2017 has been a year full of challenges, responsibilities and a lot of work. Even so, we have been able to dedicate time to reading various books on the topics that excite us most within the broad field of psychology. The list includes 8 books specially chosen by columnists and editors.
Managing Therapy-Interfering Behavior (2016) – Alexander L. Chapman and Zachary Rosenthal
If we can say anything about the behaviors that interfere with therapy, it is that they tend to be those that generate the greatest discomfort and at the same time the least structured therapeutic efforts to address them. This book turns the issue on its head. It is proposed to provide tools for a compassionate understanding of these behaviors while providing the therapist with direct behavioral approach strategies. The reader will find behavioral principles applied to managing repeated absences from sessions, increasing compliance with activities and tasks, improving therapeutic responses to anger and hostility in session, overcoming avoidance in session, and even how to end therapy. an effective form. A chapter is also dedicated to behaviors that interfere with treatment by the therapist—because we are not free from them, of course. The authors propose: Think of behaviors that interfere with therapy as opportunities to find “therapeutic gold.” And they are not wrong.
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Recommended by: Paula José Quintero – Columnist in
Mastery of Your Anxiety and Panic: Therapist Guide (2006) – Michelle G. Crake and David H Barlow
Crake and Barlow are teachers of evidence-based treatments for anxiety disorders and in 2006 they published this complete treatment package that includes a guide for patients with activities, tasks and skills that they will learn to reduce anxiety and panic attacks; and the guide for therapists that includes clinical vignettes and supervision of the activities that the patient will carry out. Usually these treatment packages are divided by the number of sessions. However, Craske and Barlow use a much more practical and realistic approach by dividing treatment according to the skills patients learn to reduce anxiety. I loved the treatment plan because it can be used perfectly in face-to-face sessions as well as in therapy on-line and gives the patient easy-to-read, evidence-based materials to practice with. The books can be purchased together and separately.
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Recommended by: David Aparicio – Editor and founding member of
Man’s Search for Meaning (1946) – Viktor Frankl
Although it is one of the great classics, written by the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Nazi extermination camps, it does not fail to leave its mark on the reader. In the first part he tells us about his experiences, from his position as a human being and as a psychiatrist. A great lesson about how in the midst of so much suffering and evil, prisoners could appreciate the beauty in the simplest things or increase their resilience. In short, he shows us that we can be free despite our circumstances, and to do so he develops in the second part what is known today as logotherapy (therapy focused on the meaning of human existence). I summarize it with one of his phrases that I take with me: “Everything can be taken from a man except one thing: the last of human freedoms—the choice of one’s personal attitude in the face of a set of circumstances—to decide one’s own path.”
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Recommended by: Karemi Rodriguez Batista – Columnist in
Behavior modification. Principles and procedures (2013) – Miltenberger, RG
The book I recommend was chosen based on queries that I frequently receive from therapists of people with developmental disorders, about useful literature for the treatment of their patients. The author of the manual explains, very clearly, from the basic principles of learning to the verbal operants described by Skinner, so that the interested reader can later delve deeper into any of the topics described, having a solid base of knowledge. The book also does not skimp on examples of clinical interventions, which are very useful in our daily practice.
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Recommended by: Mauro Colombo – Columnist in
Breathe: Mindfulness for parents with adolescent children (2015) – Eline Sanel
At this end of the year, with the holidays so close, there is nothing better than recommending a book that brings the family closer in some way. Who, as a therapist, never heard a father’s fear of not being able to approach his teenage son. In this book we will find a way to listen without judging or reacting immediately, to be able to share high-quality times creating a climate of trust and compassion. Strengthening and empowering the family from within is extremely important to overcome the turbulence that this stage of life presents; I hope that this book provides you with strategies to live positive and fulfilling experiences.
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Recommended by: Geraldine Panelli – Columnist in
The Science of Consequences (2012) – Susan M. Schneider
They are probably going to give something as a gift this holiday season – and since, as is known, the only possible gift is a book, they can’t look bad with this one. It is a thorough tour of the myriad ways in which consequences (say, context) affect living things on multiple levels. Evolution, behavior, epigenetics, neuroscience, addictions, self-control, language, the spectrum is broad and the continuity that Schneider draws between these domains is remarkably clear. If you are interested in behaviorism, it is a good read to understand the true scope of that position. If you are not interested in behaviorism, it is a good read to get you started. The book is written in accessible language (despite only being available in English).
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Recommended by: Fabián Maero – Columnist in
How to talk so children will listen and how to listen so children will talk – Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
“I was a wonderful mother before I had children.” Thus begins this wonderful and empathetic book on the principles of effective communication. I recommend it because it is practical, easy to read, is available in both Spanish and English and was written by two mothers who, with the help of a psychologist, learned valuable resources for a less stressful and more rewarding relationship with their children (although anyone who works with children can benefit too). It has this title because, with abundant examples, it shows us that many times our attitude and what we adults say is part of the problem. Instead of turning every conversation into a fight, we can practice active listening, empathy, teach children about their feelings, show them that we respect them and that they can trust us.
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Recommended by:Alejandra Alonso – Editor and founding member of
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Autism and Asperger’s: Other ways of understanding the world (2016) – Steve Silberman
Maria Fernanda, editor at , gave me this wonderful book at the beginning of the year — which I devoured in a matter of days — and which tells the forgotten story of the simultaneous discovery of autism by Hans Asperger in Vienna and Leo Kanner in the United States; The devastating effect of the theory of mother refrigerator that Bruno Bettelheim used to explain the origin of autism; The battles that parents of children with autism waged to receive support from insurance companies; and neurodiversity as a new explanation that breaks with the conventional model of autism and at the same time seeks respect and support to achieve the integration into society of those people with cognitive differences.
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Recommended by: David Aparicio – Editor and founding member of