An articulate, compassionate, wide-ranging survey of nontraditional healing methods.
An alternative healing approach for those struggling with the long-lasting effects of trauma.
Carrier—a psychotherapist, trauma specialist, and “intuitive healer”—has condensed decades of professional experience into this brief but comprehensive guide for those suffering the aftereffects of emotional trauma. After providing an overview of various kinds of trauma (including loss and grief and trauma related to intergenerational issues, childhood, family, relationships, and the workplace) and the ways in which trauma’s effects can linger for years within the mind and the body, the author offers healing practices aimed at reconnecting readers with their “internal intelligence system[s].” Such systems include learning strategies like behavior therapy in addition to Indigenous, spiritual, and “Majestic Healing” (which “incorporates the heart’s intelligence”) methods. Suggestions for healing vary according to the type of trauma suffered. Carrier discusses using guided imagery through breath work to regulate the nervous system. (“Imagine a tranquil place where there is peace and harmony, without thoughts or judgements, and use your senses to determine what you want your image of tranquility to be.”) She also urges readers to pay attention to and be present with their emotions when attempting to heal from loss and grief; she advises her audience to “say what you feel and let out what your body needs to.” The text delivers the extensive material in an easy-to-read format with many bullet-pointed lists and occasional flow charts that visual learners will appreciate. The book succeeds as an impressive overview of various traumas and healing practices, but the sheer breadth of information the book covers occasionally makes certain sections feel rushed. Still, the author hits all the highlights, and the book will likely spur readers to delve more deeply into the methods that most resonate with them. Those skeptical of alternative medicine will likely object to some of the suggestions (such as reiki and healing crystals), but for those who are open to such methods, Carrier provides informed and empathetic guidance.
An articulate, compassionate, wide-ranging survey of nontraditional healing methods.Pub Date: June 13, 2025
ISBN: 9781038319166
Page Count: 294
Publisher: FriesenPress
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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