Book Reviews

In their preface, Kathy Steele, Suzette Boon, and Onno van der Hart challenge the classic notion of ‘don’t just do something, stand there’ with a new notion: ‘don’t just do something, be there’.

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.

In 2006, Louis Cozolino, a therapist and professor of psychology at the Pepperdine University, published the first edition of his book, The Neuroscience of Human Relationships. Since then, the field of neuroscience has expanded immensely. As a result, Cozolino has published a second edition, which contains much of the same content and more. It follows the same format as the first edition while integrating contemporary research with existing knowledge of the social brain.

I started to write, “I’m the worst person to review a book on social media! I don’t use it.” Then, nearing the end of Dr Primack’s book, I realized, I use it more than I think. I don’t Twitter, nor Instagram. I don’t TicToK or Messenger. I post articles on LinkedIn and use Facebook for the magazine. But a sense of who? me? reached out and grabbed me when Dr Primack discussed Facebook and canned birthday wishes: how people, like me, are reminded of “friends” birthdays so we can offer a greeting, an emoji. What truly tripped me was his discussion on our own take away.

Reflecting on their place in the world and how that world effects them, these women set the tone for each contributor by sharing raw, honest, and impassioned presentations of self. Editors Caldwell and Leighton begin the book with an aptly named preface “Who We Are and Why We’re Here,” discussing their experiences in life and the embodied oppressions they have taken on by simply existing as themselves.

Dr. Norman Doidge, author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Brain That Changes Itself, provides an eloquent and fascinating synopsis of the current scientific understanding of the process of neuroplasticity. With lucid language, Dr. Doidge explains this complex concept with the goal of educating and enlightening patients, family, and clinicians of the many possibilities of recovery.

We have all experienced stress; in some form it is a survival tool that gives us energy and fuel to handle a pressing situation. Sometimes a stressful situation is so overwhelming that we will do anything to avoid that situation for the rest of our life. In these cases, our security system will code everything in that situation into a script that will trigger a stress response as soon as anything reminds us of it. That stress response will grow stronger as our system generalizes it, to the point where we can generate a full life-or-death panic response by simply thinking about it. It is then called post-traumatic stress.

In his recently published book, Addiction, Attachment, Trauma and Recovery: The Power of Connection, Morgan offers a new framework for clinicians working with clients like myself that combines interpersonal neurobiology and social ecology and focuses on addiction and recovery from an attachment-sensitive counseling approach. The soul of addiction, Morgan says, is a lack of connection and belonging. “Recovery,” he writes, ”is a restoration to connection, to meaningful and life-giving relationships” (pg. xxix). The traditional models of addiction—it’s a disease, a choice, a learned behavior—are being replaced by models focused on relational ecologies.

Resolving Yesterday: First Aid for Stress and Trauma with TTT is designed to teach the Trauma Tapping Technique (TTT), a stress management and coping tool that can be performed on the self and others. It is written to be as accessible as possible so that the technique can reach people of disparate levels of education, experience, and language.

Anna Halprin: Dance, Process, Form details the life and work of dancer and artist Anna Halprin. Halprin was an early innovator in dance therapy, using the medium as a form of personal exploration through artistic and physical expression. Her work with groups of people, either for specific art pieces or in experimental workshops, was highly influential for the development of both dance therapy and avant-garde expressionism.