Book Reviews

In the Second Edition of her book, Dr. Margaret Wehrenberg revisits her 10 techniques for dealing with anxiety. She also revisits the companion workbook that provides activities to guide implementation of the techniques. These books are very accessible, even with the dispersed neuroscience throughout; they also have the advantage of catering to a wide audience including, but not limited to, those who are participating in psychotherapy. Her 10 techniques offer various ways to manage three arenas in which anxiety manifests itself: the body, the mind, and behavior. The workbook offers several, different ways to make the managing of anxiety actionable and consistent. By taking this two-pronged approach, Dr. Wehrenberg captures a large swath of information and applies it thus making her books a potential one-stop-shop for anxiety management. To fully appreciate the workbook, one must first read the technique book that serves to explain, in depth, what they are, why they work, and how to use them. Utilizing developments in neuroscience, Dr. Wehrenberg updates her 10 techniques by refining those at the forefront, providing new research-based evidence for them, and clarifying how they should be used (I).

“I don’t care, I’m just gonna do it.” “It feels good to break the rules.” “Now it’s me time.” I’ve heard my inner voice utter these statements more than once; typically involving food and wine. According to Howard Farkas, these sentiments align with his transgressive model of emotional eating: feeling driven to engage in behaviors that feel subversive and doing them despite negative consequences or guilt (p.94). Emotional eaters live with a recurrent pattern of having an unwanted urge to eat; they are preoccupied and conflicted about it, yet act on it anyway.

The Science of Addiction provides up-to-date research to explain causes of and treatment options for addiction. In so doing, author Carlton Erickson informs readers of the many facets of addiction, i.e., neurobiology, genetics, brain disease, and offers a detailed look at its manifestations. Thirteen distinct chapters help readers understand addiction. Chapters 1-3 focus on the terminology of addiction and why it confuses both professionals and the general public. A detailed look at what addiction is and what it is not is rooted in words. The author suggests that words like ‘addiction’ and ‘alcoholism’, as used in every day conversations, are “colloquial, unscientific, stigmatizing, and just plain wrong” (pg. 3). “Words matter!” he writes. “Precise language reduces misunderstanding, stigma and false impressions” (pg. 4).

Michelle Craske provides a straight forward look into the past, present and future of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Within the first few pages, she begins by giving a succinct and general overview of the theory behind CBT and its importance in successfully treating patients. CBT helps you become aware of inaccurate or negative thinking so you can view challenging situations more clearly and respond to them in a more effective way. This therapy can be a helpful tool in treating mental health disorders, such as depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or an eating disorder. But not everyone who benefits from CBT has a mental health condition. It can be an effective tool to help anyone learn how to better manage stressful life situations. Craske does not miss a chance to define or explain a concept. This makes it much easier to follow without a dictionary or DSM 5 in hand. Although some concepts may take a bit longer to wrap your head around, the use of examples makes the content a bit easier to swallow. In only about 200 pages the reader is placed in the role of the therapist, soon able to recognize these negative patterns and behaviors. This book is geared towards a narrow audience, ranging from those with a basic understanding of theory in the field of psychology to seasoned practitioners interested in understanding this approach.

Mary Jane Maguire-Fong and Marsha Peralta, recently published, Infant and Toddler Development: From Conception to Age 3. What Babies Ask of Us. In their “Preface”, they acknowledged my mom as a colleague and friend who has been “a source of wisdom, counsel, and inspiration in this work” (pg. x). Peralta noted, “We have so appreciated her contributions to our thinking and perspective”

"This book proposes a new code for reading the body that allows us to discover the intelligent sense of difficulty and to understand why we are the person that we are. It is presented within narratives of life stories from group supervision sessions. The body has sense because of the marks incised left from life’s experiences. It has sense in the highest and deepest meaning of the word because of its multi-sensorial intelligence that reads between the lines of communications and relationships, with the tastes and flavours, with visual and physical contact, with the tone of voice and the field atmospheres. "

I found myself fidgeting and incomplete after only six hours of a power outage at my house yesterday. Needless to say, every day we wake up to our alarms beeping like a virtual mom then head to the espresso maker bringing fresh smells of the day within seconds. Our driver is on his way to pick us up through applications such as Uber. We unconsciously check our phones five times in a minute so we can engage with our friends across the globe with several taps and clicks on the little shining screens. It’s not inaccurate to say that we are all ‘cyborgs’: we are half human, half machine. We are incomplete without technology.

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.

Toni Heineman shares the struggles of working with foster youth and how clinicians can begin to make a lasting difference in their lives. Her new book is filled with accounts of children's experiences with foster families, therapy, group homes, homelessness, and countless struggles of this population. She provides this beginner’s manual to build trusting relationships and hopefully mend trauma’s wounds as well as provide case workers, attorneys, and clinicians with tools to understand foster youth.

Lynn Grodzki’s new book, Therapy with a Coaching Edge, guides professionals who are interested in a model of therapy that incorporates a coaching approach. She begins with a description of the basic model, which is comparable to a combination of traditional psychotherapy and life coaching. She then explores a set of nine specific coaching skills, including asking motivating questions and being more reactive. Grodzki has designed the book to be flexible and suitable for people with varying interests so that professionals can either adopt the complete model or select the concepts and skills that appeal to them the most.