Connecting over Books (and a new video!)
My favorite books listed plus my new (short!) video!
As you probably have heard me say, I had a mission over COVID of "no dead ends" and to that end, I expanded. I signed a lease in June to use our new Northfield location full time (and furnished it mostly via Facebook Marketplace!). I have gotten to know my 5 associates and I must feel a sense of gratitude at least once a day for them. Some I talk to every single day, others most days of the week. They are smart, they are kind, they are really special.
Our updated picture will be on my website soon,...and in the meantime here is a video
Lucky for me, my son put that together(...30 second video)!
"What types of clients do you work with" is a question that I am asked almost on a weekly basis. I have heard other therapists answer this with their niche. "I work with teens", or "I work with couples", or "I specialize in eating disorders" are typical answers I might hear. As I developed my "niche" I learned that my specialty became almost anything my clients brought to my office. When I wasn't an expert in eating disorders, I became one through hours of trainings and consultations and practice. When I wasn't an expert in self-harming, I embraced the SAFE philosophy and continued to learn what research supports and what worked for my clients. When I wasn't an expert in borderline personality disorder, I bought books and met with experts in the field and attended more intensive trainings until I had complete clarity and saw clients' faces light up with feeling understood and supported, and many sessions later, feeling stable and safe and secure.
I hesitate to ever say "I understand" and more regularly my clients will hear me say "say more" when they tell me something. I will never claim understanding until they are confident that I do.
Some of my clients who have known me for a long time smile when I open my office closet doors during a session, perhaps in anticipation of what I am going to show them that quite often is verbatim in a book what we just said out loud in my office.
The books don't always teach, but they offer more information. The books can rarely fix but they offer tools. The books may feel unhelpful and even that is telling. I have bought hundreds of books over the years, and I made a list of the ones I have pulled off the shelf just in 2022 thus far for one reason or another.
In no particular order, the books are all listed below. The *** means it seems to be more often on my desk than on my bookshelf.
I learn most from you, so please send me a message if you also love one of these, or if there are any you reference you would have added that I did not.
Eating Disorders
Reference: Eating Disorders (mehler and Anderson)
The Bulimic College Student (William Curtis)
Beyond the Shadow of a Diet (Matz and Frankell)
Workbooks: What's Eating You
The Bulimia Workbook for Teens
The BDD Workbook
Journal
***Start Where You Are
Marriage
Marriage Rules (Lerner)
Hold Me Tight (Johnson)
***Five Love Languages (Chapman)
Abuse/Trauma
*** Outgrowing the Pain (Gil)
***In Love and in Danger (Levy)
***The Body Keeps the Score (Van Der Polk)
***Repeat After Me (Black)
***Transforming the Living Legacy of Trauma (Fisher)
Grief/Loss
Motherless Daughters (Edelman)
Healing after the Suicide of a Loved One (Smolin and Guinan)
The Wisdom of a Broken Heart (Piver)
Depression
***Feeling Good (Burns)
Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life (Hayes)
Mind Over Mood (Greenberger and Padesky)
Parenting
***Have You Filled a Bucket Today (McCloud)
***No Drama Discipline (Siegel)
How to Talk to Your Teen about Anything (Malinsky)
Respect- Everything a guy needs to know (Perez)
It's So Amazing (Harris and Emberley)
How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk (Faber)
Fourteen Talks by Age Fourteen: The Essential Conversations You Need to Have with Your Kids Before They Start High School (Icard)
OCD/Anxiety
OCD in Children and Adolescents (March, Mulle)
The 10 Best Anxiety Management Techniques (Wefirenberg)
Stop Obsessing (Foa, Wilson)
The Worry Trick (Carbonell)
The Anxiety Workbook for Teens
CBT for Anxiety (Knaus)
(ALL *** in this category)Understanding YOU
The Drama of a Gifted Child (Miller)
The Gifts of Imperfection (Brene Brown)
The Collected Schizophrenia (Wang)
Please Understand Me (Keirsey)
Aldut Children of Alcoholics (Wolitz)
The 4 Agreements (Ruiz)
Attached (Levine and Heller)
What Color is your Parachute (Boller)
Others
Motherhood (Heti)
Disarming the Narcissist (Beharir)
Overcoming DePersonalization (Baker, Hunter)
Skills Training for Borderline (Linehan)
Loving Someone with BPD (Manning)
DBT Skills Workbook (McKay, Wood)
