Book Reviews

Intimacy from the Inside Out (IFIO) by Toni Herbine-Blank, Donna M. Kerpelman, and Martha Sweezy is geared toward psychotherapists who are seeking an alternative method for practicing couples therapy. IFIO therapy stems from Internal Family Systems therapy (IFS), a model developed by Richard Schwartz in the 1980s as an approach to working with individuals and families, then later expanded to include couples. IFIO couple’s therapy involves a two-step process of planning for the predictable universal issues that couples face and responding skillfully to other unexpected factors. Couples entering IFIO therapy often hold the two goals of feeling safe within their relationship and reestablishing intimacy. In the initial session, the therapist meets with the couple to inquire about hopes and goals, assess their ability to accept differences in each other, and then offer a perspective on the possibilities of treatment.

Just at a time when the wider world is waking up to a more compassionate and inclusive way of understanding trauma and addiction, a timely book that addresses these issues in personal, historical, embodied, and practical ways has arrived. In Treating Trauma and Addiction with the Felt Sense Polyvagal Model: A Bottom-Up Approach (Routledge, 2021), author and psychotherapist Jan Winhall both demystifies and depathologizes addiction.

I was taken by Mia’s presentation of both information about what happens and what outcomes may result and also her specific processes, complete with dialogues and case studies, to work toward understanding and healing moments that can and do create imprints that influence our lives to come—who we are in this world, how we view ourselves within our family system as well as our communities at large, and how we believe the world accepts and values us.

Book offers personal stories about professional moments of failure. Fifteen psychotherapists define failure from their own perspective and courageously revisit client cases, some that occurred many years ago, to share intimate and revealing vignettes where the therapeutic bond was disrupted, where they were deeply wounded, and for some those wounds changed the course of their career. For all, these wounds remain as a tear in the fabric of their being.

Somatic Movement Educator who has read many books by authors in the field, I felt a quickening and rising in my body and became curious, shyly excited, and a little nervous when invited to review a book by Joan Davis. Davis is among a generation of creative professionals in Ireland and across the UK dedicated their lives to in-depth explorations and research through the silent level (non-words) processes and expressions of the human body. In this very small, yet internationally growing world of somatic movement, Davis is among the “rock stars”, and she has rightfully earned her honor and fame through decades of creative, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual research that she integrated into a training programme called Origins.

William Ferraiolo’s newest book is written in the style of philosophical approach based on the Stoics. While the word ‘stoic’ means to endure pain and suffering without complaining or showing your feelings, a Stoic, with a capital S, dates back to 300 B.C. when someone named Zeno founded Stoicism, a systematic philosophy that taught people that they should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, and that they should submit to unavoidable situations in life without complaint.

This morning I felt a connective epiphany, a strong resonance, while reading Raja Selvam’s new book, The Practice of Embodying Emotions, chapter 9 specifically, I felt like someone in the driver’s seat actually knew where he was going, directed by an intuitive GPS taking him and me to an emotional place that made sense: sensorimotor emotions. I offer my review of his book in hopes it might shed light on clients you are working with or perhaps something within yourself as well.

Nancy Eichhorn, PhD, offers readers a personal and in-depth review of Deep Play: Exploring the Use of Depth Psychotherapy with Children. The chapters in this startling book highlight the power of presence in play, in imagination, and in relationship.

With remarkable candor, Louis Cozolino opens with an anecdote about the client who first challenged his unquestioning faith in psychotherapeutic efficacy and shook his confidence as a clinician. Needless to say, psychotherapy is in the business of dealing with the intangible, making sense of the amorphous feelings that give rise to suffering, and, thus, this story perfectly captures the doubt that often dispirits both clients and clinicians in the healing process.

As a constituent of the American Psychological Association (APA) Theories of Psychotherapy Series, the second edition of Laura S. Brown’s Feminist Therapy highlights the contemporary model of feminist psychotherapy as well as its history and context. She additionally informs readers how feminist therapy is utilized in practice and evaluates its practicality.