As always, no great ideas come from nothing. We perceive a lot of information all day. Our brain works and works to make sense of all these things. So, besides talks with friends, family and acquaintances, I also have input through books and podcasts. Here I share them and write a short description about what to expect.
Books:
- “Life and How To Survive It” from Robin Skinner and John Cleese
- Instead of focusing on what makes people sick, this book checks a lot of research regarding what factors influence a good living and how people behave in the different mental states.
- It is written as a discussion between a family psychotherapist (Skinner) and one of the actors of the Monty Python films (Cleese). It is an easy and fun read.
- This book was written in 1996. As we are more than 20 years in the future, it is very interesting to compare the statements with our current reality. What has become true? Where can we find misassumptions?
- “Breaking Down Is Waking Up” from Dr. Russell Razzaque
- An interesting book where he brings quantum physics into his concept. Without spoiling too much, this book appreciates people that go through difficult times because they are able to see other parts of our reality that we automatically filter out. Well, and yes, sometimes you need to break down to actually wake up.
- “Mind-Brain-Gene” from John Arden
- Basically a book about epigenetic in combination of how we learn and create experiences. So, how does what we experience, and how we experience that, influence the expression of our genes.
- “Mindfulness and Hypnosis” from Michael D. Yapko
- A book about clinical hypnosis. In this case in comparison to mindfulness. For me it was a nice introduction into the topic hypnosis in clinical context. He has written also other books, e.g. “Trancework” which is more extensive but may be too much for a non-professional.
- It talks about the focus of our human mind, how suggestions work and how hypnosis can help to break out of a vicious circle in your mind by allowing to change your focus through additional external input.
- “A field guide to lucid dreaming” from Dylan Tuccillo
- If you ever wondered what you can do with your dreams, how to became aware that you are in a dream and stuff like this, that book is a good introduction.
- The topic dreams is especially interesting in context that newest neuroscience results assume that for the human mind to develop it doesn’t matter whether something is real or imagined, it will create an experience and associations from it.
- “Vater unser in der Hölle” from Ulla Fröhling
- A German book which is basically a biography of someone who has a “Dissociative Identity Disorder”. It shows the experiences this person made from being a baby up to mid-40s, while also starting to be in therapy at one point in time.
- You should only read this book if you are in a stable emotional state, if you already know how to cope for yourself with a cruel world. Don’t try to read the book in one session but take it slowly because it is really heavy content.
- “The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness” from Martha Stout
- A book about multiple cases of persons that dissociate more or less in different situations. It shows in the end how people can become high-functional traumata survivors.
- “Evil: The Science Behind Humanity’s Dark Side” from Julia Shaw
- What does ‘evil’ mean in our society? How does it change over time? Do we see ourselves ever as really evil? And what has justification of our actions to do with it? This book tries to open a discussion about these questions.
- I think it is useful to keep the quintessences of this book in mind for the next time someone says “they are the baddies!” or “I am a good human! I never killed anyone!”
- “Rethink Trauma Treatment” from Courtney Armstrong
- Very good book about the topics “Memory Reconsolidation” and “Attachment Theory”. It also brings in neuroscience research. So, if you want to know the newest method of how to resolve trauma that’s your book.
- Especially nice read as it shows examples of clients with different attachments and trauma experiences.
- “Aggression in Play Therapy” from Lisa Dion
- Although the focus in the book lies on play therapy with children, you can learn a lot about yourself.
- This book focuses on how we get hyper- and hypo-aroused because we feel attacked in some kind of way. A child for example already feels attacked if it feels like you don’t understand their current feelings or emotional state. For an adult this may sounds incomprehensible but the child is learning in these situations how to cope with their emotions. Depending on what parents or other authoritative figures show them, they can develop different attachment types. Therefore, this book also shows some ways of how to regulate yourself and how to detect your hyper- or hypo-aroused state.
- “Zhuangzi – Mit den passenden Schuhen vergisst man die Füße” and “Menzius – Den Menschen gerecht” from Henrik Jäger
- These are two books which contain German translations from the Chinese philosophers Zhuang_Zhou and Mencius which lived in the third and second century BC.
- They use excellent analogies and metaphors to describe their morals and values and the perspective of the human mind. E.g., everything that someone else communicates to us, can resonate with us on different levels. We may don’t resonate, we resonate in a nice, good enough way or the resonation hits us so much that we break like a glass at a too high sound.
- Additionally, they make fun of Confucius and his followers as they acted very much based on strict rules and did not allow themselves to question them. There are really very nice examples of how stupid this behaviour is and how it even costs life of people.
- Sadly these are only German translations and I couldn’t found a good English translation yet.
Podcasts:
- “The Science Of Psychotherapie” from Richard Hill and Matthew Dahlitz
- This is a podcast mainly with interviews between Richard, Matthew and their guest. Often the guests are also psychotherapist in their special areas. However, the podcast follows an integrative approach which means they invite also people that don’t work in the area of psychotherapy but can contribute to all of this through their own lens of reality.