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Suffering is an inescapable part of life. Some suffering is so profound, so violating, or so dogged that it fundamentally changes people in indelible ways. Many existing therapeutic approaches, from a medical model, treat suffering as mental illness and seek a curative solution. However, such approaches often fail to examine the deep questions that suffering elicits (e.g., existential themes of death, isolation, freedom, identity, and meaninglessness) and the far-reaching ways in which suffering affects the lived experience of each individual. In The Courage to Suffer, Daryl and Sara Van Tongeren introduce a new therapeutic framework that helps people flourish in the midst of suffering by cu...
This book is not a before-and-after story. Our culture treats suffering like a problem to fix, a blight to hide, or the sad start of a transformation story. We silently, secretly wither under the pressure of living as though suffering is a predicament we can avoid or annihilate by working hard enough or having enough faith. When your prayers for healing haven't been answered, the fog of depression isn't lifting, your marriage is ending in divorce, or grief won't go away, it's easy to feel you've failed God and, worse, he's failed you. If God loves us, why does he allow us to hurt? Over a decade ago chronic illness plunged therapist and writer K.J. Ramsey straight into this paradox. Before he...
This book on the new paradigm of existential positive psychology (PP2.0) or second-wave positive psychology focusses on the importance of transcending or transforming negative experiences and emotions to achieve durable flourishing. The book offers exciting new concepts and skills in the practice of counselling psychology. Positive psychology is evolving due to changing times and circumstances. PP2.0 opens new vistas for research and interventions in counselling psychology and positive psychology. Instead of relying only on the positives, it posits the importance of navigating an optimal balance between positives and negatives in each context. It emphasizes the importance of inner peace, bal...
In the era of COVID-19, many people have suffered high levels of stress and mental health problems. To cope with the widespread of suffering (physical, psychological, social, and economical) the positive psychology of personal happiness is no longer the sole approach to examine personal wellbeing. Other approaches such as Viktor Frankl’s theory of self-transcendence provide a promising framework for research and intervention on how to achieve resilience, wellbeing, and happiness through overcoming suffering and self-transcendence. The existential positive psychology of suffering complements the positive psychology of happiness, which is championed by Martin Seligman, as two equal halves of...
In Detox Your Thoughts, popular psychologist Andrea Bonior, PhD, identifies the 10 most prevalent mental traps that make people feel anxious, insecure, and generally just bad. Clinical psychologist Andrea Bonior has spent over twenty years studying, teaching, and practicing the science of thoughts, emotions, and behavior. In Detox Your Thoughts, she uses the latest research into mindfulness, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to teach you to understand your thoughts–and your body–in a completely different way. To challenge negative self-talk, you must change the way you relate to your thoughts altogether. Bonior shows us how to create new ment...
Theologian Erin S. Lane overturns dominant narratives about motherhood and inspires women to write their own stories. Is it possible to do something more meaningful than mothering? As a young Catholic girl who grew up in the American Midwest on white bread and Jesus, Erin S. Lane was given two options for a life well-lived: Mother or Mother Superior. She could marry a man and mother her own children, or she could marry God, so to speak, and mother the world’s children. Both were good outcomes for someone else’s life. Neither would fit the shape of hers. Interweaving Lane’s story with those of other women—including singles and couples, stepparents and foster parents, the infertile and...
“My vocation was supposed to be joy, and I was speaking at funerals.” Shortly after being hired by Yale University to study joy, Angela Gorrell got word that a close family member had died by suicide. Less than a month later, she lost her father to a fatal opioid addiction and her nephew, only twenty-two years old, to sudden cardiac arrest. The theoretical joy she was researching at Yale suddenly felt shallow and distant—completely unattainable in the fog of grief she now found herself in. But joy was closer at hand than it seemed. As she began volunteering at a women’s maximum-security prison, she met people who suffered extensively yet still showed a tremendous capacity for joy. Ta...
Let David Elkins, psychologist and former minister, show you how to find authentic, soul-nurturing spirituality outside church or temple walls. Discover your personal path to the sacred and explore new ways to bring nonreligious spirituality into your life.
Praise is the only path to God--at least this is what many of us have been taught. But the notion that we have to be positive all the time, putting on a happy face through anger, frustration, and pain, hinders our ability not only to heal ourselves and society, but to have an authentic relationship with the Divine. We long to connect with God over the very real sorrow in our lives and in the world around us, but so many of us were never shown how. This lack of knowing how to lament--an ancient practice of expressing anger and pain to God--damages us personally and spiritually. Pastor Abby Norman is here to tell us that we can talk to God like that. In her fresh, tell-it-like-it-is voice, she unpacks the power of lament, providing us with the tools and the grace-filled permission to heal the problems we have been ignoring for too long. She shows us how to express our laments to God and to each other when things are definitely not okay. And through this process we will discover a richer connection with God--who has wanted nothing more than our whole selves from the start.
A practical and philosophical deep dive into humility: how it can build confidence, foster honesty about our strengths and limitations, and help us achieve success Daryl Van Tongeren is a leading researcher on the science of humility. In Humble, he gives this unassuming trait a much-needed rebrand, explaining why the humble enjoy a more secure sense of self, handle challenges better, and, indeed, are often the people we like the most. That’s not to say Van Tongeren has mastered humility. (When he asked his wife to rate him on a scale from 1 to 10, she gave him a 4.) But in a world where narcissism is on the rise—where the shameless dominate social media and getting noticed is considered ...