Are you hoping to make a fresh start in the New Year? Or maybe take some additional steps along an already well-worn path of self-discovery, recovery, and healing? These books— and in some instances accompanying workshops—can help you identify and move beyond your emotional roadblocks.
Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence
By Alexandra Katehakis
Alexandra Katehakis is a Senior Fellow at The Meadows. Her philosophies and techniques for treating sex addiction and intimacy issues help to inform our Gentle Path at The Meadows program. Her latest book, Mirror of Intimacy: Daily Reflections on Emotional and Erotic Intelligence contains a year’s worth of daily reflections that explores a rich array of approaches for supporting loving connection. It’s a great companion for those looking to stay grounded and cultivate real intimacy in their day-to-day lives.
The Body Keeps the Score
By Bessel van der Kolk, M.D.
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is a leading researcher in the field of emotional trauma and is a Senior Fellow at The Meadows. His latest work, The Body Keeps the Score, has been described by reviewers as “a bold new paradigm for healing.” In the book, he uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain. He also discusses innovative treatments that can offer new paths to recovery and exposes the ways in which our relationships can both hurt and heal. He also offers new hope for those who wish to reclaim their lives.
A Man’s Way Through Relationships
By Dan Griffin
Dan Griffin, who joined The Meadows as a Senior Fellow in 2015, has written a useful guide to the challenges men face in creating healthy and engaging relationships. In it, he teaches men how to navigate the “Man Rules”—the often unconscious ideas men carry with them into their relationships that affect their ability to find a true connection. He also offers practical advice and inspiration for men to define, with their partners, their own sense of masculinity, and heighten their potential to love and be loved. Dan will also be hosting the A Man’s Way™ Retreat at the Rio Retreat Center at The Meadows. The program is based on this book and A Man’s Way through the 12 Steps. Sessions will be offered in January, April, July, and October. Check the webpage for more details or call 800-244-4949.
The Murray Method
By Marilyn Murray
After several years as a very successful art dealer and businesswoman in Scottsdale, Arizona, Marilyn Murray, M.A., sought treatment for severe depression. Her experience inspired her to return to college to study Psychology where she began developing her method for helping others heal from trauma, abuse, and deprivation. Her book, The Murray Method, offers insights and a series of exercises to help readers begin processing their own trauma and move beyond their pain.
Marilyn will also teach a seminar on The Murray Method at The Meadows Outpatient Center starting in February. The four-day training session places special emphasis on the personal work of the health professional, based on the belief that a therapist always must address his or her own issues first in order to be an effective clinician; but, all are welcome to attend. For more information, visit The Meadows Outpatient Center website, or call 800-244-4949.
The Betrayal Bond: Breaking Free of Exploitive Relationships
By Patrick Carnes
Exploitive relationships can create what Dr. Patrick Carnes, Senior Fellow at The Meadows and Gentle Path at The Meadows calls trauma bonds. Trauma bonds are chains that link a victim to someone who is dangerous to them. In The Betrayal Bond, Dr. Carnes presents an in-depth study of these relationships, why they form, who is most susceptible, and how they become so powerful and provides steps to safely extricate from these relationships.
This book is also the basis for The Betrayal Bond workshop offered at The Rio Retreat Center at The Meadows. Workshop participants will be guided through the process of breaking through denial, exploring the root causes of their involvement in destructive relationships, and more. More information, including upcoming dates, are available on the Rio Retreat Center website, or by calling (800)-244-4949.
Changing Course
By Claudia Black, PhD
In Changing Course, Claudia Black, Meadows Senior Fellow and founder of the Claudia Black Young Adult Center, presents her healing model for adults whose lives are burdened by pain. She delves into the shame and abandonment many people carry with them, based on early family life was either too chaotic or too rigid. She explains how chronic loss in childhood colors one’s worldview and determines their beliefs, feelings, and behaviors— probably without their awareness. Readers of this book will walk away with a better understanding of how they can live life with no more roles, no more secrets, and a new way of being.
Healing Trauma
By Peter Levine
Researchers have shown that survivors of accidents, disasters, and childhood trauma often endure lifelong symptoms, ranging from anxiety and depression to unexplained physical pain, fatigue, illness, and harmful “acting out” behavior. In Healing Trauma The Meadows Senior Fellow Dr. Peter Levine to learn about using body awareness to “renegotiate” and heal traumas—to “revisit” rather than relive them; emergency “first-aid” measures for times of distress; nature’s lessons—the physiological roots of your emotions; and much more.
Healing the Shame That Binds You
By John Bradshaw
In this book, Meadows Senior Fellow John Bradshaw explains how toxic shame is at the heart of our compulsions, codependencies, addictions, and drive to super achieve. These issues often result in the breakdown of the family system and in our inability to move forward with our lives. Drawing from his many years of experience as a counselor, he offers techniques to heal shame using affirmations, visualizations, “inner voice” and “feeling” work, plus guided meditations and other useful techniques to release the shame that binds us to our past.
Facing Codependence
By Pia Mellody
The theories that The Meadows Senior Fellow Pia Mellody presents in Facing Codependence are the same ones on which The Meadows treatment model is based. In it, Pia traces the origins of codependence back to childhood and explores a range of emotional, spiritual, intellectual, physical, and sexual abuses and their particular effects on an individual in adulthood. She shows how, based on their early experiences, codependent adults often lack the skills necessary to lead mature lives and have satisfying relationships.