Recommended readings

[Endlessnight]

Hi everyone. I have been looking through the lists of books but there are so many I don't know which one would be of most benefit to me.

I have a friend that travels to the USA in the summer vacation and I have asked her to get me one or two books from there since books are not readily available here.

Please if someone could recommend for me one or two books that would help me the most. I used to be a great reader but I haven't been able to really read books in years. Someone mentioned that depression can do that. I dont know if that is true or not but if anyone does recommend a book for me to get please make it an easy to read kind of thing.

Thank you. (That Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Dummies sounds just about right! )

Oh, one book I did read recently and loved even though it's dark, violent and depressing in parts, is Cormac Mcarthy's The Road. I felt it was infused with love: the love of a father for his son.

[windsybarbie]

Hi There:

The books that are really talking to me in my healing journey from DID & PTSD are:

"Self Therapy" by Dr Jay Earley and explains IFS (Internal Family Systems Therapy) created by Dr Richard Scwartz. You can talk to your inner family on your own or with an IFS therapist and he has a great website and free newsletters and blogs. Can I mention websites here????

"8 Keys to Trauma Recovery" by Babette Rothschild and "Innocence Heroes" by Belleruth Naparestek. These books explain how your right brain works in your limbic system during a trauma and guided imagery. Belleruth has CD's for depression, stress etc...that may be useful for others.

Since I am NOW working on repressed memories, these books have been speaking to me. I hope they help someone as, just like they are helping me. Thx

[spiritual_emergency]

Another member here (finding my way) recently shared this website with me:

This book presents an Illustrated Guide to the Internal Family Systems model IFS. Dick Schwartz the developer of IFS says this about the book. “This book brings IFS to life in an exceptionally clear and captivating way. Between the evocative and fun illustrations, the living room metaphor, and the integration with Buddhism, it presents a wonderfully creative vision of the way our parts dance with each other and with us in our minds. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to learn about the IFS model or about their inner lives.”

WingedHeart.org

I have no real familiarity with Internal Family Systems but find I'm greatly enjoying the material that is shared at the site. Perhaps you (or others) will enjoy it as well.

~ Namaste

[Chisholm]

Hi all

These are not quite self help books but I found them brilliant (topical) reads:

- on the concept of mindfulness, right brained thinking and understanding the debilitating effects of "left brain chatter" or over-analysing : My Stroke of Insight by Jill Bolte Taylor

- on the concept of narcissistic parenting and its devastating consequences : The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller

- fascinating psychotherapy stories : Love's Executioner by Irvin Yalom

- on schizophrenia : The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn Saks

- on the concept of transference : Deepening Intimacy in Psychotherapy by David Mann

- on manic depression : An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison

My favourite thus far is My Stroke of Insight - would that we all could experience this in our lives.

Chisholm

[malign]

Odd synchronicity: 'finding my way', that 'spiritual emergency' mentions in the previous post, introduced me to a YouTube she loves, where Jill Bolte Taylor describes her stroke experience.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if she could be persuaded to share the link, again. ;-)

[finding my way]

Chisholm, I watched this and sorta wished I could have a stroke!

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight.html

[Chisholm]

Thanks fmw. Watched it after reading the book - couldn't get enough of it. X:)

[finding my way]

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is pretty cool too. There are exercises that really work to get you right brained!

[windsybarbie]

Hi:

I found www.kobobooks.com is a site which is part of Chapters/Indigo. You can sign up for FREE and you can subscribe for FREE books and look at them online. For distraction I subscribed free to a teenager book. You can also purchase books as an ebook and sometimes it is cheaper than paperback or hard copy....Happy Reading......

[Lindamomof7]

Here is a link to Eckhart Tolle's website And His book of "Power of Now"

http://www.eckharttolle.com/home/books/

[finding my way]

Hi Linda! I read Tolle's A New Earth, the one Oprah was having people read... it had some truly great stuff in it!

[Katey]

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Edited November 9, 2011 by Katey
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[Rapha]

My wife picked up A Place of Healing by Joni Eareckson Tada at a Christian book store a little over a week ago, so it's coming from that spiritual perspective. That said, Joni has been a quadriplegic for over forty years since a diving accident in her late teens left her paralyzed. In recent years severe chronic pain threatens to drive her crazy and constantly challenges her faith in a loving, all-powerful God.

My wife and I are reading it together at night before we turn in. As a person with a physical disability and a sufferer of chronic pain, I am so resonating with the current struggles Joni describes. We're only into chapter two so far, and I've already gone to tears several times as I relate to her.

I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it, and I sure hope that it offers hope for all of us who struggle. I'll have to post a real review once we're finished.

--- Rapha

[Chisholm]

I posted this under the Coping thread but it probably belongs here as well.

I have always been fascinated by the concept of resilience and what that means in the face of unbearable trauma. What it is that keeps us hanging in there against all psychological and physical odds, when we are stripped of our defences and completely vulnerable? When we have all but given up? What it takes? God, an inherent belief in the meaning of life or sheer mind over matter determination – a strength that is as of yet still ill-defined in psychological literature?

The book Touching the Void, a true story deals with exactly that issue. I found it a harrowing but unbelievably inspiring read. In the depths of my depression, after I had tried to commit suicide, I found the only way that I could get through a day was by dividing it up into sections and literally hanging on for 15 minutes at a time – until eventually I found the time intervals becoming longer and easier to endure. There are so many parallels in this story. I watched the televised documentary on the book and towards the end Joe Simpson (who quite simply understates everything in his interview!) makes the off hand comment that the only way that he kept on going was to keep making decisions, even if they were the wrong ones. I guess it was the only way that he could know that he had not given up.

A brilliant read! See summary below.

Simpson was 25 and his climbing buddy, Simon Yates, was 21 when they attacked the "unscalable" west face of the 21,000-foot Siula Grande. Its summit, higher than Alaska's Mount Denali (North America's highest peak), was covered with deep plumes of soft snow and unstable. But over 31/2 days, Simpson and Yates painstakingly advanced to the peak.

On the descent, Simpson fell. The impact smashed his right leg: The thigh bone was driven through the knee and into the bones of the lower leg, shattering them. It looked like a fatal mistake. But Yates chose, at great risk, to try to get his friend down the mountain. In a blinding blizzard, he spent an entire day lowering the crippled Simpson down the face on a rope, a few hundred feet at a time.

"He put his life on the line in a way he shouldn't have done," Simpson says.

They were nearing the base of the sheer mountainside when Yates unknowingly lowered Simpson over a ledge. There the crippled climber dangled for an hour, unable to communicate with his partner 150 feet above, who was losing his footing and slowly being dragged down the mountain. Just before he would have gone over the precipice, Yates broke the climber's taboo: He cut the rope to save himself, thinking he was sending Simpson to certain death. "The paradox was that by seemingly killing me," says Simpson, "he put me in the position of being able to save my own life."

Simpson fell 100 feet onto a glacier, and then crashed an additional 80 feet down into an icy crevasse. But he didn't die. His partner circled away from the ledge and made his way down. Unable to find Simpson's body, he went several miles down the mountain to base camp, arriving battered, exhausted, dehydrated and grieving.

Simpson remained trapped deep in the ice. Without food or water, in excruciating pain and often hallucinating, the young man managed to crawl out of the crevasse. That left him on the side of the mountain, miles from the camp.

The journey he faced seemed impossible. So Simpson broke it into 20-minute segments. Get from here to that rock in the next 20 minutes. As he inched, crawled, slid and stumbled, he focused on his watch. Ahead of schedule or behind? Early or late? Twenty minutes at a time he crossed a glacier laced with crevasses, navigated a massive boulder field, circled a lake, rolled and flopped down a rocky valley.

It took 31/2 days. He collapsed 100 yards outside the camp just hours before Yates was leaving to go home. Yates found him, lying on the ground in horrendous physical condition, raving.

" 'Touching the Void,' is about "the psychology of survival. Extreme survivors like Simpson go through the stages of anger, denial, bargaining and acceptance. And they experience a breakdown in personality, the mind splits as they keep on going."

"I think part of him was destroyed," says Macdonald. "Joe was so completely alone. He was in an enormous mountain range surrounded by ice walls that made him feel like a gnat who could be crushed at any moment. It's threatening to your ego, that sense of aloneness in the world."

[weezie]

I would add an oldie but a goodie "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff and it's all small stuff" by Richard Carlson PH.D.

I don't know if this will work, but will try:

http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/66/c4/8e37c0a398a0afd24f561210.L._AA300_.jpg

[Cali1luv]

Any books on Low Frustration? or that at least cover a good chunk?

[LaLa]

I hope this is not an advertisement ... I've just found the website of Bert Hellinger and it seems interesting... Here are some books as well: http://www.hellingerpa.com/learn_more.shtml

A short quotation about the concept of his therapy:

A Family Constellation is a three-dimensional group process that has the power to shift generations of suffering and unhappiness. Bert Hellinger, the founder of this work, who studied and treated families for more than 50 years, observed that many of us unconsciously "take on" destructive familial patterns of anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, aloneness, alcoholism and even illness as a way of "belonging" in our families. Bonded by a deep love, a child will often sacrifice his own best interests in a vain attempt to ease the suffering of a parent or other family member.

Family Constellations allow us to break these patterns so that we can live healthier, happier, more fulfilled lives. In a moment of insight, a new life course can be set in motion. The results can be life-changing.

[LaLa]

Today, I bought and almost have already read a small book by John M. Heaton (a therapist) called Wittgenstein and Psychoanalysis.

http://www.amazon.co...n/dp/1840461322

I enjoy it very much. It's focused on comparison of Freud and Wittgenstein, but it's very insightful in context of therapy.

Editorial Reviews

Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Wittgenstein were contemporaries. Freud created psychoanalysis, and Wittgenstein was perhaps the greatest 20th century philosopher. Both thinkers are essentially concerned with our inveterate tendency to deceive ourselves. Freud approaches this problem from a psychiatric angle - the cure of neurosis, psychosis, perversion and so on. He assumes that his readers can see through the self-deceptions of the neurotics he describes. Wittgenstein, on the other hand, takes an ironical approach to himself and his readers, believing that we are almost certainly deluded, even if we have been analyzed by an orthodox analyst. He makes us feel that language, understanding and knowledge are but a thin net over an abyss. "Wittgenstein and Psychoanalysis" brings these two great, enormously influential Viennese thinkers together in the arena of a postmodern encounter. The question at issue is - which of these two philosophies is the better form of relevant "therapy" for us today? Or is it ever a matter of "contest" between them?

[Guest ASchwartz]

I want to recommend a book that I found really interesting and helpfu. The book is called, On Being Certain, thinking you are right even when you are not.

It's written by Robert Burton, MD, who is a neurologist.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did.

By the way, I know I right!!!!!

Allan

[LaLa]

I haven't read this book, but the article caught my attention:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/13/elizabeth-gilbert-porcupines/

[RPWhit]

Hi, quick question - aside from the ADD stuff, can anyone recommend practical books for attention and focus?

I've noticed that there is a load of books on such topics in both the business and sport sections on Amazon, but I'm wondering if anyone can recommend such a book?

Thanks!

[LaLa]

I haven't read this book, but I've just read a long and very interesting "quote"/excerpt from it (translated from English, so I cannot share here) and I think I have to recommend it:

Boundaries Where You End And I Begin: How To Recognize And Set Healthy Boundaries

Here you can also find some excerpts:

http://www.amazon.ca/Boundaries-Where-You-End-Begin/dp/1568380305/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1347548440&sr=8-1

[rosco]

great book on the journey from Richard McLean - 'recovered not cured'

http://www.creativemusings.com.au/rm/Schizophrenia.html

i got a copy in audio book and then bought it to read it anyway (great illustrations and easy to read)

[Cali1luv]

Anyone know of any Positive thinking books, or how to stop thinking negative..

I'm trying to takle that on my list right now

[LaLa]

I've just read (during the 9,5 hrs flight, it took me ~6 hrs) a great book I recommend to everybody, mainly to minors and teens with problems at/with school, to teens in general, to teachers, ... but... well; to everybody :

Daniel Pennac: Chagrin d'école, published in English as School Blues (translated by Sarah Ardizzone; MacLehose Press)

You can also read about it and the author here:

http://www.independe...oy-2081187.html