Recommended Books

Nearly a decade ago, Cutting boldly addressed a traumatic psychological disorder now affecting as many as two million Americans and one in fifty adolescents. More than that, it revealed self-mutilation as a comprehensible, treatable disorder, no longer to be evaded by the public and neglected by professionals. Using copious examples from his practice, Steven Levenkron traces the factors that predispose a personality to self-mutilation: genetics, family experience, childhood trauma, and parental behavior. Written for sufferers, parents, friends, and therapists, Cutting explains why the disorder manifests in self-harming behaviors and describes how patients can be helped.

Childhood can be an exciting time, full of joyous exploration, new skills, friends, and imaginative play. It can also be very frightening, especially when children have experiences that threaten their feelings of safety and well-being. Even common traumatic childhood events can deeply affect children’s normal healthy development, their self-esteem, and their families. Many behavioral problems stemming from common traumatic events could require years of psychotherapy or medication. That is, they did—until the advent of EMDR. Developed by psychologist Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, EMDR had already helped thousands of adult clients when Joan Lovett experienced its healing power firsthand.
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is a comprehensive therapeutic approach that helps patients release disturbing thoughts and emotions that originate in traumatic experiences. Experiences can be traumatic in the commonly accepted sense—abuse, disasters, violence—but children may also perceive and respond to more ordinary events as very threatening. A playground accident, the loss of a loved one, school problems, or choking on a piece of popcorn can be a part of growing up. They can also be critical incidents that cause a child to view him- or herself as helpless or powerless, to become fearful, and to develop debilitating behavioral problems.

It is the 70s and Augusten Burroughs (Joseph Cross) is a young gay child who spends hours upholding his mother Deidre Burroughs (Annette Benning) with emotional support as she attempts to forge her career as a poetess. Augustens father Norman Burroughs (Alec Baldwin) is an alcoholic whose relationship with Deidre has eroded to the point that they spend most of their time aggressively attacking each others values and physically attacking each other as well. Augusten connects with each parent in certain ways but most of his time is spent skipping school, dressing up, and doing things like acting as audience to his self-involved mother. When the parents decide to give Augusten to Deidres psychologist Dr. Finch, the young child must learn to live with a family of misfits whose primary activity seems to be to express their innermost feelings regardless of how it affects those around them. Augusten discovers his homosexuality with Neil Bookman another adopted son of Dr. Finch and also befriends Natalie Finch who has issues of her own. Together Augusten and Natalie develop a way of dealing with the crazy environment until they discover a way out.

Based on William Pollack's groundbreaking research at Harvard Medical School over two decades, Real Boys explores why many boys are sad, lonely, and confused although they may appear tough, cheerful, and confident. Pollack challenges conventional expectations about manhood and masculinity that encourage parents to treat boys as little men, raising them through a toughening process that drives their true emotions underground. Only when we understand what boys are really like, says Pollack, can we help them develop more self-confidence and the emotional savvy they need to deal with issues such as depression, love and sexuality, drugs and alcohol, divorce, and violence.

"The family-based approach has offered patients a genuine paradigm shift in the treatment of eating disorders, and real hope for recovery from a complex illness. Le Grange and Lock build here on their authoritative manual for the treatment of adolescent anorexia to deliver the first such manual for adolescent bulimia. This book is essential reading for those who seek empirically based, therapeutically sound treatments for children and adolescents with eating disorders."--Leslie A. Sim, PhD, Department of Psychology and Psychiatry, Mayo Clinic

This deeply moving, extraordinarily personal, and--most of all--helpful book chronicles one mother's journey alongside her teenage daughter's recovery from anorexia nervosa. A true story of pain, healing, and discovery, Eating with Your Anorexic is also the first book to introduce the Maudsley approach, the treatment method that restored her daughter's life. This nontraditional but highly effective home-based approach:

• Focuses on enabling parents to refeed their underweight child at home, while they receive therapy as outpatients
• Begins with getting eating and weight normalized before focusing on alleged causes and psychological issues
• Rejects the once-popular theory that parental or familial pathology is at the root of the illness, and utilizes parents as a resource for recovery