Therapy Resources
Books: Relationship
Say what you mean, Oren Jay Sofer.
This a great book—an essential for any couple learning to communicate in more constructive ways. It is a requirement for couples in my practice.
This book builds on the Non Violent Communication method, using the power of mindfulness.
Wired for love: How understanding your partner’s brain and attachment style can help you defuse conflict and build a secure relationship.
A deep dive into why we respond the way we do in relationship to our partner’s habits, needs, and response to conflict. For a better understanding of how attachment works, see below.
Attached. The new science of adult attachment and how it can help you find—and keep—love.
OK it’s not my favorite book, because it’s a bit unrealistic and idealistic. But it’s a good overview of attachment.
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love — Sue Johnson
Also based in attachment bonds, this book is based in the style of Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT). This book helps to understand how our emotions are driving our habit patterns and miscommunication, and then learn to to express ourselves clearly and constructively, without activating our partner’s defense strategies.
Books: Parenting
Listen: Five simple tools to meet your everyday parenting challenges.
My all-time favorite book on parenting. It integrates attachment psychology into the parenting technique that no other books do.
Parenting from the Inside Out: How a Deeper Self-Understanding Can Help You Raise Children Who Thrive
Dan Siegel’s work on interpersonal neurobiology and attachment will change your life. You know how you think your child is really annoying? As it turns out, your experience of annoyance has very little to do with your child, and much to do with your relationship to yourself, your partner, and your parents.
No Bad Kids.
Treat your kids with dignity and respect, and in return you will get respectful children. Rather than punishing them for bad behavior, we can talk to them, in the same way that we would talk to any adult. We talk to them about what happened, and about what’s going to happen throughout the day. Rather than saying “because I said so,” we can patiently explain to them the reason for things, whether it’s why they can’t watch tv all day, or where the easter bunny is currently. This is a wonderful book.
The Soul of Discipline
This books does a great job of showing us as parents that holding boundaries for our children is what creates a sense of safety and security that they can rely on, especially if those boundaries create conflict. A must read for all parents.
The Attachment Connection: Parenting a Secure and Confident Child Using the Science of Attachment Theory
If you don’t know Allen Shore, he is a pioneer in affect regulation and attachment. It’s all about how we need each other to regulate (change or alter) our nervous systems in relationship. You may have noticed that I have a lot of “attachment” centered books here… attachment is simply how we form a bond with another human. Our attention is the basis for all of it.
Books: Trauma
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.
A deep investigation of how traumatic experiences live in our bodies. Bessel Van Der Kolk is a leader in the field of trauma treatment and understanding. For a highly technical exploration of the field of trauma research, see his book Traumatic Stress (1996).
In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness.
This book is a refreshing blend of biology, neuroscience, and body-oriented psychotherapy. It helps explain how trauma is neither a disorder or a disease, but rather a necessary response to pain that repeats itself when no longer necessary.
Books: Addiction
Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction.
The great thing about this book is that anyone can read it and find a great deal of use for it in their lives. It gets to the core of addiction in all of us, and de-stigmatizes it. Rather than it being a disease or a personality type, it’s a learning disorder.
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
The mother of all books on addiction, this is a dense read, though it explains the origins of addiction as our basic longing for connection, safety, and love. When we can’t be in this kind of relationship with someone, we will be in relationship with something.
The Thirst for Wholeness: Attachment, Addiction, and the Spiritual Path.
Another great book for all to read, regardless if you identify as an addict. It gets right to heart of all of our fragmented selves and frames our whole life in terms of this search for wholeness, belonging, and connection.
Books: Meditation and Buddhist Psychology
Being Zen: Bring Meditation to Life
A great read for all levels of practice, this book gets right to the heart of Zen, and is a great resource for your growth and process in therapy. Ezra talks about how all the experiences in life a part of the practice—they are in fact the path itself.
The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology
Essential for all who practice the teaching of the Buddha, this book gets right to the teachings of the 4 Noble Truths, offers formal meditation techniques, and relates wisely to our own hearts in a profoundly wise and gently way.
The Places that Scare You: A Guide to Fearless in Difficult Times.
Pema is one of the greats. She delivers the historical teachings of the Buddha in a perfectly relatable way, speaking straight to our hearts. I can’t recommend her enough, and any book that you read from her will find its way softly into your heart and mind.
Toward a Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, Psychotherapy, and the Path of Personal and Spiritual Transformation
For an inside look at my work as a psychotherapist, this book is perfect. It integrates the psychology of personal and spiritual growth into a cohesive, easy to understand, and deeply insightful teaching.