As a patient in psychotherapy, do you wonder whether the work you and your therapist are doing will succeed and produce lasting results? You may like, even admire, your psychotherapist, but how do you know that as a result of his or her work you will achieve the goals for which you came to treatment? Patients frequently remain in the dark about whether treatment is actually succeeding. The solution to this dilemma is a treatment considerably broader in scope than conventional psychological and psychiatric therapy. This treatment embodies proven techniques for accurately assessing the nature and severity of a psychological problem and for monitoring treatment progress. In using these methods, therapist and patient work collaboratively to track progress, continually providing feedback to each other. In conducting this ...   Read more »

Back pain is one of the most frequent disabling conditions in Western societies. The management of patients varies considerably within and between countries, and not many treatments work in the long term. The Alexander Technique — developed in the late 1800s by a Shakespearean actor who lost his voice and discovered the cause to be a tightening of his upper torso — also can benefit those with chronic back pain, according to researchers. The Alexander Technique aims to help each user develop lifelong skills that will aid their posture and coordination. Individual lessons involve assessing the patient's musculoskeletal habits and focusing on the release of tension in the neck, head and spine. Teachers give verbal instructions and use hand contact to improve the student's musculoskeletal use. ...   Read more »

"I don't teach my children manners," said my friend Sylvia. "I just teach them to treat people like they want to be treated." "Mmmm. Interesting concept," thought I. I asked what she meant. "Well, manners are just so artificial," she says. "I don’t want them to be stilted and fake. I just want them to care." As much as I understand her concerns about artificiality, I think she's missing something. I get it that she wants her kids to be empathetic without being fake. But in her efforts to seek authenticity, she isn't taking into account that empathy is learned and faking often is where we start. Faking it builds the habits of courtesy. Faking it is what we all do sometimes to keep the ...   Read more »

MJ's mother is worried. "She's so shy. Whenever we get together with people, I mean even one or two people, she hangs behind me. I don’t know how to encourage her." MJ is four years old. When I first meet her, I see what her mother means. MJ stands behind her mom. She sneaks a peak at me. She retreats. When she finally does come forward, she holds tight to her mom’s hand. I ask her to tell me her whole name. "MaryJane," she whispers. I tell her that her mom and I are going to talk a bit and that it’s okay if she decides she’d like to see what’s in the toy corner. Mom and I talk. Sure enough, in about 10 ...   Read more »

Getting to Commitment: Overcoming the 8 Greatest Obstacles to Lasting Connection (And Finding the Courage to Love) From Amazon.com: Do your relationships always crash? Do your married friends wonder what's wrong? "They write sitcoms about people like us," says "commitment-phobia" expert Steven Carter, "but it looks a lot more fun on the small screen than it feels in real life." The problem may be your fear of the risks of intimacy and commitment. Carter himself was a closet "commitment-phobic" when he wrote Men Who Can't Love. Now, in Getting to Commitment, he explains how to break those patterns and forge intimate connections -- as he has done in his own life. Carter sees eight hurdles between you and the relationship you deserve. He deftly analyzes each ...   Read more »

This book offers a step-by-step guide to finding a great love relationship, the book is based on strategies the author used to find her husband, plus other real-life strategies. "I met Dave, just three weeks after I created a powerful goal to find a great love relationship. Three weeks! And then I learned that he was blind -- which taught me to be careful what you ask for! But always ask!" Readers are taught to create their own goals for love, clarifying what they really want in their relationship, healing past relationships that might be getting in their way, and affirming and rehearsing their best selves to attract the love they want. The book is additionally poignant because the author's husband died suddenly just after ...   Read more »

The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness A moving, telling memoir of Elyn Sak's profound battle with schizophrenia. It is an inspiring journey for family members or for anyone suffering from a schizophrenia-related disorder. Saks is a professor of law and psychiatry at the University of Southern California, and with that background, she has crafted something that often reads more like a gripping novel than a personal, first-hand account of her life. From Amazon.com: "Saks struggled mightily to balance her ambitions with her illness, which was eventually diagnosed as schizophrenia. Never wanting to concede to her mental illness, Saks founds calm and comfort in a rigorous work routine. An analyst characterized her as having three lives: as Elyn, as Professor Saks, and as the Lady of ...   Read more »

The Anorexia Workbook: How to Accept Yourself, Heal Your Suffering, and Reclaim Your Life Despite ever-widening media attention and public awareness of the problem, American women continue to suffer from anorexia nervosa in greater numbers than ever before. This severe psychophysiological condition—characterized by an abnormal fear of becoming obese, a persistent unwillingness to eat, and severe compulsion to lose weight—is particularly difficult to treat, often because the victims are unwilling to seek out help. This book uses innovative new techniques based on a revolutionary model of psychotherapy called acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT, to teach readers that efforts to control and stop anorexia may do more harm than good. Instead of focusing efforts on judging impulses associated with the disorder as "bad" or "negative," this ...   Read more »

Emily Halban developed anorexia in her final year of high school. She went on to college at an Ivy League school where her disease took on a powerful dimension. By her final year she was so debilitated that she had to take her exams in a separate room where she could be fed continuously. With heartbreaking candor and poignant intimacy, Emily vividly chronicles the complexities and inner struggles of living with anorexia. She traces her disease from its elusive origins, through its darkest moments of deprivation, guilt, and self-loathing. As she recounts her journey towards recovery, Emily draws us into her raw experience of anorexia, exposing its secrets and dispelling some of the myths that shroud it. Beautifully written and alive with self-awareness, but never ...   Read more »

In this classic from Marya Hornbacher, she tells the story of dealing with her anorexia and bulimia over a course of many years, including the multiple hospitalizations, endless therapy, and the loss of family. By the time she is in college, Hornbacher is in the grip of a bout with anorexia so horrifying that it will forever put to rest the romance of wasting away. In this vivid, emotionally wrenching memoir, the author recreates the experience and illuminates the tanble of personal, family and cultural causes underlying eating disorders in modern society. The book is the engaging story of one woman's travels to the darker side of reality and her decision to find her way back... on her own terms. From Amazon.com: "I fell for the great ...   Read more »

The Cyclothymia Workbook: Learn How To Manage Your Mood Swings & Lead A Balanced Life Cyclothymia is a mood disorder characterized by cycling periods of hypomania-unusual emotional highs-and periods of mild to moderate depression. The condition is similar to the better known bipolar disorder, but cyclothymics never experience episodes of full mania or deep depression. In order for a therapist to diagnose someone with cyclothymia, the cycling of moods must continue for at least two years. Since the emotional episodes of cyclothymics tend to be more mild, they often go undiagnosed and untreated. Clinical studies have demonstrated, though, that leaving these symptoms untreated carries a particular risk: between 15 and 50 percent of cyclothymia sufferers will eventually develop a diagnosable bipolar disorder. This book, the first written ...   Read more »

Invisible Driving is a memoir of Manic Depression that takes readers inside the terrors, thrills, and triumphs of coming to terms with this debilitating and misunderstood mental illness. The manic narrator's voice vividly recreates the feelings and sensations of mania, offering an unprecedented look at this fascinating and bizarre state of being. While behavior and thought illuminate the condition of mania, it is the protagonist's language itself that most viscerally conveys what it feels like to be trapped inside a manic 'high.' The voice of the recovered narrator provides context, reliability, and credibility. Where the manic narrator is relentlessly entertaining and delusional, the recovered narrator is tough minded, concise, and determined to reveal the truth, no matter how painful. With a cold eye he examines the ...   Read more »

Bipolar disorder and literary genius are often linked, the disorder considered a brilliant madness that produces great writers. Famous examples are Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, and Kay Redfield Jamison, who wrote the book Touched by Fire (among others) on creativity and manic depression. She herself is an ultra high achieving person living with bipolar. Here now is Marya Hornbacher to push the image further with her memoir, Madness. Hornbacher is a gifted writer who's navigated the positive and negative effects of the illness on her writing career. She writes about writing while relating her life events in a way that isn't self-aggrandizing. Well, not too much. This is a person who has had some very grandiose moments during her manic episodes, and enjoys sharing them in ...   Read more »

The Bipolar Advantage is a revelation. It is one man's journey through the darkness and light of the bipolar condition to a place of spiritual joy, functionality and excellence that holds lessons for everyone with a diagnosis of bipolar. Raw, honest and brazen, The Bipolar Advantage draws its examples from the real-life experiences of its author, other people with a bipolar diagnosis and those who have relationships with bipolar people. Pulling no punches, Tom Wootton paints a realistic picture of the bipolar condition in its many faces, then gently guides the reader through the steps necessary to lead an introspective life that greatly ameliorates those symptoms, with the ultimate goal of helping bipolar people gain control of their lives. Tom takes the reader on a journey through ...   Read more »

Parenting Children With ADHD: 10 Lessons That Medicine Cannot Teach Kids with ADHD need to be loved and shown how to become successful adults. Unfortunately, their lack of attention and restlessness often get in the way. Parents of these kids try so hard to stay connected and remain patient in the face of daily frustration. However, it is an incredible challenge to remain positive and involved when your child does not respond to the kinds of strategies that work for other children. Without guidance and systematic treatment, these bright, inquisitive children are unlikely to graduate from high school, are more prone to use illegal drugs, and struggle to maintain employment as adults. This book gives parents a framework for building a successful parenting program at home. Drawing ...   Read more »