Books and Me

Dr Vee Freir (2016) It seems I am becoming a complete sucker for secondary sources.  They often come just so much more neatly packaged than the primary sources which can be a labour of love in comparison. And so it is with this offering.  There is almost nothing here that you won't have encountered before, but it is presented so succinctly and clearly and yet with such a profusion of useful suggestions that then get rammed into memory through such repeated exposure, that really you can't complain. The author advises picking and choosing from the fifty suggestions on offer as some will work better than others for different people. Most of strategies I do already, but I did highlight twelve others that seem easy to incorporate without completely devoting one's time to stress management. These included leveling the chin in order to improve breathing and improving posture and shoulder pain by picturing removing a vividly imagined rucksack. Rating 6/10

by Katie Hurley (2019) With news that 9/10 teens are worried about their mental health, and that a third state that they feel helpless, sad and or fearful frequently and this problem far outstripping any help that is offered by others, these sorts of work books would seem to have a big and important function. This one does the job efficiently enough. There isn't anything you won't already have read before in other places, but it puts all the strategies in one neat place succinctly and clearly, and even if you don't have any mood disorder, often seems to offer very sensible strategies for life. Whether a teen would actually engage with it in the first place, let alone actually benefit from it, is another matter altogether. Rating 6/10

By Jason Fox (2018) This  is a gripping, convincing read for which the actual writer, Matt Allen, should take a lot of  credit, not least because until I got to the acknowledgements right at the end, I had managed to persuade myself that Jason's voice was largely authentically his.   OK, so you could see that the book was beautifully structured and that this sort of level of writing skill isn't something people normally acquire when they've spent their entire adult life busting through doors and shooting the threats that lie behind it, so I guess I should have just got on and accepted this fact - but in some regards, it still sounded like the Jason you hear on  Who Dares Wins,  so I just wanted to believe.  But really, duh, in retrospect what was I thinking! One regular feature of PTSD, to which Jason bravely admits, is that it closes down Broca's area - the part of the brain that is responsible for speech.  It is quite possibl...

by Bessel Van Der Kolk (2015) Where to start?  This book is monumental, being vast in scope, beautifully argued and hugely significant all at once.  It is also deeply humane and potentially healing.  It would have been very easy for Bessel to have turned out an angry diatribe but instead he quietly makes his case, and you only gradually begin to clock, whilst reading between the lines, that his argument represents a huge challenge to current psychiatric, schooling and social services. His argument is that the epidemic of unhappiness which is currently so often attributed to snowflakery/lack of resilience is actually, often as not, a response to deeply traumatic events which for whatever reason, we do not really want to acknowledge or confront. So instead of blaming the victim or imposing deeply cruel methods of treatment (he gently explains why CBT so often fails),  Bessel gets about delineating the effects of trauma upon the mind, brain and body, an...

by Katherine Andler (2013) This is a twenty minute read at most, but extremely helpful nonetheless.  As it happens, I am simultaneously reading three other  books  on related subjects, one of which mentioned EMDR therapy for PTSD and anxiety in early chapter, and frankly, I couldn't wait to know more about the technique that seemed to promise so much and so went in search of something that could explain it a bit more. Andler's short tract didn't let me down.  She explains EMDR succinctly and memorably and provides useful links to youtube and further reading at the back.  I tried the technique on myself using a minor source of anxiety along with  this video , and OK, so I am hardly terribly traumatised and have worked on my stuff with various tools over the years, (CBT, mindfulness, yoga, attachment theory etc) but, let's face it, sources of at least some level of trauma are ever present, so it wasn't terribly difficult to think something up....

by Patrick King (2018) The wonderful thing about reading widely is that you end up reading books you otherwise wouldn't on the basis that it is only one book among many and nothing much hangs on it being a bad 'un, but then, joy of joys, finding that it is a total gem!  This worked for The Little Book of Stoicism , and it has worked for this one too.  Thankfully for both books, the messages are compatible - essentially - control what you can control, don't make your self assessment dependent upon factors that are outside of your control, be good enough for yourself and don't attempt to manipulate others for your own purposes.  Both books bulge with rational, life-improving, relatively easily actionable advice. Both leave you with clear messages that you won't forget in a hurry.  Highly recommended. Rating 9/10

By Tabatha Chansard (2019) There is nothing new here, but the book is nonetheless an efficient, well-written summary of evidenced-based approaches for tackling teen anxiety, along with exercises designed to encourage the reader to implement the theory.  I'm sure these approaches work, but the teen has to believe it possible and to engage with the suggestions fully.  This might be difficult.  You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. Rating 6/10

by Zoe Wybrant (2015) I've been dreading writing a review of this book  for the reason that I really, really don't want to say anything harsh about it.  The author dares to expose her inner soul and in doing so,  provides an abundance of source material that will be very revealing to anyone who encounters the problem of profound and persistent dissatisfaction with appearance.  She also describes the solutions that worked for her in overcoming the problem.  You don't feel right to say anything critical in the face of such honesty and bravery and really most of the problems are just carping.  Zoe isn't really a writer which means that the profundity of some of her assertions may easily be missed which could be a huge shame.  I had to reread the book to pick up on and ram in the take-home messages.  A good editor would have been handy as the content in raw form is all there. Rating 4/10

by Peter Hollins (2019) Well this turned out to be unexpectedly useful.  It's difficult not to assume that you might not get much out of a book if it starts off with the omnipresent Phineas Gage ,  but actually in this instance, after Phineas, there was plenty of information that was completely new to me, most of which was constructive and what's more, most of which chimed very well with my go-to books on how to improve one's mental health, ie: "The Little Book of Stoicism" and "The Chimp Paradox ".  So now we have the complete package, the philosophical take (Stoicism), the psychiatric approach (The Chimp/human paradigm) and now the layman's guide to the neuroscientific angle. It is, for example, satisfying to marry up the powerful chimp versus feeble human paradigm (from the Chimp Paradox) with the neuroscience as described by Hollins when he describes huge proportions of the brain as being swamped with powerful reward-seeking dopamine, wi...

by  Prof Steve Peters (2012) This book on its own could well be a life-changing read, but when read in conjunction with "The Little Book of Stoicism" , you really do have the whole package - ie: both the psychiatric and the philosophical take on how to live well.    "The Little Book of Stoicism" will give you the broad view, ramming the key messages home through the force of rigorously convincing argument, so you really can't forget what to do, even in the heat of the moment and the ethical heft it adds makes the whole exercise seem worth doing. "The Chimp Paradox" describes exactly the same mental model but approaches the subject from a psychiatric point of view.  It is underpinned by the same Stoic idea that one should be realistic about the limits of ones control, and that one should learn to accept the things one cannot control. All the methods for dealing with the chimp brain are prefaced by this knowledge. It is not in the least sur...

by Matt Haig (2015) This is a brave, honest, utterly engaging, at times searingly painful and finally uplifting account of one man's struggle with anxiety and depression.  He manages to make the experience very real at times, which is often a hard thing to convey to those who are broadly happy.  Despite some uncomfortable reading, it is worth the effort to engage with it as there are useful lessons to be learned even for those who have never had a tinge of the black dog, since Matt not only comes up with some very sensible suggestions as to how to get well again but also describes the unexpected value of the experience.  My only quibble: he doesn't prescribe a Stoic philosophy, veering instead towards Buddhist doctrine, yoga and a more classic version of mindfulness than The Little Book of Stoicism prescribed, but this is easily rectifiable as there is nothing that cannot easily be tweaked to bring it in line with the healing nature of stoicism.  Read the...

by Heather T. Forbes (2010)  Phew, therapy that makes sense!  It sees the problems for what it really are and offers utterly wonderful, compassionate solutions.  It's a peculiar experience - when you finish this book, it all seems so obvious but that's probably because the explanations of the underlying causes of trauma-related behaviour are so right and real that it gives you the impression that it must have been staring you in the face all along. However, clearly this has been a difficult nut to crack and a good chunk of this book describes other nominally therapeutic strategies that are actually no help at all and indeed are often sources of even more trauma for the family. If your young person has been traumatised by something, including past therapy, read this utterly sensible, kind book. Rating: 9/10

by Charlotte Watts with Natalie Savona (2018) It's tricky reading a book on nutrition when it isn't the first by any means!     You can't help noticing the conflicting advice and you spend the whole time checking Google Scholar in the hope of achieving some sort of settlement on this issue at hand. Take milk thistle for starters.  We hear from Charlotte and Natalie that "milk thistle has a long traditional (and well researched) use for liver support" and they recommend a daily dose. And to a degree, they haven't exactly misrepresented the facts.   According to Google Scholar, there is indeed a welter of research on milk thistle  though a summary of all these studies, some of which were placebo controlled, concludes with the statement that the "c linical efficacy of milk thistle is not clearly established." Then there's the matter of whether or not to skip breakfast.  Michael Moseley, in his time restricted eating book , suggests that ...

By Lisa Damour (2017) It's hard to give an one size fits all rating to a book which is mostly superb but which also contains a few suggestions that are neither easy to implement or to accept, so it is necessary to break it down a bit in this review.  On the very large plus side, the analysis of the problem of raising girls in the First World is spot on, although in this regard, there is probably more to be said about the recent surge in anxiety in young women and indeed Lisa has just written a book on this exact subject  which is due for release in the near future.  On the downside, scattered amongst the often extremely sensible suggestions, there are a few strategies that simply won't work for empowered teens who have grown up with huge spades of confidence in their young years but who suddenly face the brick wall of puberty in the modern, nominally comfortable world we mostly live in nowadays. You do have to wonder if a good old dose of the Blitz wou...