Healing the Mind through the Power of Story: The Promise of Narrative Psychiatry
Lewis Mehl-Madrona
We all have stories we tell ourselves about our lives. We take these stories everywhere we go, and it’s only when they stop working for us on some level that we seek help from a therapist. Typically what follows is multiple sessions of “talk therapy,” and perhaps a prescription or two for anxiety, insomnia and so on. Lewis Mehl-Madrona suggests instead that in the narrative model of psychiatry, patients be helped to “re-story” their lives, and draws on traditional stories from various world cultures to assist even patients with bipolar disorder. This approach definitely demands a closer read from anyone interested in either psychotherapy or personal transformation. (Bear & Co.)
Book of the Transcendence: Cosmic History Chronicles (Vol. VI)
Jose Arguelles & Stephanie South
Whether we’re due for a cosmic overhaul in 2012 or sticking around for another millennium or more, there’s no doubt that human beings are a species in transition. Arguelles and South see the shift as moving us from transformation (history), to transcendence (post-history), or the noosphere. Their book promises a comprehensive vision of new time knowledge and how it will affect the next stage of our evolution. Galactic I Ching? The third mental sphere? New Earth geomancy viewed through a fourth-dimensional lens? If this is your métier, you’ll find much to contemplate in this illustrated guide to bridging into galactic consciousness and orienting into full noospheric engagement. (Law of Time Press)
Transformation: Essays on Love, Healing and Water
Ed. by Connie Dunn, Roy Gibbon, West Marrin, Deborah Matthews
A variety of teachers and leaders lend their thoughts on love and consciousness, healing and communicating, and water and nature in these very personal 15 essays. They offer stories, commentaries and perspectives on transforming some of our ideas, expectations and actions. Their words passionately express the personal, transpersonal and communal change that can be achieved through a shift in consciousness, a desire for peace, and a reconnection with nature and its diverse expressions. Their individual stories are both a vision and an invitation to join them in exploring what we can be and do for our spirit, our community and our world. (Soul Based Living)
Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit & Joy in the Female Body
By Tami Lynn Kent
After the birth of her son, nursing her own body through postpartum distress, the author discovered a deep reconnection with her “pelvic bowl” and long-forgotten feminine needs. A women’s health therapist herself, she has since made it her mission in life to share what she has learned with other women, teaching them how to tap into their “concentrated organ energies.” Kent uses stories, visualizations and exercises to help women with tension, postpartum healing, menopausal symptoms and trauma. If you are a woman, or partnered with a woman who suffers from these conditions, you’re sure to find something here to bring relief and healing. (Beyond Words/Atria)
