It will inspire the necessary and difficult conversations we all need to have with loved ones as it illuminates a path to a better way of death.Like so many of us, award-winning writer Katy Butler always assumed her aging parents would experience healthy, active retire­ments before dying peacefully at home. Then her father suffered a stroke that left him incapable of easily finishing a sentence or showering without assistance. Her mother was thrust into full-time caregiving, and Katy became one of the 24 mil­lion Americans who help care for aging parents. In an effort to correct a minor and non–life threatening heart arrhythmia, doctors outfitted her father with a pacemaker. The device kept his heart beating but did nothing to prevent his slide into dementia, incontinence, near-muteness, and misery. After several years, he asked his wife for help, telling her, "I am living too long." Mother and daughter faced a series of wrench­ing moral questions: When does death cease being a curse and become a blessing? Where is the line between saving life and prolonging a dying? When is the right time to say to a doctor, "Let my loved one go"? When doctors refused to disable the pace­maker, sentencing her father to a protracted and agonizing death, Katy set out to understand why. Her quest had barely begun when her mother faced her own illness, rebelled against her doctors, refused open-heart surgery, and instead met death head-on. Knocking on Heaven's Door, a revolution­ary blend of memoir and investigative reporting, is the fruit of the Butler family's journey. With a reporter's skill, a poet's eye, and a daughter's love, Butler explores what happens when our terror of death collides with the tech­nological imperatives of modern medicine. Her provocative thesis is that advanced medicine, in its single-minded pursuit of maximum longevity, often creates more suffering than it prevents. Butler lays bare the tangled web of technology, medicine, and commerce that modern dying has become and chronicles the rise of Slow Medicine - a growing movement that promotes care over cure. Knocking on Heaven's Door is a visionary map through the labyrinth of a broken and morally adrift medical system. It will inspire the necessary and difficult conversations we all need to have with loved ones as it illuminates a path to a better way of death.

    

    This science-based workbook offers a step-by-step approach to breaking free of harsh self-judgments and impossible standards in order to cultivate emotional well-being. In a convenient large-size format, the book is based on the authors' groundbreaking eight-week Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program, which has helped tens of thousands of people worldwide. It is packed with guided meditations (with audio downloads); informal practices to do anytime, anywhere; exercises; and vivid stories of people using the techniques to address relationship stress, weight and body image issues, health concerns, anxiety, and other common problems. The seeds of self-compassion already lie within you--learn how you can uncover this powerful inner resource and transform your life. See also Teaching the Mindful Self-Compassion Program, by Christopher Germer and Kristin Neff, a thorough overview of conducting MSC (for professionals), and The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion, by Christopher Germer, which delves into mindful self-compassion and shares moving stories of how it can change lives.

    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.

    Based on the most massive study of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide, The Evolution of Desire is the first book to present a unified theory of human mating behavior.Now in an updated edition with two new chapters by the author, The Evolution of Desire presents the latest research in the field, including starting new discoveries about the evolutionary advantages of infidelity, orgasm, and physical attractiveness.

    From our enjoyment of music to our cravings for chocolate, from our love for children and family to our attraction to things of beauty, this book embarks on an intriguing and accessible exploration of the purpose of pleasure in our lives and in human history. How did pleasure evolve and why? How does it develop in children? How does the pursuit of pleasure play a critical role in brain development? The Pleasure Instinct explores everything we need to know about our urge to feel good.

    Pursuing the idea that human affection could be understood, studied, even measured, Harlow (1905-1981) arrived at his conclusions by conducting research-sometimes beautiful, sometimes horrible-on the primates in his University of Wisconsin laboratory. Paradoxically, his darkest experiments may have the brightest legacy, for by studying "neglect" and its life-altering consequences, Harlow confirmed love's central role in shaping not only how we feel but also how we think. His work sparked a psychological revolution. The more children experience affection, he discovered, the more curious they become about the world: Love makes people smarter. The biography of both a man and an idea, The Measure of Love is a powerful and at times disturbing narrative that will forever alter our understanding of human relationships.

    Diligently treating the drug addicts of Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside with sympathy in his heart and legislative reform in mind can't be easy. But Maté never judges. His book is a powerful call-to-arms, both for the decriminalization of drugs and for a more sympathetic and informed view of addiction. As Maté observes, "Those whom we dismiss as 'junkies' are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves." In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts begins by introducing us to many of Dr. Maté's most dire patients who steal, cheat, sell sex, and otherwise harm themselves for their next hit. Maté looks to the root causes of addiction, applying a clinical and psychological view to the physical manifestation and offering some enlightening answers for why people inflict such catastrophe on themselves.Finally, he takes aim at the hugely ineffectual, largely U.S.-led War on Drugs (and its worldwide followers), challenging the wisdom of fighting drugs instead of aiding the addicts, and showing how controversial measures such as safe injection sites are measurably more successful at reducing drug-related crime and the spread of disease than anything most major governments have going. It's not easy reading, but we ignore his arguments at our peril. When it comes to combating the drug trade and the ravages of addiction, society can use all the help it can get. --Kim Hughes

    The heart of his concern is the ego, which he sees battling with three forces: the id, the super-ego, and the outside world.Of the various English translations of Freud's major works to appear in his lifetime, only one was authorized by Freud himself: The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud under the general editorship of James Strachey.Freud approved the overall editorial plan, specific renderings of key words and phrases, and the addition of valuable notes, from bibliographical and explanatory. Many of the translations were done by Strachey himself; the rest were prepared under his supervision. The result was to place the Standard Edition in a position of unquestioned supremacy over all other existing versions.

    Jung and gain insight into why others behave the way they do, and why you are the person you are.

    Currently, millions of people in the U.S. routinely use these pills. Are these miracle drugs, quickly curing depression? Or is their popularity a sign that we now inappropriately redefine normal life problems as diseases? Are they prescribed too often or too seldom? How do they affect self-images?David Karp approaches these questions from the inside, having suffered from clinical depression for most of his adult life. In this book he explores the relationship between pills and personhood by listening to a group of experts who rarely get the chance to speak on the matter—those who are taking the medications. Their voices, extracted from interviews Karp conducted, color the pages with their experiences and reactions--humor, gratitude, frustration, hope, and puzzlement. Here, the patients themselves articulate their impressions of what drugs do to them and for them. They reflect on difficult issues, such as the process of becoming committed to medication, quandaries about personal authenticity, and relations with family and friends.The stories are honest and vivid, from a distraught teenager who shuns antidepressants while regularly using street drugs to a woman who still yearns for a spiritual solution to depression even after telling intimates "I'm on Prozac and it's saving me." The book provides unflinching portraits of people attempting to make sense of a process far more complex and mysterious than doctors or pharmaceutical companies generally admit.

     Imagine canning a whole moose. One thousand pounds of meat, critical to survival through the brutal winter on an island in Alaska. And doing it in a home with no electricity, no plumbing, and no refrigeration. For the Wards, this is just another ordinary task in an environment that can be unforgiving of mistakes but immensely rewarding to those willing to embrace the work of creating a home in a harsh but beautiful land. In this sequel, Sam and Bonnie are thriving, building getaway cabins and continuing to joyfully tackle life on a remote, isolated island on Skilak Lake, where williwaw winds can whip up suddenly and without warning, and wicked storms can blow for weeks. In an era before cell phones and internet, their ability to communicate with the rest of the world, accessible only by boat or plane, is at the whim of the temperamental lake. Then, just as they are about to achieve a new dream, one of the largest man-made, environmental disasters strikes, altering their lives and threatening their livelihood and idyllic life. Will the love and devotion between Bonnie and Sam be enough for them to survive, or will Alaska finally win? From the awe-inspiring beauty of the Northern Lights, to terrifying accidents and strangers, to a Christmas miracle, this is a testament of courage and inspiration to anyone born with a wild longing in their hearts. Through sorrows and joys, love and loss, God’s hand is always present in their lives as Bonnie shares her chronicle of faith, survival, and beauty in an untamed land few others will ever know.

    Written in six parts between 2009 and 2013 by Venkatesh Rao on ribbonfarm.com, and "Slashdotted" twice, this widely acclaimed series examines organizational dynamics through the lens of the NBC show, The Office and offers a comprehensive tragic philosophy of work for the modern world.

    Drawing on over thirty years of experience as a psychotherapist, analyst, and teacher, Dr. Gaylin addresses the fundamentals of the therapeutic process: How does therapy work? Can "talking" truly precipitate a change in behavior? Why do therapists rely so heavily on childhood experiences? Does the past really affect the present? Gaylin speaks plainly but profoundly about the art of therapy, what the roles of the patient and therapist should be, and what it takes, on the part of each, for a patient to get better. The result is an enlightening tour through one of the most misunderstood sciences of our time. As insurance companies limit the number of therapy sessions they will cover and people look for quick-fix "cures" for their psychological ailments, Dr. Gaylin explains the importance of long-term therapy. This book has a natural audience of people in therapy. Current estimates put this number at 15 million.

    In western societies scant attention has been paid to exploring how and why some people and some communities are better able to cope with adversity and risk than others. Anne Deveson addresses the nature of resilience, whether it can be learned, its many components, what inhibits resilience and why some people/communities are more resilient than others. individuals and groups of people to feel they can cope, to encourage a different ethos amongst the shapers of law and policy, and to encourage the establishment of programmes to develop resiliency models for young people.