Alternative Psychology

Trauma is a fact of life. Veterans and their families deal with the painful aftermath of combat; one in five Americans has been molested; one in four grew up with alcoholics; one in three couples have engaged in physical violence. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, one of the world’s foremost experts on trauma, has spent more than three decades working with survivors. In The Body Keeps the Score, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust.

In Eastern Body, Western Mind, chakra authority Anodea Judith has brought a fresh approach to the yoga-based Eastern chakra system, adapting it to the Western framework of Jungian psychology, somatic therapy, childhood developmental theory, and metaphysics. Illuminated with personal anecdotes and case studies, Eastern Body, Western Mind seamlessly merges the East and West, science and philosophy, and psychology and spirituality into a compelling interpretation of the chakra system and its relevance for Westerners today.

In this collection, expert Headspace mindfulness and meditation teachers guide you through seven 25-minute themed walks to help you process and navigate challenging emotions. Each walk is rooted in mindfulness-based stress reduction and other therapeutic techniques from Headspace’s teachers and mental health clinicians.

Whether you live in a mountain cabin or a city loft, plant spirits present themselves to us everywhere. Since its first edition in 1995, Plant Spirit Medicine has passed among countless audiences drawn to indigenous spirituality and all things alive and green. In this updated edition, Eliot Cowan invites us to discover the healing power of plants - not merely their physical medicinal properties, but the deeper wisdom and gifts that they offer.

In this collection, expert Headspace mindfulness and meditation teachers guide you through seven 25-minute themed walks to help you connect with yourself and the world around you. Each walk is rooted in mindfulness-based stress reduction and other therapeutic techniques from Headspace’s teachers and mental health clinicians.

In this collection, expert Headspace mindfulness and meditation teachers guide you through seven 25-minute themed walks to help you reset, clear your mind, and feel more grounded. Each walk is rooted in mindfulness-based stress reduction and other therapeutic techniques from Headspace’s teachers and mental health clinicians.

An intelligent and comprehensive guide to polyamory, open relationships, and other forms of alternative love, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory offers relationship advice radically different from anything you'll find on the magazine rack. This practical guidebook will help women break free of the mold of traditional monogamy, without the constraints of jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity, and competition. If you're curious about exploring group sex, opening up your current monogamous relationship, or ready to "come out" as polyamorous, this book covers it all.

From elementary schools to psychotherapy offices, mindfulness meditation is an increasingly mainstream practice. At the same time, trauma remains a fact of life. Drawing on a decade of research and clinical experience, psychotherapist and educator David Treleaven shows that mindfulness meditation - practiced without an awareness of trauma - can exacerbate symptoms of traumatic stress. This raises a crucial question: How can we minimize the potential dangers of mindfulness for survivors while leveraging its powerful benefits?

Mescaline, LSD, and psilocybin mushrooms. There’s been a lot of discussion in the medical world lately about the potential benefits of these and other drugs for certain medical conditions, such as anxiety and depression. As we consider the place of psychedelics in the future, we can draw insight and guidance from the history of how psychedelics have been described, sought after, applied, and prohibited over the centuries. Erika Dyck, professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan, introduces you to the world of hallucinogens.

Meditation offers, in addition to its many other benefits, a method for achieving previously inconceivable levels of concentration. Author B. Alan Wallace has nearly 30 years' practice in attention-enhancing meditation, including a retreat he performed under the guidance of the Dalai Lama. An active participant in the much-publicized dialogues between Buddhists and scientists, Alan is uniquely qualified to speak intelligently to both camps, and The Attention Revolution is the definitive presentation of his knowledge.

Mindful Teaching and Teaching Mindfulness emphasizes how the teacher's personal familiarity with mindfulness plants the seed for an education infused with attention, awareness, kindness, empathy, compassion, and gratitude. The book follows a teacher from morning to night on a typical school day, at home, during the commute, and before, during, and after class.

When Mercury goes retrograde, it is a reminder that for growth and progress to be achieved, we must reflect. Mercury is the planet of communication, and it governs both speaking and listening, as well as your lungs and your breath. When it is retrograde, we can experience shifts, disruptions, and even breakdowns in these areas. This meditation provides a sacred space for reflection and an opportunity to reassess your perspective, so that you can move ahead with clarity and confidence.

Discover the innovative intersection of somatic therapy and Internal Family Systems (IFS), featuring 5 core practices to transform modern therapeutic approaches. Enhance your clinical practice and patient outcomes by skillfully uniting body and mind through an evidence-based therapeutic modality—endorsed by leaders in the field, including Richard Schwartz.

Still, Together is an exploration of the ways we feel detachment from our lives, goals and friendships, and how we can begin to reclaim ourselves through human connection. Technology has enabled us to be more connected than ever before, but in many ways, it has come at the cost of our sense of humanity. The reality is that we live in a world where innovation promises to keep us more up-to-date and connected but leaves us feeling more disconnected than ever before.

Whenever we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. No goal is more elusive. In How to Be a Stoic, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers Stoicism, the ancient philosophy that inspired the great emperor Marcus Aurelius, as the best way to attain it. Stoicism is a pragmatic philosophy that teaches us to act depending on what is within our control and separate things worth getting upset about from those that are not.

After years of trying different therapies for his debilitating anxiety without success, Dr. Russell Kennedy had an epiphany: anxiety does not start in the brain. Anxiety starts in the body, where trauma is stored and physical and emotional perception begin. Alarm bells originating in the body are what trigger those anxious thoughts that we call anxiety, and Russ realized that true healing starts only when we learn not to conflate the two.

Biofeedback is the process of training your body to control its involuntary actions, such as breathing and heart rate. Minor changes to these actions can significantly improve physical and emotional well-being. In Biofeedback and Mindfulness in Everyday Life, Harvard Medical School faculty member Inna Khazan pairs biofeedback techniques with mindfulness practice to address some of life's most common ailments - from anxiety and fear to stress and insomnia.

Michael Jordan credits George Mumford with transforming his on-court leadership of the Bulls, helping Jordan lead the team to six NBA championships. Mumford also helped Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom and countless other NBA players turn around their games. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford is sharing his own story and the strategies that have made these athletes into stars in The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance.

This practical guide helps therapists from virtually any specialty or theoretical orientation choose and adapt mindfulness practices most likely to be effective with particular patients, while avoiding those that are contraindicated. The authors provide a wide range of meditations that build the core skills of focused attention, mindfulness, and compassionate acceptance. Vivid clinical examples show how to weave the practices into therapy, tailor them to each patient's needs, and overcome obstacles.

In this book, we will provide you with everything you need to know about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy as well as the reasons why it's being considered one of the most effective treatments for certain emotional disorders. We'll go through the basics and essentials that beginners have to understand before they start their treatments, as well as the different benefits one can gain from it. Included are the different issues it is known to effectively treat, and the philosophy behind it. Aside from this, we also provide you with introductions into the different techniques used in CBT. Many of these techniques are meant to tackle very specific issues, and that is one of the great things about CBT. It provides very focused treatments, and sets specific goals for the therapist and their client to achieve. We delve into the connection between our thoughts, feelings, and behavior - how all three affect each other and how making small changes can result in significant positive results in our lives.