Book Reviews

Jaime Lowe’s memoir chronicles her struggles with bipolar disorder and explores lithium: the medication that saved her life but also caused her body irreparable harm. A story full of progress and setbacks, stability and mania, and hope and desolation, Lowe’s book is emotionally tumultuous. Written colloquially and free of highly scientific content, this book can cater to a wide audience. Though it is specifically useful and relevant for people who are bipolar and/or utilizing lithium medication, it’s also helpful for anyone who wants to understand these two things better. Lowe’s book offers both a raw and honest account of what it’s like to live with bipolar disorder and important information about lithium to provide a holistic understanding of her journey. 

Alexandra Katehakis’ book dives into the foundations of sex addiction and the best possible treatment of it through a neurobiological lense. Informed by her own experiences and therapeutic journey as well as her work as a psychotherapist, Katehakis offers her own conception of an approach to treatment called Psychobiological Approach to Sex Addiction Treatment (PASAT). PASAT combines “cognitive-behavioral containment of addiction, transpersonal psychology expanding the self beyond the individual, and emotionally regulating, intuitive, and relation-based psychotherapy informed by affective neuroscience” (4). The target audience is mainly psychotherapists as the book hones in on PASAT and how to utilize it, but it can also be appreciated by those dealing with sex addiction, whether they’re in recovery or not. Through Katehakis’ detailed examination of sex addiction as a legitimate disorder and her resulting treatment plan, it is clear that she is deeply passionate and knowledgeable about the subject. The book opens with a foreword by Allan N. Schore followed by Katehakis’s introduction where she touches on her journey to becoming a psychotherapist and provides an overview of the book. She describes a deeply traumatic experience of her own that drew me in. My attention was captured by her explanation of her personal connection to psychotherapy; it humanizes her and serves as a way to broach the topic of psychotherapeutic treatment.

I’ve encountered Stanley Keleman’s work many times during my transition from teacher to therapist. And, I can honestly say I always walk away with a deeper sense of me in my entirety, me as embodied energy in human form, shaped as much by thought and reflection as act and reaction. An awareness lingers beyond the momentary meeting that tugs at the corners of my existence as if saying, come on, wake up now, be present in this body of yours and let it inform you just as you inform it.

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).

What happens when a question sparks a search? When a curious mind latches onto a quest to find answers that make sense, not just...

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.

If we put blinders on, if we ignore the entirety of a person’s experience, including the impact of our own background, our own sense of have and have not, we are setting up yet another dysfunctional experience.

Despite the obvious benefits the world of psychotherapy has brought into both individual and communal lives, many cultures still consider therapy taboo. The action of attending therapy is misunderstood and often maligned: going to a shrink is for the crazies, seeking out professional help signifies inability for self-sufficiency, deviating from a biopsychosocial norm from translates as if you are broken. Surpassing the taboo of therapy itself is that of sexuality. Sexuality alone is a taboo subject—the exploration of one’s sexuality, the preferences and expression of such are hushed, driven into the darkness by a societal dictum that preaches uniformity and singular experience. Discussing one’s sexuality in terms of therapy and biopsychosocial healing can be difficult under the effect of the taboo nature. It is precisely this attitude—the one of taboo avoidance—that Shelley Green and Douglas Flemons ­combat with a smile in their edited anthology entitled, Quickies: The Handbook of Brief Sex Therapy. Therapists can and do feel uncomfortable and unqualified to handle sexual discussions with their clients. They often refer clients to a ‘sex’ therapist or a like-focused clinician to have these sorts of conversations. Green and Flemons, however, suggest that therapists encourage active discussions (maintained with professionality and a clinical lens) about sexuality; it is, after all, part of the patient’s development and understanding of their relationships. Quickies reflects just that attitude— encouraging open and integrated discussion throughout the entries.

I don’t think it’s ever been easier to be a gay person. This perspective comes from a queer-identifying, twenty-one-year-old, living in New York City who also grew up in Chicago. Despite the news of the decimations of queer men around the world (Chechnya, for example) and strings of phobia and hate- filled rhetoric that stream from our Commander-in-Chief’s Twitter, queer youth, now more than ever, are finding opportunity to not only explore and question sexuality but to discuss and reckon with it. While it is still remarkably difficult to navigate today’s world as a queer person, apps like Grindr and Scruff link gay men to peers just down the block and across the country. Homosexual marriage has been legalized in the United States and non-monogamous partnerships are on the rise. I lived the first few years of my life in fear, ashamed of expressing the queer person that I am, but this cultural shift and increased discussion of non-heteronormative experience has allowed me to explore, question, discuss and reckon with my sexuality to the point where I have shed any associated taboos and am in full embrace and proud of my identity.

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.