Behind the Therapy Door


Book Description

Dr. Randy Kamen takes you into the stories of six women whose search to find greater life satisfaction paves the way for readers to do the same. This is a journey to acquire health-enhancing tools and strategies and learn essential life lessons that will help you develop more loving and sustainable relationships and lead you to your best possible life.




Educational Therapy in Action


Book Description

This book provides an in-depth look at what a little-known clinician, the educational therapist, does and how they do it. It goes behind the clinician’s door to illustrate the unusual and broad range of interventions – both academic/vocational and social/emotional – that an educational therapist employs. This particular case study involves a young woman named Nora who had a severe but undiagnosed auditory processing disorder. She could not give meaning to the spoken language that came at her too rapidly, leaving her in a constant fog of words that she couldn’t comprehend. This case discloses the problems, their causes, and the emotional toll that had to be considered when developing an effective educational/therapeutic plan for Nora. It vividly illustrates the dynamic exchanges and mutual learning that goes on between client and therapist. Parts I and II illustrate how the psycho-educational interventions that addressed Nora’s academic and non-academic needs were gradually formulated over the first year. Part III provides a series of vignettes from subsequent years that illustrate the ongoing applications of the therapist’s work. Distinguishing Features Explanatory Sidebars – The rationale behind particular techniques and interventions is clarified through a system of explanatory sidebars that inform the reader without distracting from the story. This approach makes the book both an instructional tool well as compelling story. Organic Curriculum – The rationale for and application of an "organic (personalized) curriculum" is explained and applied throughout the book as a model for others to use in working with this population. A Longitudinal Perspective – The initial work with Nora began many years ago, so this book provides a long view of her life and tracks the influences that educational therapy exerted on her development into a fully functioning adult. Cognitive/Emotional Integration – The core of educational therapy – the interdependence of cognitive skills and emotional response – is clearly documented throughout the book. In addition to educational therapy students and practitioners, this book is appropriate for those working in related fields such as special education, school psychology, school counselling, and social work in educational settings.




BEHIND THE LOCKED DOOR


Book Description

One man, not sure where his next job would come from, is employed by God where he will compassionately care for society's least fortunate--the mentally or emotionally ill, when they transition into the psychiatric hospital system. I am that man. This is my story of working in the psychiatric system, usually in a hospital setting. This volume is a telling of twenty-nine years of caring for and about people who, but for the grace of God, could be me or my family. It is a telling of surviving and thriving in often difficult circumstances. Starting as a mental health worker in 1988, I received my registered nurse license in 1993 and continued as a psychiatric nurse until I ended compensated employment in 2017. This is a telling of covering the naked and treating the self-inflicted wounds of the bloody. The whys and logics of many of the disorders encountered are addressed in caring and often wry commentary. The actual workings of the psychiatric hospital, and my observations of that environment are presented. Life as it is actually lived, often at its most visceral level, is on display here. I frequently make reference to a person's WIIFM (what's in it for me) as a dominant factor motivating the behavior of people, both the patients and the hospital staff. I do not spare myself when addressing WIIFM as a behavior motivator. There is caring for wounded hearts and how to manage those whose hearts are beyond either wounding or caring. The legalities, as well as the realities, of how the mental health system works and the protections for those who are a danger to themselves or others or unable to care for themselves are presented here, and I deal with the realities of psychiatric hospitalization and dispel the nonsense of a seventy-two-hour psychiatric hold. There is triumph and tragedy presented here in a uniquely engaging style by a true storyteller.




The Girl Behind the Door


Book Description

“A moving and riveting memoir about one family’s love and tragedy…beautifully researched, and expressed” (Anne Lamott). Early one Tuesday morning John Brooks went to his teenage daughter’s room. Casey was gone, but she had left a note: The car is parked at the Golden Gate Bridge. I’m sorry. Within hours a security video showed Casey stepping off the bridge. Brooks spent several years after Casey’s suicide trying to understand what led his seventeen-year-old daughter to take her life. He examines Casey’s journey from her abandonment at birth in Poland, to the orphanage where she lived for her first fourteen months, to her adoption and life with John and his wife, Erika, in Northern California. He reads. He talks to Casey’s friends, teachers, doctors, therapists, and other parents. He consults adoption experts, researchers, clinicians, attachment therapists, and social workers. In The Girl Behind the Door, Brooks’s “desperate search for answers and guilt for not doing the right thing without knowing what it was reveals the utter helplessness of suicide survivors” (Kirkus Reviews). Ultimately, Brooks comes to realize that Casey probably suffered an attachment disorder from her infancy—an affliction common among children who’ve been orphaned, neglected, and abused. She might have been helped if someone had recognized this. The Girl Behind the Door is an important book for parents, mental health professionals, and teens: “Rarely have the subjects of suicide, adoption, adolescence, and parenting been explored so openly and honestly” (John Bateson, Former Executive Director, Contra Costa County Crisis Center, and author of The Final Leap: Suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge).




Opening The Door


Book Description

The first book available to comprehensively address the treatment of sexually abused males, Opening the Door: A Treatment Model for Therapy with Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse is based on current research and the carefully evolved techniques of 41 therapists who have developed expertise in working with sexually abused males. It discusses both the approaches that these therapists bring to their work and presents interventions they have successfully applied in treatment. Written in clear, concise language, Opening the Door features a four-phase treatment model and presents, in detail, the therapeutic tasks necessary for each phase. This model makes clear the significant parallels and distinctions between the processes of therapy and abuse. These processes are discussed throughout the text to ensure that therapy will be a healing rather than a harmful experience. The volume presents information about the frequency of male sexual victimization, the impact of this victimization on the individual, primary differences between male and female victimization, and the issues victims typically bring into therapy. The four-phase treatment model for male survivors and the therapeutic tasks of each stage is then addressed. This model serves as a framework for presenting specific therapeutic interventions. Chapters examine such areas as the essential processes that pertain to all therapeutic modalities (individual, group, etc.) when treating male survivors of sexual abuse; contracting with clients, assessment guidelines, and methods of evaluation; individual therapy with male survivors; a two-stage group treatment model for male survivors, which discusses contraindications for group treatment, screening criteria, general ground rules for the group, and effective interventions; critical issues in treating male survivors, including engagement strategies, therapeutic impasses, and client/therapist gender dynamics; and the therapeutic process as it applies to adolescent male survivors, with particular emphasis on how treatment must be carefully tailored to the developmental needs of this group. Included are guidelines for working with adolescents and several interventions that contributors have successfully used with this population. Since working extensively with abuse survivors can exact significant personal costs, the book provides important self-care strategies for therapists to incorporate into their work and lives and discusses seven ways in which to recognize and manage counter-transference. The volume also contains a highly comprehensive list of written, video, and training resources that will provide therapists with numerous avenues to expand their clinical practice and knowledge, as well as seven appendices that include the DES Questionnaire and the Dean Adolescent Inventory Scale. Opening the Door will be an invaluable resource for all mental health practitioners who help male victims of sexual abuse to transcend survivorship and learn to live healthy, productive, and vital lives.




Puppetry in Education and Therapy


Book Description

In Puppetry in Education and Therapy: Unlocking Doors to the Mind and Heart, one finds enormous variety, ingenuity, and creativity in the types of puppets, and the ways they are used in education and in therapy. Puppeteers, therapists, and educators, articulate what is meant by “puppetry in education” and “puppet therapy” and how it is the same or different from “puppet theatre”. They describe the unique characteristics and theory of puppetry in education and therapy, the skills it takes to be successful in these areas, the skills that are passed on to people who use puppets for personal expression, and how to assess the impact of puppets on learning or behavior change. Twenty-six authors discuss topics such as puppetry and the multiple intelligences; the process versus the product; using puppetry in schools to promote literacy, preserve cultural heritage, and teach music; how puppetry contributes to Core Curriculum Standards, the theoretical underpinnings of therapeutic puppetry, and a range of ways of facilitating growth and development. If you’re already using puppets, this book will inspire you to understand your work differently and to explore new possibilities. If you’re a teacher or a therapist and you’ve never used puppets before, it will open a whole world of possibilities. This book illustrates that puppetry arts can affect learning and behavior and that puppets indeed have the power to unlock doors to the mind and heart.




Internal Family Systems Therapy


Book Description

This book has been replaced by Internal Family Systems Therapy, Second Edition, ISBN 978-1-4625-4146-1.




Opening the Door to Freedom with Forgiveness Therapy


Book Description

This book introduces a new form of therapy - Forgiveness Therapy. Clear therapeutic methods are given to help heal resentments by forgiving. The awesome spiritual power to heal is in all of us and can be accessed by using the clinical forgiveness guidelines presented. Healing resentments can have a huge positive impact on a person's ability to establish and maintain long term sobriety. Healing resentments can improve mental health and significantly raise self-esteem. Real life stories testify of people who have forgiven terrible abuse and have finally experienced peace and joy.




Preventing Boundary Violations in Clinical Practice


Book Description

What do you do when you run into a patient in a public place? How do you respond when a patient suddenly hugs you at the end of a session? Do you accept a gift that a patient brings to make up for causing you some inconvenience? Questions like these—which virtually all clinicians face at one time or another—have serious clinical, ethical, and legal implications. This authoritative, practical book uses compelling case vignettes to show how a wide range of boundary questions arise and can be responsibly resolved as part of the process of therapy. Coverage includes role reversal, gifts, self-disclosure, out-of-office encounters, physical contact, and sexual misconduct. Strategies for preventing boundary violations and managing associated legal risks are highlighted.




Fear - Free Preview (first 4 chapters)


Book Description

From New York Times bestselling author Jeff Abbott... Everyone has a memory they'd like to forget. For federal witness Miles Kendrick, it's the shootout that left his best friend dead--and Miles a hunted and haunted man. While helping his psychiatrist with a mysterious favor, Miles stumbles upon an illegal research program that could free him--and millions of others with post-traumatic stress disorder--from crippling memories. But when his doctor ends up dead, Miles must run for his life from a murderous conspiracy that gives new meaning to the word "fear."