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Christian Endorsements

Dr. Thomas Holsworth, Psychology Professor, Certified Prescribing Psychologist, Catholic Deacon, St. Meinrad College Seminary, St. Meinrad, IN:

"The book defines love clearly in behaviors, teaches us how to love ourselves, and teaches us how to love other people in our lives. It properly emphasizes the importance of love in mental health, happiness, and self-esteem. It gives my students and clients hands-on, practical, helpful tools to immediately apply psychology to their own lives. The author makes psychology easy to understand and collects all of psychology's great advice on relationships between friends, spouses, parents, and children in one manual. With its straight forward advice and sound psychological theory, his book is a must for any practicing psychotherapist."

Another Psychology Professor and Catholic monk teaching in an Abbey:

"Good self-help text ... very helpful ... You get to the heart of the matter effectively. We, as psychologists, are often criticized for "pop psychology" - so we back off simple answers and then much of the world goes on suffering! Good work!"

About the Book

By cross-referencing between related areas and general techniques, deceptively short chapters add up to comprehensive instructions for each issue. Chapters end with more resources: the best new books on each topic, national support groups (both phone numbers and Internet addresses), and hotline numbers.

Learn the behaviors linked to happiness and exactly what love is, in actions. Find out how to overcome a bad temper, weight problems, nervous habits, and insomnia. Decide if a friend or romance is good for you, if your partner would make a compatible husband or wife, if you are ready to become a parent, if you should get a divorce, or if you need professional help for your problems.

Understand how to effectively complain without causing anger, how to deal with someone else's anger, improve your social life or find a romance, keep your marriage strong or improve or save it, make divorce easier on your children, and make custody decisions.

See how to get over the past, learn from your dreams, comfort a dying person, or how to help a suicidal friend. Learn the signs counselors use to determine the risk of suicide. Find out how to often avoid the need for disciplining your children, the best ways to deal with toilet training, thumb sucking, nail biting, stuttering, profanity, lying, stealing, and teenage problems, and how to protect children from sexual abuse without being sexually explicit. Learn how to prevent rape, including date rape.

Read the most effective responses to child abuse, woman abuse, sexual harassment, or rape. Surprisingly, going in a battered women's shelter doesn't really help unless the woman takes other steps to change things. Abusers' counseling programs often don't help at all and may actually increase your risk by leading to a false sense of security. Arresting the man may or may not help, depending on the type of man. Couple's therapy without a clear focus on a partner's violence is dangerous because discussing difficult and emotional issues can easily lead to violence.

The book contains up-to-date critiques of controversies in psychology, such as how counseling can cause multiple personality, electroshock therapy, the often foolish labeling of psychological diagnoses, and ineffective types of psychotherapy. And read the surprising facts about what does and doesn't work in preventing violence, crime, and drug use, including how government policies cause much crime and waste massive resources on ineffective programs when we know other programs work much better. Problems and crises are opportunities to learn, change, and grow; this book will show you how.

More Detail on Our Reviews

American Mental Health Counselors Association:

"an enjoyable and easy read ... I would recommend it as an addition to anyone's collection of resources. I'd also recommend that practitioners share it with consumers and students. Others who might find the book useful include clergy, teachers, volunteers, and other members of the various helping professions. ... A chapter, "Warnings about Psychology" is particularly telling about the dangerously wide range of actual expertise and the efficacy/potency.of treatments offered by various practitioners. ... Consumers are duly warned about various frauds and ill-conceived treatment regimens that lack an empirical basis."

International Academy of Behavioral Medicine, Counseling, and Psychotherapy:

"The basic information in this text, which deals with a wide variety of mental health problems, is remarkable. If I were asked for a single source where practical and useful information could be found, I would recommend this book. This is an excellent text that has wide application for the general public, as well as behavioral health professionals. It was designed to be used by the lay person, but would also be a useful guide for the practicing clinician."

Science Books and Films, American Association for the Advancement of Science:

"a self-help book of practical advice useful to the general public as well as social-behavioral professionals. …

It makes an ideal gift for young adults, newlyweds, young parents, or anyone facing change in their life. The information presented is helpful in all stages of life. … Parental concerns from infancy throughout adolescence are addressed with clarity. … relevant as a professional reference work, a book to increase knowledge of the subject, and a supplement to classroom instruction. The volume provides a balanced presentation of controversial and sensitive issues … a reader-friendly guidebook, appropriate for all adults at various stages of their lives. It is also reasonably priced."

Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy:

"highly recommended ... immensely beneficial. ... It uses no difficult language. ... It tells it clear and straight. Thus, this is a how-to, no-nonsense book, rich with the nuts and bolts of self-management, self- development, and self-control to achieve personal happiness. No one need to doubt the scientific soundness of the advice given in this volume. The advice is distilled from the most advanced, modern psychological science from varied areas such as social/learning, cognitive, behavioral, systems, psychodynamic, and existential theories... People who learn the lessons in this book are on the path to happiness and to resolving their problems in a meaningful way that ultimately leads to fulfillment. The book shows how to parent more effectively ... set workable limits for the children ... Special problems concerning child rearing are discussed with utmost sensitivity and know-how... I wholeheartedly endorse this wonderful volume: a tribute to the field of psychology, a balm for those who suffer."

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Psychology Self-Help Articles from the Book