The collection of 10 absorbing tales by master psychotherapist Irvin D. Yalom uncovers the mysteries, frustrations, pathos, and humor at the heart of the therapeutic encounter. In recounting his patients' dilemmas, Yalom not only gives us a rare and enthralling glimpse into their personal desires and motivations but also tells us his own story as he struggles to reconcile his all-too-human responses with his sensibility as a psychiatrist.

Josef Breuer, one of the founding fathers of psychoanalysis, is at the height of his career. Friedrich Nietzsche, Europe's greatest philosopher, is on the brink of suicidal despair, unable to find a cure for the headaches and other ailments that plague him. When he agrees to treat Nietzsche with his experimental "talking cure", Breuer never expects that he, too, will find solace in their sessions. Only through facing his own inner demons can the gifted healer begin to help his patient.

Suddenly confronted with his own mortality after a routine checkup, eminent psychotherapist Julius Hertzfeld is forced to reexamine his life and work - and seeks out Philip Slate, a sex addict whom he failed to help some 20 years earlier. Yet Philip claims to be cured - miraculously transformed by the pessimistic teachings of German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer - and is himself a philosophical counselor in training. 

Sometimes therapy is awkward. And sometimes it's also painful, messy, and downright confusing. Yet, very few books capture what it's truly like to engage in this work. In its much-anticipated release, this guide chronicles the strange nuances of working in mental health in the modern world. Sometimes Therapy Is Awkward provides refreshingly candid insight into what it takes to feel more confident and prepared to help others. This guide offers stories, jokes, and action-based solutions.

The difficulty and cost of training psychotherapists properly is well known. It is far easier to provide a series of classes while ignoring the more challenging personal components of training. Despite the fact that the therapist's self-insight and emotional maturity are critical for successful psychotherapy, knowledge and technical skills are the focus of most training programs. As a result, the therapist's personal growth is either marginalized or ignored. The Making of a Therapist counters this trend by offering therapists a personal account of this important inner journey.

In this best-selling book, one of America's most distinguished psychologists crystallises the great progress that has been made in the development of the techniques and basic philosophy of counselling. Carl Rogers gives a clear exposition of procedures by which individuals who are being counselled may be assisted in achieving for themselves new and more effective personality adjustments. Contemporary psychology derives largely from the experimental laboratory or from Freudian theory. It is preoccupied with minute aspects of animal and human behaviour or with psychopathology. 

In The Talking Cure, psychotherapists Gill Straker and Jacqui Winship bring us nine inspiring stories of transformation. They introduce us to their clients, fictional amalgams of real-life cases, and reveal how the art of talking and listening helps us to understand deep-seated issues that profoundly influence who we are in the world and how we see ourselves in relation to others.

IFS reveals how the subpersonalities or "parts" of each individual's psyche relate to each other like members of a family, and how - just as in a family - polarization among parts can lead to emotional suffering. IFS originator Richard Schwartz and master clinician Martha Sweezy explain core concepts and provide practical guidelines for implementing IFS with clients who are struggling with trauma, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, and other behavioral problems.

This book teaches assessment, treatment plans, enhancing the therapeutic relationship, and ethics and boundary issues, all within a general framework of attachment theory and trauma. Practical chapters talk about working with attachment problems, grief, depression, cultural differences, affect tolerance, anxiety, addiction, trauma, skill-building, suicidal ideation, psychosis, and the beginning and end of therapy. 

This book offers therapists an integrated approach to adding a polyvagal foundation to their work with clients. With clear explanations of the organizing principles of Polyvagal theory, this complex theory is translated into clinician and client-friendly language. Using a unique autonomic mapping process designed to effectively track autonomic response patterns, this book presents practical ways to work with clients' experiences of connection.

This eloquent book translates attachment theory and research into an innovative framework that grounds adult psychotherapy in the facts of childhood development. Advancing a model of treatment as transformation through relationship, the author integrates attachment theory with neuroscience, trauma studies, relational psychotherapy, and the psychology of mindfulness.

Louis Cozolino, one of our most compelling clinical writers, takes us inside the mind and heart of a seasoned therapist, carrying on the tradition of personal and professional writing begun in The Making of a Therapist. This book discusses some of the more abstract concepts and ways of interacting with clients, such as relaxed curiosity, finding the secret ally, and discovering the deep narrative. Also addressed are clinical concepts such as related states of mind, the process of change, free-floating attention, and listening with the third ear.

In Why Therapy Works, Louis Cozolino explains the mechanisms of psychotherapeutic change from the bottom up, beginning with the brain, and how brains have evolved - especially how brains evolved to learn, unlearn, and relearn, which is at the basis of lasting psychological change. Listeners will learn why therapists have to look beyond just words, diagnoses, and presenting problems to the inner histories of their clients in order to discover paths to positive change.

A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. Elegant, startling, and universal in its applications, The Black Swan will change the way you look at the world. 

Simone de Beauvoir’s essential masterwork is a powerful analysis of the Western notion of "woman", and a revolutionary exploration of inequality and otherness. This unabridged edition of the text reinstates significant portions of the original French text that were cut in the first English translation, and is now available on audio for the very first time. Vital and groundbreaking, Beauvoir’s pioneering and impressive text remains as pertinent today as when it was first published, and will continue to provoke and inspire generations of men and women to come.