Counselling Psychology

The Way of the Psychonaut, Volumes 1 and 2 is one of the most important books ever written about the human psyche and the spiritual quest. The new understandings were made possible thanks to Albert Hofmann’s discovery of LSD―the microscope and telescope of the human psyche―as well as other psychedelic substances.

In my book, I go beyond offering just a theoretical definition of what a skill is and an explanation of what it does in a counselling relationship. I share a deeper look into the skills and explore a more philosophical explanation from my own experience as a practising therapist and former counselling tutor.

Much has been written about trauma and neglect and the damage they do to the developing brain. But little has been written or researched about the potential to heal these attachment wounds and address the damage sustained from neglect or poor parenting in early childhood. This book presents a therapy that focuses on precisely these areas. Laurel Parnell, leader and innovator in the field of eye-movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), offers us a way to embrace two often separate worlds of knowing.

Many people grapple with destructive thought processes or a "critical inner voice" that directs their behavior and, to varying degrees, limits their lives. Using deeply personal and very human stories based on his own clinical practice, noted psychologist Robert W. Firestone illustrates the struggles of his clients to give words to this "enemy within", and in the process overcome its damaging influence.

Mary Pipher's groundbreaking investigation of America's "girl-poisoning culture," Reviving Ophelia, has sold nearly two million copies and established its author as one of the nation's foremost authorities on family issues. In Letters to a Young Therapist, Dr. Pipher shares what she has learned in 30 years as a therapist, helping warring families, alienated adolescents, and harried professionals restore peace and beauty to their lives. Letters to a Young Therapist gives voice to her practice with an exhilarating mix of storytelling and sharp-eyed observation.

Maps of Narrative Practice provides brand new practical and accessible accounts of the major areas of narrative practice that White has developed and taught over the years, so that listeners may feel confident when utilizing this approach in their practices. The book covers each of the five main areas of narrative practice - re-authoring conversations, remembering conversations, scaffolding conversations, definitional ceremony, externalizing conversations, and rite of passage maps.

For more than thirty years, On Being a Therapist has inspired generations of mental health professionals (and their clients) to explore the most private, confusing, and sacred aspects of helping others. In this thoroughly revised and updated sixth edition, Jeffrey Kottler explores many of the challenges that therapists face in their practices today, including pressures from increased technology, economic realities, and advances in theory and technique.

Research shows that attachment patterns—our patterns of relating to others, which develop in early childhood—affect far more aspects of our lives than was previously thought. Given how crucial these patterns are to how every patient relates to the world and to their own selves, how can therapists harness attachment to provide more effective therapy? Using accelerated experiential dynamic psychotherapy AEDP® theory and methodology as a foundation, the authors present an innovative approach that tailors treatment to attachment patterns.

Solution focused brief therapy (SFBT) is a therapeutic approach that focuses on the client’s hoped-for future instead of their ongoing problems. Elliott E. Connie and Adam S. Froerer are the founders of The Solution Focused Universe and are two of the most respected and innovative experts in their field. Together, they have developed the Diamond model—a framework of SFBT skills and tools designed to guide a clinician through each session of therapy—which is one of the biggest innovations in the field of solution focused brief therapy.

Milton H. Erickson, M.D. is generally acknowledged to have been the world's leading practitioner of medical hypnosis. His strategic therapy, using hypnotic techniques with or without actually inducing trance, allows him to get directly to the core of a problem and prescribe a course of action that can lead to rapid recovery.

This down-to-earth guide walks you through the four DBT modules, mindfulness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Each chapter explains how to practice the key skills and dives into the authors' own experiences to explore what works, what doesn't, and which skills work best for particular challenges. Journaling prompts help you work out how to fit the skills into your own day-to-day life, so you can make changes that work for you.

In Hauntings, James Hollis considers how we are all governed by the presence of invisible forms - spirits, ghosts, ancestral and parental influences, inner voices, dreams, impulses, untold stories, complexes, synchronicities, and mysteries - that move through us through history. He offers a way to understand them psychologically, examining the persistence of the past in influencing our present, conscious lives and noting that engagement with mystery is what life asks of each of us. From such engagements, a deeper, more thoughtful, more considered life may come.

Sometimes therapy is awkward. And sometimes it's also painful, messy, and downright confusing. Yet, very few books capture what it's truly like to engage in this work. In its much-anticipated release, this guide chronicles the strange nuances of working in mental health in the modern world. Sometimes Therapy Is Awkward provides refreshingly candid insight into what it takes to feel more confident and prepared to help others. This guide offers stories, jokes, and action-based solutions.

A new way to consider patterns of personality, with the combined application of neurobiology and traditional wisdom, Personality and Wholeness in Psychotherapy applies the perspective of interpersonal neurobiology to a traditional wisdom framework widely known as the Enneagram of Personality. This framework describes a lifespan developmental personality model of nine distinct, key strategies that people use to make sense of and cope with their experiences and interactions with the world. These strategies can be understood as nine Patterns of Developmental Pathways, or PDPs.

Traumatic experiences leave a “living legacy” of effects that often persist for years and decades after the events are over. Historically, it has always been assumed that retelling the story of what happened would resolve these effects. However, survivors report a different experience: Telling and re-telling the story of what happened to them often reactivates their trauma responses, overwhelming them rather than resolving the trauma.

From over 25 years of clinical experience, Manuela Mischke-Reeds, MA, LMFT, has created the go-to resource for mental health therapists who want to incorporate somatic techniques into their daily practice. Highly-effective for clients dealing with trauma and stress disorders, somatic psychotherapy is the future of healing the entire person-body and mind.

An essential resource for helping professionals, updated for today's challenges.

The NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) is an integrated mind-body framework that focuses on relational, attachment, developmental, cultural, and intergenerational trauma. NARM helps clients resolve C-PTSD, recover from adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and facilitate post-traumatic growth.

Facing memory loss at age ninety-three as well as the fallout from a global pandemic that moved much of daily life online, legendary psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom was forced to vastly reconsider the shape of his sessions with patients. Rather than throw in the towel in the face of change, Dr. Yalom considered head-on the limitations imposed by these new realities and revolutionized his practice. Turning his focus to what might be achieved in a one-hour, one-time-only meeting between patient and practitioner, Dr. Yalom employed an even more concerted use of his “here and now” approach.

Since the beginning of time we have told stories to each other. As we have become more articulate, we have learned to include metaphors to emphasize our point. A story or metaphor can "paint a verbal picture", and help express what we really feel, think, and believe. For those in the wellbeing space, this is a potential goldmine for exploration and opportunity.