Will Baum, LCSW

A possibility for your on-deck reading pile:  Radical Acceptance, by Tara Brach.  A favorite in the genre for some.  I could summarize, but I’ll radically accept the job done by Publishers Weekly and posted on Amazon:

Brach offers readers a rich compendium of stories and techniques designed to help people awaken from what she calls “the trance of unworthiness.”  The sense of self-hatred and fearful isolation that afflicts so many people in the West can be transformed with the steady application of a loving attention infused with the insights of the Buddhist tradition, according to Brach.

What happens in therapy?  Good question.  Couch Fiction, a book-length comic by British psychotherapist, Philippa Perry, offers some answers.

Based on a case study of Pat (our sandal-wearing, cat-loving psychotherapist) and her new client, James (an ambitious barrister with a potentially harmful habit he can’t stop), this graphic novel follows the anxieties, frustrations, mind-wanderings and break-throughs of each, through a year of therapy sessions together.

On the page:  What he says, what she says…what he’s thinking, what she’s thinking.  At page bottom, explanations about the theory behind various therapeutic interventions, missteps made, etc.

See a (very positive) review here…and an author interview here.

(Also at WTCI)

Worry a lot?  To consider: The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts. You may know Alan Watts from oft-broadcast lectures–eager audience hanging on every wryly wise, British-accented utterance.  (Lectures can be sampled via this podcast or downloads around the net.)

In this short book, Watts takes on worry and anxiety–a.k.a. insecurity.  He argues that to live is to be insecure; all we be can certain about is the present moment.   He encourages awareness, mindfulness, acceptance–Buddhist principles all adopted as central tenets of many therapy approaches (ACT, DBT, MBSR…) since the book was penned in 1951.  Here’s a sample, about acceptance:

The human organism has the most wonderful powers of adaptation to both physical and psychological pain.  But these can only come into full play when the pain is not being constantly restimulated by this inner effort to get away from it, to separate the “I” from the feeling.  The effort creates a state of tension in which the pain thrives.  But when the tension ceases, mind and body begin to absorb the pain as water reacts to a blow or a cut.

Here’s a not-so-recent review of Wisdom: From Philosophy to Neuroscience (via aldaily.com).  And here’s the article that preceded the book.  Not sated?  There’s more on Stephen S. Hall’s website and blog.  From the article:

The Berlin Wisdom Paradigm…was built in part on research using hypothetical vignettes to discern wise and unwise responses to life dilemmas. “A 15-year-old girl wants to get married right away,” one vignette suggested. “What should one/she consider and do?” [The wise answer follows in the article.]

David Carlat talks to NPR about his book, Unhinged: The Trouble With Psychiatry. Article, audio, and excerpt all on the site.

“And this is a good therapist who I often work with. I recommend that you give her a call and set up an appointment. The medication works better when you are also seeing a counselor.”

She looked confused. “Aren’t you my therapist?”

An NYT review of Wide Awake: A Memoir of Insomnia, by Patricia Morrisroe.

Morrisroe interviews an anthropologist who says that in many traditional, non-Western cultures people sleep on light mats, not beds, sometimes in groups around a fire. Instead of what the anthropologist calls our “lie down and die” model, people drift in and out of slumber. Sometimes, they get up to sing or dance for a while…

Long for this World, by Jonathan Weiner, looks at the possibility of science conquering disease and people living much longer lives.

[One scientist] predicts that when life expectancy reaches multiple centuries, humans may become extraordinarily risk-averse, unwilling to ride in a car or ski because they’ll have too much time ahead, too much to lose.

“When.”

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things got a big promotional push when it came out earlier this year.  Thanks to the (hoarding?) nature of net, the material is still around.  That includes an NPR interview with co-author Randy Frost. And here’s a Time Magazine story, “Hoarding: How Collecting Stuff Can Destroy Your Life.” Excerpt:

When I asked one woman if I could describe her as a former hoarder — because she has been living pretty much clutter-free for the past six or seven years — she said no. She gave a little anecdote about her thoughts about throwing away a yogurt cup. It was [still] excruciating for her. Part of her phenomena is a tendency to anthropomorphize things and give them feelings. She felt so badly for this cup that she was throwing away. That it was the one that got rejected. That it had to go into this bin and maybe it would be humid and uncomfortable.

Something to consider reading:  A Little Book on the Human Shadow, by Robert Bly.

You may know Bly as the author of men’s movement tome, Iron John.  He’s also a poet, public speaker, and engaged reader of lots of psych lit–particularly Carl Jung, Alice Miller, and Marie Louise von Franz.

Shadow reproduces a series of readings by and interviews with Bly, tied together with Jungian themes.  Who or what do you hate?  Take a careful look.  It may be that the qualities you despise most are the very qualities you were encouraged (or forced) to refuse yourself as you were growing up–irresponsibility, carelessness, greed, rage.

Bly encourages reconnecting with these despised traits–to honor the items stowed “in your bag.”  How?  Art, expression.  Especially helpful is an exploration of how these “shadow” dynamics play out in romantic relationships.  Not unlike the longer, less poetry-filled, more widely read Getting the Love You Want, by Harville Hendrix.  Take your pick.

To the Point joins the chatter re The Internet and the Human Brain–sparked in part by the publication of an apparently doom-heavy new book, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains.

Want to keep yourself thinking “long thoughts”?  Take weekends away from the web, suggests one panelist…if you can.