An insightful approach to the far-reaching effects of climate shifts and their impact on the human psyche; likely to become...
A book explores the psychological implications of climate change.
With all of the literature surrounding climate shifts, it is a rare work that addresses their often profound emotional impact on humans. Medical practitioner and educator Davenport (Transformative Imagery, 2016, etc.) views weather cycles through a different lens, offering both an overview of climate change psychology and pertinent tactics for clinicians to apply in caring for their clients. The first part of the book examines specific “clinical themes.” “The Psychology of Climate Change Denial,” for example, touches on current beliefs and explains how the typical stress responses, “fight, flight, and freeze,” relate to the global disruptions. “Mindful Disaster Response,” a chapter that moves out of the clinician’s office into the field, discusses how to deal on-site with individuals going through the three stages of climate catastrophe recovery. These two chapters and the other four in Part I provide a solid overview of climate change’s impact, accompanied by additional resources and a worksheet tailored to each chapter’s content. The text and worksheets deliver specific “practices” the therapist can employ with clients, including thorough, step-by-step instructions. Part II is a uniquely structured resource comprised of 12 practices geared toward developing an “ecoharmonious life.” Every practice includes three sections—“Body Wise,” “Heart/Mind Wise,” and “World Wise”—each designed to sensitize a client to different transformative areas. The practices themselves are simple yet compelling: “Garden State,” for example, is designed to create an appreciation of one’s natural environment, particularly flora and the physical earth, so the client can become “an active steward of life.” An appendix features an exercise for “progressive relaxation,” and extensive references are included. Davenport demonstrates a deep knowledge of clinical practices but, more important, relates these directly to ecological issues and outcomes. Consistently positive and encouraging, she writes with an understanding of a therapist’s challenges and a sense of empathy for clients.
An insightful approach to the far-reaching effects of climate shifts and their impact on the human psyche; likely to become a valuable, targeted resource facilitating clinicians’ treatment in this specialized area.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78592-719-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A moving, unvarnished look at living with autism and a helpful guide to action.
In this emotionally charged memoir, Hall tells the story of her first 15 years with her severely autistic son.
The author was a successful acting coach for children in feature films and television. In her mid-30s, intensely spiritual with strong ties to her Jewish religion, she also felt the pull of motherhood. When that didn’t pan out, she and her husband adopted a two-year-old boy from a Russian orphanage. When Neal started to display autistic behavior, and Hall moved past her denial, she had the good fortune of hooking up with a doctor who counseled loving engagement with Neal—not to control, but to seek understanding—something that struck a familiar note from her professional work. Here she details the process of broaching Neal’s protective sequestration. She has gainful experience—even wisdom—to impart, as well as the engrossing tales of the intense realities of living with an autistic child, including the constant search for caretakers who appreciate “that the seemingly bizarre behaviors of autism have meaning and purpose.” Hall excels in capturing the piquancy of the Russian orphanage, the explosiveness of Neal’s caustic tantrums and, most impressively, getting readers into her son’s head to recognize the profound mental energy involved in organizing each little step of activity and the excruciating pain that attends sensory sensitivity. Answering a felt need for community, she started The Miracle Project, which brings autistics and their families together in a safe, dynamic environment to foster creativity through the theater arts.
A moving, unvarnished look at living with autism and a helpful guide to action.Pub Date: July 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-06-174380-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Neal Porter/Flash Point/Roaring Brook
Review Posted Online: Jan. 24, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2010
A demanding if not always well-organized study of why we persist in lying to ourselves. Psychoanalyst Shengold, whose fifth book this is (the best known is Soul Murder, 1989, about children whose parents have emotionally crippled them), develops a kind of phenomenology of such major and common emotional delusions as narcissism, malignant envy, paranoia, and even love (which often involves idealization of the other, accompanied by a suspension of critical judgment). We all are more or less under the sway of such delusions, Shengold observes; in the psychotic they take over the personality, while in the neurotic they coexist with more rational and less grandiose self-conceptions while remaining mentally split off from them. He illustrates the major kinds of delusions with a few case studies and through extensive allusions to and citations from major works of literature, particularly by Sophocles and Shakespeare (there is also a somewhat rambling chapter devoted to Samuel Butler, the misanthropic 19th-century English novelist and essayist). Shengold's basic thesis concerns ``the universal...retentions of delusions as a residue of the earliest mental functioning'' and the claim that delusions ``tie us to our early mental impressions of parents, to whom we cling as indispensable to our existence.'' They are the fruit of the desire to remain parented forever. Shengold has too little to say here about how the psychoanalyst or therapist might most effectively help ``surface'' and work with the patient's delusions. However, this book, which is almost entirely free of the kind of convoluted prose that too often characterizes psychoanalytic writing, will help clinicians focus on their patients' and their own deepest, largely submerged self-myths, and how they contribute to resistance (in both the colloquial and psychotherapeutic senses) to insight and change. Informative and thought-provoking, but of interest largely to clinicians.
Pub Date: July 1, 1995
ISBN: 0-300-06268-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1995
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