Book Reviews

Adreanna Limbach’s new book Tea and Cake with Demons relies on Buddhist teachings to improve our self-worth and explore our insecurities. Limbach believes that the Buddha represents our capacity to be present in our own lives and come to know the “fundamentally whole” versions of ourselves. The book explores this mindset through the lens of Buddhist teachings and the Four Noble Truths. Limbach has divided the book into three parts: Waking Up to Worthiness, The Four Noble Truths, and The Eightfold Path.

There is a hackneyed tale of two young fishes. As they are swimming in the sea, they encounter an old fish who asks them, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two fishes pass him by without saying a word and then one of them looks over to the other one and goes, “What is water?” In his new book, How to Think Like an Anthropologist?, Matthew Engelke takes on the daunting task of asking us about the water: our culture.

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.

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).

Anorexia nervosa. Two words that often summon an image of emaciation: the kind where skin hangs off bones, darkened sockets shield distant eyes refusing to see, the smell of one’s body feeding on itself, the remnant of a cannibalization process meant to perpetuate life.

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”

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.

Worried? seeks to relieve some of our anxiety by teaching us to take control of the situations that cause us to worry. The authors claim that taking control involves “critically evaluating potential threats, determining what poses the greatest danger, and prioritizing your actions to minimize adverse outcomes” (pg. 2) and this is exactly what they achieve in their book.

Deborah Gray has written a compelling and easy to follow book to educate therapists on how to strengthen the quality of attachments when working with clients struggling with a variety of attachment difficulties. The book is geared towards therapists looking to learn more about attachment.

I’m curious about where their inner reserves come from and how they draw on them in the heat of misery, pain, suffering. Where does the resiliency come from? Is it from God? Instilled in our being at birth? Pharr Davis delves into these questions with intriguing responses; her own and others she’s met on the journey.