Mental Health Books

Cole provides a rich study of the culture of aging in America. Exhaustively researched, The Journey of Life is a must for gerontologists, policymakers, medical professionals, and anyone who is interested in a deeper understanding of why we believe what we do about aging in America, factors influencing these beliefs, and how they have developed over time. Its academic tone can make for a dry read early on, but overall, very well written and intriguing.

If you're scared of what awaits you as you age in this country where the frail elderly are too often warehoused in short-staffed, soulless institutions and by and large exiled from the mainstream of our society no matter where or how they happen to live, you will probably find hope in this book, which shows by historical example that we change. The Journey of Life : A Cultural History of Aging in America is a well written vista of American social perceptions. Tom Cole writes as if he is fascinated by the panorama of his research into how Americans have seen the elderly and aging. He shows us the views we have moved through in strategic detail, not overwhelming us with statistics or boring us with long, dull paragraphs of psycho-social explanations, but carefully exposing the layers of American belief, fear, hope, and socio-economic reality from which have arisen our views of death, aging, and the aged from the early days through the present. From vile, malevolent curmudgeons on their way to the dark pit of annihilation to sweet, harmless fools shuffling through zippedy-doo-da landscapes toward automatic acceptance into a radiant heaven, to the present, where we simply seem to lose our faces in the rush of hyper-productivity and adoration of the sexy young, the American view of the aged and aging constantly changes, reflecting the dominant perceptions of our society.

Mic Hunter's book, from 1992, is still relevant and excellent. As a clinician, I use this book with a wide variety of clients - even those who have not experienced sexual trauma. Since we live in such a sexually dysfunctional culture, Hunter's book offers an excellent way to process our beliefs and to help our society move toward healthy and vibrant sexuality/sensuality that is also in alignment with our true values.

Hunter does an excellent job in not hoisting his beliefs upon the reader, but assisting the reader in exploring his/her experiences and teachings (covert and overt) about sex, relationships, sexuality and their body.

Hopefully, this book will become available again. It will remain on my top 10 list!

Amazing reading... Joyous Sexuality has captured the essence of sexual dysfunction problems and how they relate to adult life. Mic Hunter has simply, but eloquently, shown how successful recovery can be achieved if one will only follow and adhere to the 12 step program outlined in the book. He has also provided workspace to allow the reader to participate which is necessary for successful recovery. I recommend this book to anyone with any form of sexual addiction or relationship difficulties.

This manual is a must read for anyone working with mentally ill children involved with the juvenile justice system. The disorders are broken down into easy to read, well researched sections. The layout of the manual is very user friendly.

this book is a must have. I find it invaluable for serving this population. It concisely and articulately covers the main information a professional must have to deal compassionately and effectively with this population. This book is easy to understand for those of us who do not have advanced psychology degrees and yet specific enough to be of use.This book is on my desk at all times and I refer to it frequently when planning educational experiences for my students and for designing behavioral plans. Ms. Boesky is not only very experienced with juveniles in the corrections population, but she clearly has compassion for dealing with their difficult behaviors. I recommend this book to all teachers, counselors, or social workers who work with teens in any setting.

This was a ... sort of purchase. I bought this figuring I might find a few good dietary nuggets. To my surprise and delight, Natalie Savona has stuffed "The Kitchen Shrink" with loads of truly inspired advice and recipes. This is not the usual "stop eating xyz!" nonsense. Ms. Savona's guidelines--while not necessarily consistent--is nonetheless easy to read and easy to follow. Most importantly, her dietary suggestions just plain make sense--meaning readers are more likely to adopt them and follow them over a long period of time. In the recipe portion of the book, Ms. Savona really struts her stuff. There is an incredible variety of recipes here, and it would take years to try everything.

All in all, this is a pretty impressive volume. Well done, Natalie!

I had to admit that when I first encountered the title of this book, I succumbed to an abiding uneasiness. Who, I thought, knows better than anyone else what constitutes a healthy mind? What if there's some aspect of my brain that varies from the definition? What if I eat what she recommends and end up turning into somebody else? If I am what I eat, shouldn't I change what I eat only with the utmost care?

Further, in matters of nutrition, I am wary. I firmly believe that people do not have opinions on nutrition; they have convictions. Whenever I catch wind of a looming nutritional crusade, I run lest I be targeted as the infidel. There's nothing worse than sitting down to a meal you love and not being able to enjoy it because you're worried about what other people will think.

But Natalie Savona is not the kind of nutritional writer who thinks you should be burnt at the stake for eating burnt steak. She has attracted rather than repelled me with her concentration on the blood sugar/mood connection. In my case, she's preaching to the choir. I remember what all that ice cream used to do to me in my younger days.

The Kitchen Shrink is a beautifully produced, large format book, filled with Savona's food doctrine. Though Savona includes some interesting recipes at the tail end of the book, her writing on the food/mood connection is the gist. She comes to the point quickly. Blood sugar balance isn't the whole story, but it comes first for a reason. We've heard it before (but we can stand to hear it again): the "blood sugar seesaw" puts our bodies through an unnecessary daily workout. It makes our daily stress worse; it is itself stress. Stimulants like alcohol and coffee, sweet, sugary and starchy foods give us temporary highs, then more pervasive, longer lows.

Savona suggests adding certain foods to strengthen the adrenal gland and build up the body's ability to handle stress. "At least three times a week," she writes, "eat pumpkin, sunflower, sesame, hemp, and flax seeds and/or oil-rich fish, such as salmon, mackerel, sardines, tuna, or herring." She follows with predictable advice about choosing fresh foods, then specific advice as to which foods, vitamins and minerals enhance levels of serotonin, dopamine, and other mood maintaining neuro-transmitters. She covers familiar ground in talking about good and bad fats, essential fatty acids, and the virtues of olive oil. But then she has an interesting section I found very useful: a complete strategy to use nutrients to give the body's "waste disposal" systems, like the liver, a needed break. Fiber and water are important here, but we should also avoid processed foods, too much alcohol, too many prescription and over the counter drugs, too much food in general. For the truly motivated, she lays out a complete 21-day body cleansing program.

After a short concession to issues of food sensitivity, Savona moves on to what I consider her most original work, individual sections on how to use food to alleviate specific mind/body complaints. She covers, in turn, energy deficit, premenstrual problems, seasonal affective disorder (SAD), insomnia, binge eating, brain fog, and depression. She indexes her back-of-book recipes to menus designed for each particular problem; for pre-menstrual problems, you'll cut down on salt and perhaps start your day with Savona's "Designer Muesli," an amalgam of oats, barley, rye, wheat germ, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, raisins and dried apricots, with soy milk or yogurt. Can't sleep? Have a "Baby Spinach and Goat Cheese Salad" for dinner, or perhaps "Quinoa With Roast Vegetables." For every mood, there's a menu.

Just as Savona was seeming too much the crusader for my particular taste, she presented me with a side bar, designed to get on my good side, that conceded the value of chocolate in maintaining good mood. She even admits that this "food of the gods" (as the Aztecs originally named it) "has been scientifically shown to have built-in feel-good factors, including mental stimulants such as caffeine and theobromine," as well as the important mineral magnesium. Even though chocolate releases coveted endorphins into the brain, Savona counsels moderation because of its high sugar and fat content. (We all know that with chocolate, moderation is more easily preached than practiced.)

There's plenty of material in The Kitchen Shrink to warrant a purchase, even if you've heard much of it before. The book is truly handsome, suitable for gift giving or displaying on your coffee table. My nutrition conscious sister has already appropriated my first copy.

Food writer Elliot Essman's other reviews and food articles are available at www.stylegourmet.com

This is a great follow-up to the Process-Experiential book "Facilitating Emotional Change". Well written, and user-friendly, this manual helps to make this approach usable. A therapy book that isn't too theory oriented, which is refreshing.

I would highly recommend it.

This book is a great first read for anyone interested in emotion-focused therapy or experiential therapies in general. It could also be a good read for more intermediate to advanced therapists newer to this area of therapy. It gives some good background on humanistic approaches to therapy and how this approach fits into the larger therapy landscape. The book does a good job of giving just enough theory to tie together the very practical and accessible style in which it is written. Highly recommended. There are suggestions for many further readings at the end of each chapter, which is a useful resource for those looking to delve deeper.

Williamson and Eakes did a masterful job of making complex information both simple and interesting, without being the least bit simplistic. Having studied and used neuroscience research for 22 years, I know how much more could be said. They extracted just the essentials AND put in good analogies and comparisons. Then they added doable exercises to help readers achieve their goals. They're working for me.

We are who we think we are. We can purposely change who we are by changing how we see ourselves.

These are not novel or even new concepts; many have demonstrated and said much the same for many years. The book Liberating Greatness is founded upon these two concepts. What the authors, Hal Williamson an engineer, attorney and creator of the nationally celebrated "Pathways to Greatness" seminars and his wife Sharon Eakes, a personal and executive coach and health care professional, provide is a understanding of how our brains work and a process by which any person can change themselves by changing how they think and see themselves.

Liberating Greatness begins with the very compelling and intimate story of how author Hal Williamson overcame his own struggles to discover himself and to release his own individual greatness. He not only experienced life, he learned from it.

The authors then describe, in very understandable language and examples, some of the latest findings in neuroscience on how our brains work. This section is very interesting to those that want to know how and why we think and do the things we do.

As the book transitions from theory to application we gain many insights into general human, and our own specific, behavior. I for one will never forget the personal aha! I experienced when our brain's RAS (reticular alerting system) was revealed and described. That one insight made so many things clearer to me.

In a conversational, story telling writing style the authors reveal a process, based upon current brain neuroscience, by which an individual can `rewire' their brain and set their mind on what and who they want to be.

These concepts work. Not only do the authors reveal their own stories and successes with the methods they describe the experiences of numerous others that have changed their minds and lives with these concepts.
I can personally attest to the power of the process. The simple tools shared within this book have positively affected my life, my marriage, my family, my career and my self-image.

So if you really want to change, whether that is to stop some negative behavior, rid yourself of an addiction, improve your relationships, get control of your body and health or to pursue your wildest dreams, all you need to do is change your mind. Because in the final analysis we are who we think we are.

I can suggest no better place to learn how to change, to think differently, then at a "Pathways to Greatness" seminar or in the pages of this exceptional book, Liberating Greatness.

A must read for anyone interested in the field of mental health and the dynamics created in families. I was captivated and found it hard to put down. I admire the author in her search for answers. Hopefully this book will shed light on the fact that there needs to be more resources for those dealing with mental health issues.

This book captured my attention from the start and I found it very difficult to put down. I have a close friend that was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder and this book helped me to understand what was happening to my friend. The author recounts her courageous journey as she fights to understand her highs and lows and to regain mental stability. Her story made me laugh and cry and I admired her tenacity to continue on and look for answers and not give up! I highly recommend this book.

Life Space Crisis Intervention is one of the best kept secrets in the field of working with troubled and troubling children and adolescents. Drs. Long and Wood offer the wisdom of many years of successful teaching and doing. This book provides the framework for the most effective training program available for professionals in social services, education, juvenile justice, and mental health. The book is best used as a supplement to a five-day certification training in Life Space Crisis Intervention. To learn more about this training contact the Life Space Crisis Intervention Institute @ 301-733-2751 or email GROWING EDGE Training Associates: gredge@netset.co

Wood and Long describe a time-tested technique for helping troubled and troubling children and youth who are in crisis in their homes, schools, and communities. Life Space Crisis Intervention is a refreshing alternative to traditional techniques and provides effective alternatives to punishment. The authors describe how to use LSCI to use crisis as an opportunity for insight and behavior change. The book is most effective in combination with the five-day training program available through the Institute of Psychoeducational Training in Hagerstown, MD. Information is available through fecser@pepcleve.com

I entered the field of Developmental Disabilities with over 20 years in nursing and a certification in continuing education and staff development. Neither my nursing education nor continuing education included enough content to make me an "expert" in this field. I joined the Developmental Disabilities Nurses Association (DDNA) and signed up our nurses to undergo certification. This book was instrumental in refining our nursing practice. In conjunction with this book, I would recommend Batshaw (Children with Disabilities)for medical information and Beirne-Smith, Ittenbach and Patton (Mental Retardation) for an overview on special education. Carolyn E Munroe, M.Ed, RN, CDDN ceamunroe@aol.com

With over 20 years in nursing, I was suprised at how much there was to learn when I started working for the ARC (Assosciation for Retarded Citizens). This book helped me learn while also developing resources for the group home staff. I highly recommend it. It's a classic and worth waiting for.

Great job! Extremely FAST! Brand new book. I ordered another review book too, that came fast too. That book was also brand new!

This is an excellent book to use to review. The content is easy to read and the book contains everything you need to know. I had the privledge of having Ann Isaacs as an instructor and she is one of the best. The review questions are great to practice for the state boards.