Demystifiying Anorexia Nervosa: An Optimistic Guide to Understanding and Healing Review

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(More customer reviews)This book offers lots of information, backed by both scientific sources and the author's personal experience as a physician. But what I appreciated most was the author's calm and reassuring tone. The book lives up to its subtitle, An Optimistic Guide to Understanding and Healing. Although Lucas describes admittedly alarming situations in detail, he does not sensationalize the disease. Instead he presents a very human side of both the victims and the loved ones (usually the parents).
I found that Demystifying Anorexia Nervosa is an excellent complement to Ellyn Satter's books about children's eating and the "division of responsibility" idea. Lucas, like Satter, place great importance on respecting the individual and the individual's desire to make decisions for him/herself. (For those who have not read Satter's books, they describe how to have the right feeding relationship with your child, and also offer excellent practical advice on feeding babies through school age children.)

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Emotionally and physically devastating, anorexia nervosa is the third most common chronic illness in teenage girls, striking one in every two hundred (boys only make up 10% of all cases). And while there are a plethora of books on the subject, most are either personal accounts of recovery or attempts to explain the disease from only one perspective, be it psychoanalytic, behavioral, cultural, or biological. Now, in this much-needed resource, Dr. Alexander Lucas draws on 40 years of experience, mostly at the Mayo Clinic, to offer clear guidance and authoritative advice on how to overcome anorexia nervosa. Based on his own unique research with thousands of patients, and striking a careful balance between psychological, cultural, and biological approaches, Dr. Lucas demystifies this seemingly irrational disease and guides parents through the harrowing process of recovery. The book defines anorexia, illustrates how it can evolve and how common it really is, and outlines every part of the treatment process, from the early warning signs that parents should watch out for, to the initial evaluation, to specific treatment plans. Dr. Lucas emphasizes the patient's role in defining the healing process, with the support of the family and medical team. Throughout the book, he counsels optimism, stressing that in spite of the destructive power of the disease, most who suffer from anorexia nervosa fully recover and are able to live normal, healthy, and productive lives.For anyone seeking level-headed, medically sound, and comprehensive guidance on the most effective treatments for this life-threatening disorder, Demystifying Anorexia Nervosa offers a wealth of reliable, reassuring information.

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Helping Abused and Traumatized Children: Integrating Directive and Nondirective Approaches Review

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(More customer reviews)Eliana Gil is amazing, if you have ever talked with her in person you know what I mean. She is definately one of the foremost experts on treating abused and traumatized children, and has many creative ideas on techniques to use in child and family therapy, etc. (See her other books) In this book, she reviews how to integrate non-directive (i,e, Child centered) approaches with more directive approaches, which is very helpful if you are trying to work with kids in a tight time frame, traveling from school to school, or are just trying to get your head around a theoretical orientation for practice with children and families. I highly reccomend this and her other publications, as well as going to a presentation at one of her conferences.

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Presenting an integrative model for treating traumatized children, this book combines play, art, and other expressive therapies with ideas and strategies drawn from cognitive-behavioral and family therapy. Eliana Gil demonstrates how to tailor treatment to the needs of each child by using both directive and nondirective approaches. Throughout, practical clinical examples illustrate ways to target trauma-related symptomatology while also helping children process painful feelings and memories that are difficult to verbalize. The book concludes with four in-depth cases that bring to life the unique situation of each child and family, the decision making process of the therapist, and the applications of developmentally informed, creative, and flexible interventions.

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Sandplay: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to the Psyche (Sandplay Classics series, The) Review

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(More customer reviews)The republication of Sandplay: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to the Psyche is an especially important contribution to the field of sandplay. This seminal, classic book had been out of print for several years and sorely missed.
The 2003 edition by Temenos press opens with a new and riveting foreword by Dr. Martin Kalff about the life of his mother, Dora M. Kalff. His "experience near" delivery of thought and feeling brings to the reader a special intimacy with Dora Kalff's personal and professional life experiences.
Temenos is scrupulous in retaining Dora Kalff's original words, but has added useful material which makes it possible to use Sandplay: A Psychotherapeutic Approach to the Psyche as a reference book: a detailed new table of illustrations where chapters, pages and captions are clearly cross referenced, a table of works cited which is also "user friendly," and finally an excellent index.
In chapter 1, Sandplay: A Pathway to the Psyche, Dora Kalff lays out the phases fo psychic development. The reader is immediately struck by her teaching style, an by the generous number of illustrations. Chapters 2 through 10 are case histories. To me these chapters read not only like clinical case histories but also like biographical vignettes that happen to be "clinical." One not only understands but gets the "feel" of how Kalff worked. Some of the chapters are : Kim, a 12-year old- with learning problems; James, a 16-year-old who experienced early trauma; Dede, a 5-year-old with a speech block; Ursula, a young woman suffering from depression; and Eric, a man with a blushing problem. Other chapters deal with issues of anxiety, enuresis, passivity, and isolation. The book's conclusion confirms Kalff's related wisdom.

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This seminal text by the founder of sandplay therapy offers clinicians and students a foundational account of the workings and practice of this therapy. Through simple but elegant narratives of actual casework, Kalff articulates her theoretical understanding of how sandplay therapy heals and transforms the psyche. Dr. Martin Kalff, the author's son, provides a new introduction in which he shares original historical material about his mother and her development of the sandplay therapy method. A comprehensive index and tables of illustrations and references are included for ease of study and understanding.

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