Frequently Asked Questions About Self Mutilation and Cutting

On the delirious eve of the new millennium, Marcus Wallace and Jonathon Bates, two twenty-four-year-old overnight dot-com millionaires, are on a trade mission in Brazil. Their product is Hypothesys, a virtual "morality machine" that promises to help people "make the best decisions of their lives." But when the decision is made to take an ecotour up the Río Negro deep into the Amazon jungle, the Hypothesys team members are forced to make choices for themselves -- choices that carry fatal consequences.

In the dead of night, their boat is boarded by paramilitaries who kill the Brazilian crew and kidnap Wallace and Bates, their two older colleagues, and their enigmatic interpreter, Crossman. Blindfolded and thrown into a pit for a prison, they must fight to find the will to survive. But when the increasingly unstable Wallace engineers a violent escape, their own natures emerge as a threat potentially more dangerous than the boundless jungle that surrounds them, or the gunmen who relentlessly pursue them.

This volume describes the most current gestalt approaches to treating substance abuse and other self-medicating behaviors by a leading practitioner and scholar in the field. It is based on the gestalt view of the self-medicating dynamic as one of pattern repetition and difficulty overcoming rigid patterns of response to sensory experience and life's routine demands.

The book provides a practical model for helping clients with the gamut of self-medicating behaviors-substance and alcohol abuse, overeating, gambling, overworking, rage, and others-and describes a recovery program as a system created to change one's lifestyle over time through the development of disciplines that ultimately shape one's life. The volume will also be helpful to therapists in other modalities as an alternative therapy when treating self-medicating clients, as well as a spiritual alternative to the 12-step approach.

• Applies current gestalt therapy approaches to the spectrum of addictive behaviors
• Provides practical treatment models for self-medicating behaviors
• Written by a prominent practitioner and scholar of gestalt therapy
• Offers a spiritual alternative to the 12-step approach to recovery

• the existing literature on the intersection of spirituality/religiousness and alcohol/drug issues
  
• addiction recovery across the lifespan
  
• connections among stress, quality of life, social support, spirituality and religiosity, and recovery
  
• how social supports, spirituality, religiousness, life meaning, and affiliation with 12-step fellowships affect the quality of life for people in recovery
  
• evidence-based forgiveness treatment
  
• alcohol abusers’ traits and how abusers function in the context of family
  
• Christian perspectives on alcohol/drug use and abuse-with a chapter devoted to Protestant perspectives and treatment implications
  
• predictors of rehospitalization for homeless substance abusers, including spiritual well-being
  
• various dimensions of religious involvement and mental health outcomes among addicted women
  
• whether religiousness, as opposed to church attendance, is related to alcohol/drug consumption and delinquency
  
• the ties between religious variables and mental health in a high-risk population (chemically dependent pregnant or parenting women in a residential treatment program)
  
• . . . and a great deal more

Written in a first-person, narrative style, In the Grip of Desire gives both the professional and lay reader the rare opportunity to experience the sequestered world of the therapist as she works with people who have sexual secrets and behaviors.

Referencing the academic literature and research, using rich case material, and a broad use of literary references, the book unpretentiously demonstrates the basic concepts and issues in treating compelling and legal sexual behaviors.

The book also offers a uniquely jargon-free, human view of the subject. Golden compassionately and non-judgmentally speaks to the universality of the experience of sexual obsessions and compelling sexual behaviors and their impact on relationships, families, and society.

Children of Substance-Abusing Parents: Dynamics and Treatment is a necessary reference for all mental health professionals and students who need to understand and treat this population. It offers an invaluable look at treatment options and programmatic interventions across the life span and fills an important gap in the current literature. The contributors include a wide range of experts who provide up-to-date evidence-based clinical and programmatic strategies for working with children of alcohol and other substance-abusing parents of any age and in almost any practice setting.

This highly recommended book is a valuable resource for all practitioners and students concerned about this very large, but often hidden group of individuals and families.

Sis Wenger
President/CEO
National Association for Children of Alcoholics

Parental drug abuse and alcoholism have an enormously detrimental impact on children and adolescents. Children whose parents suffer from drug abuse or alcoholism often face multiple physical, mental, and behavioral issues. They are at a greater risk for depression, anxiety, low self esteem, and addiction, and also are known to have poor school attendance, difficulty concentrating, and lower IQ scores.

This book offers health care practitioners proactive programs and innovative strategies to use with this vulnerable population. Taking a comprehensive, life course approach, the authors discuss the implications and interventions at the prenatal stage, through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and adulthood. With this book, social workers and health care practitioners can help assess and intervene with children of substance abusing parents.

• Dynamics in families with substance abusing parents and treatment implications
• Issues across the life span of children of substance abusing parents
• Prevention and early intervention programs for pregnant women who abuse substances
• Programs for young children, adolescents, college students, and children with incarcerated parents