Child Within (True Self) experiences and shows how to differentiate the True Self from the false self. He also describes the core issues of recovery and more. Other writings on this topic have come and gone, while Healing the Child Within has remained a strong introduction to recognizing and healing from the painful effects of childhood trauma. Highly recommended by therapists and survivors of trauma.

Anxiety: Practical about Panic: A Practical Guide to Understanding and Overcoming Anxiety Disorder


Joshua Fletcher - 2018
    It is the follow up to the UK best-seller, Anxiety: Panicking about Panic, where psychotherapist, Joshua Fletcher MSc, discusses ways to approach dealing with the symptoms of anxiety, such as panic attacks and constant worry. Fletcher draws upon his academic knowledge, as well as his personal experiences of living with and working with anxiety disorders, to facilitate the reader to build the foundations for their own recovery.

Schopenhauer's Porcupines: Intimacy And Its Dilemmas: Five Stories Of Psychotherapy


Deborah Anna Luepnitz - 2002
    Each generation of therapists can boast of only a few writers like Deborah Luepnitz, whose sympathy and wit shine in her fine, luminous prose. In Schopenhauer's Porcupines, she recounts five true stories from her practice, stories of patients who range from the super-rich to the destitute, who grapple with panic attacks, psychosomatic illness, marital despair, and sexual recklessness. Intimate, original, and triumphantly funny, Schopenhauer's Porcupines goes further than any other book in illuminating "how talking helps."

The Mindful Path Through Worry and Rumination: Letting Go of Anxious and Depressive Thoughts


Sameet M. Kumar - 2010
    Left unchecked, this tendency can lead to mental health problems such as depression and generalized anxiety disorder. The Mindful Path Through Worry and Rumination offers powerful mindfulness strategies derived from Buddhist spiritual practices and proven psychological techniques to help you stop overthinking what you can't control-the future and the past-and learn how to find contentment in the present moment.Kumar integrates science, Buddhism, and therapeutic tools to create an insightful and useful guidebook for people stuck in rumination.-Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Yale University

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.