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Mental Health

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Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain, and Body

For the most part, popular psychology isn’t exactly positive on your ability to really change your core personality, your default way of being.  Sure, it accepts that you can learn new coping skills and occasionally better ways of responding emotionally, bu...
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness

I grew up at a time when I was gone hours a day, and my parents didn’t have any way of finding me.  One summer before I had a driver’s license and a car, I rode literally hundreds of miles on my bicycle in the town of Bay City, Michigan.  It’s a time ...
The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World

There aren’t many members in the moral leaders club. For that reason alone, when two moral leaders – The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu – gather to share deep discussions of morality and, in this case, joy, it’s worth investigating. The Book of ...
Chasing the Scream: The First and the Last Days of the War on Drugs

Chasing the Scream: The First and the Last Days of the War on Drugs

I was drawn to Chasing the Scream: The First and the Last Days of the War on Drugs   through an article that I was forwarded. The article spoke about alcoholism and criticized the efficacy of Alcoholics Anonymous which I had seen be very successful f...
Compassion and Self-Hate: An Alternative to Despair

Compassion and Self-Hate: An Alternative to Despair

While compassion is the subject of many books, self-hate is not frequently discussed.  Compassion and Self-Hate: An Alternative to Despair seeks to map the relationship between the two and how compassion can heal self-hate.  I came to the book because o...
The Dalai Lama’s Big Book of Happiness: How to Live in Freedom, Compassion, and Love

The Dalai Lama’s Big Book of Happiness: How to Live in Freedom, Compassion, and Love

I’ve made it no secret that I am a Christian. I’ve also made it no secret that I’m interested in learning more about other religions and other great thinkers no matter what religion they practice. I picked up The Dalai Lama’s Big Book of Happiness: How to L...
DBT Explained: An Introduction to Essential Dialectical Behavior Therapy Concepts, Practices, and Skills

DBT Explained: An Introduction to Essential Dialectical Behavior Therapy Concepts, Practices, and Skills

It never made sense to me, DBT – dialectical behavior therapy.  Where was the conflict?  That and many other mysteries were solved by DBT Explained: An Introduction to Essential Dialectical Behavior Therapy Concepts, Practices, and Skills .  Marsha Line...
Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic

Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic

I was in a darkened room listening to two presenters with their different vantage points on opiates in the workplace, and during the talk, they mentioned the book Dreamland: The True Tale of America’s Opiate Epidemic . I disagreed with what seemed to...
The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit

The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit

Why is addiction of all types on the rise in our society today? If the pharmacological theory of addiction is true – that demon drugs take over the minds of users after only one use – then why is it that there are other, non-drug addictions? How does tha...
The Happiness Hypothesis

The Happiness Hypothesis

When I was reading Switch  I was introduced to the metaphor of the elephant, the rider, and the path for thinking about how to motivate people (including ourselves) but the book referenced The Happiness Hypothesis  as the origin of this model. Despite the...
Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health

Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health

Recovery is more than the abatement of symptoms.  Recovery from mental illness returns us to a place where we can have a full and meaningful life.  That’s what Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness to Mental Health is about.  It’s changing our defini...
The Heart and Soul of Change: Delivering What Works in Therapy

The Heart and Soul of Change: Delivering What Works in Therapy

I’ll be the first to admit that my reading list isn’t always the most mainstream. I can’t tell you how few people would find a book on effectiveness in psychotherapy interesting – but I know that it’s possible I’m in the minority here. However, I’...
The Hope Circuit: A Psychologist’s Journey from Helplessness to Optimism

The Hope Circuit: A Psychologist’s Journey from Helplessness to Optimism

Martin Seligman is the father of positive psychology. In The Hope Circuit: A Psychologist’s Journey from Helplessness to Optimism , he chronicles his life and the life of positive psychology. While I’m not generally prone to reading biographies or a...
House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth

House of Cards: Psychology and Psychotherapy Built on Myth

What would you do if you worked in a profession that ignored its own best practices? What if your industry claimed to be able to do things that they simply couldn’t do? How could you move a profession forward when you knew that most of your colleagues w...
How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character

What makes a child successful in life? In my review of Emotional Intelligence  I mentioned that tests of emotional intelligence were generally more indicative of long term success than measures of intelligence. However, emotional intelligence – as it ...
I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”

I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”

I’ve read much of Brené Brown’s work, but it wasn’t until I read I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”  that I made it back to the beginning. I had previously commented in my review of Th...
Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change

Motivational Interviewing: Helping People Change

While working on a community project to help teens who are struggling with life, I had the pleasure of talking to some real professionals who work with teens every day, and one of them shared one of his techniques for having dialogues with teens in trouble....
Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness

Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness

Occasionally, I get the chance to review a book before its release. Such is the case with Rick Hanson’s Neurodharma: New Science, Ancient Wisdom, and Seven Practices of the Highest Happiness . I’ve read some of Rick Hanson’s previous works, including Hardwiring Happine...
Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment

Perfectionism: Theory, Research, and Treatment

It would be nice to be perfect.  The idea that we’d never make a mistake, never be wrong, and never have to apologize has its appeal.  For most of us, it’s just an appeal.  For some of us, it is an expectation, and it’s one that leads us to a perpetua...
Positive Psychotherapy: Clinician Manual

Positive Psychotherapy: Clinician Manual

I’m not a clinician. I didn’t play one on TV. I didn’t sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night. However, I did read Positive Psychotherapy: Clinician Manual . It’s a toolbox for counselors and clinical psychiatrists for want to help clients reach th...
Principles of Topological Psychology

Principles of Topological Psychology

On the surface, it would seem like math would have very little to do with psychology. However, when looking at Kurt Lewin's work in Principles of Topological Psychology , it's clear to see how mathematical models influenced his thinking on psychology...
Recovery: Freedom from Addictions

Recovery: Freedom from Addictions

Sometimes you stumble into things, and you’re not quite sure how. I used to have book deals sent to my email and occasionally there would be a discount that made the book interesting. That was the case with Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions . I ...
Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology

Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology

To say that sometimes my reading list slips off into the odd is an understatement. Sometimes I’m reading some really clinical research based books. I’m trying to make sure that I’m really understanding a topic and I realize that I may be reading more ...
The Ultimate Introduction to NLP: How to Build a Successful Life

The Ultimate Introduction to NLP: How to Build a Successful Life

There’s a running joke in the National Speaker’s Association (NSA) . Someone addresses the members and asks if they’ve heard about NLP, and then says, “Wait, of course you’ve heard about NLP: this is the NSA.” In other words, understanding NLP – or, Ne...
Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health

Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health

It’s an odd title for a book. Why would a psychologist title a book Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health ? The answer lies in the belief that drugs are not the answer to all of the mental health problems of the day, and that in...
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – The Causes and Cures for Stress

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – The Causes and Cures for Stress

In this final installment of my three-part review of Sapolsky’s book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers  we walk through the causes of stress and what we can do to “cure” stress by minimizing its impact on us. We started this review with The Physical Impacts of...
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – The Physical Impact of Stress

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – The Physical Impact of Stress

It seems like an odd thing to want to know. Why don’t zebras get ulcers? Is there something magical about zebras like unicorns that protect them from ulcers? As it turns out, it’s more than just zebras that don’t get ulcers: most of the animal kingdom doesn...
Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – The Psychology and Neurology of Stress

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers – The Psychology and Neurology of Stress

In this three-part review of Sapolsky’s book Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers , we walk through the psychological and neurological differences between humans and zebras – at least some of the ones that are important. We started this review with The Physica...
You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health

You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Guide to Navigating Mental Health

Loneliness is a problem for the social creature called human.  The shame and secrecy of mental illness has created a Gordian knot of spiraling issues and reinforcement, the only solution to which is for us to end the silence about mental health in the ...