On this page, I include books, articles and videos that may be helpful for you. Please keep in mind that I did not write or produce these items. I did, however, read them. When you read or watch, always be the mindful consumer. Use what you can use and leave the rest. Enjoy and let’s discuss in session.
EMOTIONS
Avoiding uncomfortable situations? Don’t want any one to see how you feel? Struggling to stay happy all the time? Here is a collection of videos that may help.
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
Changing Habits This is a great TED Talk about a simple way to change a habit – smoking, overeating, etc.
How to Avoid Taking Things Personally This article is about being painfully aware of what others are thinking about you and how to feel better about yourself.
Making a Hard Decision. Here’s a talk/video that could literally change your life. Which career should I pursue? Should I break up — or get married?! Where should I live? Big decisions like these can be agonizingly difficult. But that’s because we think about them the wrong way, says philosopher Ruth Chang. She offers a powerful new framework for shaping who we truly are. https://www.ted.com/talks/ruth_chang_how_to_make_hard_choices?language=en
Feeling Empowered; Letting Your Body Language Change How You Feel. In this video you learn how body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy shows how “power posing” — standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident — can affect testosterone and cortisol levels in the brain, and might even have an impact on our chances for success. https://www.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are?language=en
PARENTING
Internet Safety Guidelines for Parents by the FBI https://www.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/parent-guide
How to Raise a Child Who Cares: A TED Ideas page with some good ideas how to integrate empathy and emotional intelligence in your child’s life.
The Power of Validation: Arming Your Child Against Bullying, Peer Pressure, Addiction, Self-Harm, and Out-of-Control Emotions by Karyn D. Hall , Melissa Cook, Shari Y. Manning
Help guide your children through positive empowerment. This book is a slim, approachable, easy to read volume that’s packed with a valuable concept: the importance of understanding, validating and accepting a child’s experience – even if it’s different than our own, even if it hurts, and even if we wish our child’s reality were different at that moment. Available at the Orange Beach Public Library.
Kazdin Method of Parenting:
For an introduction to the method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8i-sFIt1YxA
Everyday Parenting Toolkit: The Kazdin Method for Easy, Step-By-Step, Lasting Change for You and Your Child / Alan E. Kazdin. Orange Beach Library
The Kazdin Method For Parenting The Defiant Child: With No Pills, No Therapy, No Contest Of Wills / Alan E. Kazdin ; with Carlo Rotella. Request from other library.
Choice Theory – William Glasser
Unhappy Teenagers: A Way for Parents and Teachers to Reach Them / William Glasser (not available in our area libraries, can obtain through inter-library loan, or I keep a couple copies for clients to borrow).
Basic ideas:
1. All we do is behave,
2. That almost all behavior is chosen, and
3. That we are driven by our genes to satisfy five basic needs: survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun.
Seven Caring Habits Seven Deadly Habits
Supporting Criticizing
Encouraging Blaming
Listening Complaining
Accepting Nagging
Trusting Threatening
Respecting Punishing
Negotiating differences Bribing, rewarding to control
The teenage brain : a neuroscientist’s survival guide to raising adolescents and young adults / Frances E. Jensen with Amy Ellis Nutt. – Fantastic book for understanding the teen brain and is full of practical advice for parents. Anyone with teenagers should read this book. It is available at the Orange Beach Library.
Here’s a comprehensive website to help guide you through all stages of parenthood – http://www.ahaparenting.com/ with Laura Markham of AHA! Parenting.
ADULT SURVIVORS OF CHILDHOOD ABUSE
Victims No Longer: The Classic Guide for Men Recovering from Sexual Child Abuse by Mike Lew
Victims No Longer examines the changing cultural attitudes toward male survivors of incest and other sexual trauma. This invaluable resource continues to offer compassionate and practical advice, supported by personal anecdotes and statements of male survivors. Victims No Longer helps survivors to:
• Identify and validate their childhood experiences
• Explore strategies of survival and healing
• Work through issues such as trust, intimacy, and sexual confusion
• Establish a support network for continued personal recovery
• Make choices that aren’t determined by abuse
Psychotherapist Mike Lew has worked with thousands of men and women in their healing from the effects of childhood sexual abuse, rape, physical violence, emotional abuse, and neglect. The development of strategies for recovery from incest and other abuse, particularly for men, has been a major focus of his work as a counselor and group leader.
MARRIAGE/COUPLES
Ten lessons to transform your marriage [CD-unabridged] [sound recording] : America’s love lab experts share their strategies for strengthening your relationship / John M. Gottman, Julie Schwartz Gottman, and Joan DeClaire. Available – Foley library or you can have it sent to your library to pick up. Compact discs, can listen in the car!
The Gottmans provide vital tools—scientifically based and empirically verified—that you can use to regain affection and romance lost through years of ineffective communication. Each chapter addresses a particular problem and shows, step by step, what to do about it. Through the lessons in this book you’ll strengthen your relationship and make it the most fulfilling it can be.
Mind over money : overcoming the money disorders that threaten our financial health (2010) By Klontz, Brad
Do you overspend? Undersave? Keep secrets about money from a spouse or family member? Are you anxious about dealing with your finances? If so, you are not alone. Let’s face it–just about all of have complicated, if not downright dysfunctional, relationships with money. Our financial flashpoints, or intense emotional experiences relating to money, shape the money scripts — or patterns of thinking and acting — that we write for ourselves. And while each of us has flashpoints or experiences from childhood that shape our relationship with money, some of these experiences are more painful and traumatic than others. In our work helping people overcome the lasting effects of financial trauma, we’ve found that the more traumatic the flashpoint, the more serious the lasting effects. But the good news is that our responses to emotional trauma often follow specific, predictable patterns, and with careful thought and introspection, we can learn to identify, detect and overcome them. KLONTZ.
MENTAL DISORDERS
BIPOLAR II
Why am I still depressed? : recognizing and managing the ups and downs of bipolar II and soft bipolar disorder / Jim Phelps.
Bipolar II is a less severe type of bipolar disorder characterized by depressive and hypomanic episodes. Dr. Phelps has an excellent website that supports and updates his book. http://psycheducation.org/ There are not a lot of self-help books out there that addresses the unique features of Bipolar II as opposed to Bipolar I, or classic Bipolar.
BIPOLAR I and II
Russ Federman writes frequent blogs about Bipolar, he also has a webpage for his practice. http://www.russfederman.com Check out his blogs page. He also has several books published.
Facing Bipolar: The Young Adult’s Guide to Dealing with Bipolar Disorder by Russ Federman and J. Anderson Thomson
Successful management of Bipolar includes getting to know as much as possible about the disorder.
