Books!
After the Affair: Healing the Pain and Rebuilding Trust When a Partner Has Been Unfaithful
By Janis Spring, Ph.D. ~ The best resource I know on addressing the hurt around an affair, allowing an ending to the old relationship & starting anew, rebuilding connection and trust. There are many ways to try again. Put your energy into learning and using...
Parents Are Forever: A Step-by-step Guide to Becoming Successful Co-Parents After Divorce
By Shirley Thomas, Ph.D. ~ I like a lot of things about this book. The approach is that divorced parents must continue to co-strategize in the best interests of their children, that we need to look at age-appropriate guidelines, and that parents have to find ways to...
The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships
By Patrick Carnes, Ph.D. ~ This is the classic resource on “trauma bonds” the chains of trust that unhealthily link you to a loved one who is dangerous, abusive, exploitive or toxic. The person can be a husband, a child, a parent, a boss, a professor. I...
The Mindfulness & Acceptance Workbook for Anxiety
By Forsyth and Eifert, Ph.Ds. ~ I like workbooks. You make progress more quickly and it sticks for the long-term if you are in therapy while also doing homework, mindfully aware as you make changes week-to-week. There is no perfect book addressing anxiety, yet this...
Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
By Maia Szalavitz ~ I am thankful for her new research: addiction is primarily a developmental disorder, with impulse control hugely lacking. Addiction is not defined by dependence on a particular substance to function or by a desire to avoid withdrawal or by simply...
Willpower’s Not Enough: Recovering from Addictions of Every Kind
By Washton, Ph.D, and Boundy, MSW. ~ Recovery from addiction is different from sobriety, and this book explains why. It offers an excellent section on relapse prevention. Good information regarding parallel addictions: codependency & addiction. A compassionate...
The Five Love Languages
By Chapman ~ You don’t have to read this book. Just understand & apply these things: the ways you want to give love to your partner are based upon the ways they want to receive them, not the ways you like giving love. Similarly, speak up about needing to...
Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-deception
By Twerski, M.D. ~ Addicts and codependent loved ones will find honest answers and hope in this book. This resource is unsurpassed. Clear answers to why addicts continue destructive habits & compulsions, along with why codependents defensively get stuck in wrong...
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
By Bessel VanderKolk, M.D. ~ From the world’s foremost expert and researcher on trauma, gain insight into traumatic stress, how it’s wired in the brain, and consider options for treatment. He did groundbreaking research on combining yoga with...
No Mud, No Lotus: The Art of Transforming Suffering
By Thich Nhat Hanh ~ These teachings on cultivating joy and happiness involve a methodology, beginning with letting go. We cannot manage our suffering without releasing fear-based attachments to what we think “should” be, or even to what”was.”...
Edge of Wonder: Notes from the Wildness of Being
By Victoria Erickson ~ Here is fresh air in a book of reflections, poetry and prose. Elemental. Soul-soothing. Necessary. An invitation to step over the edge and face our truest selves, get reacquainted with the disowned pieces of us, and let ourselves fall in love...
The Captain’s Verses
By Pablo Neruda ~ 1971 Nobel Poet Laureate. English and Spanish, side by side, this is passionate poetry of devotion that will make your mouth...