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Library - books written by our members

Biblioteca: libros escritos por nuestros miembros

The Handbook of Sandplay TherapyThe Handbook of Sandplay Therapy

by Barbara A. Turner, PhD


The theoretical mechanics of Jungian sandplay, a nonverbal psychotherapy, are used to explain and illustrate this valuable healing tool. Numerous clinical examples and explanations of the psyche, ego development, and conscious and unconscious states are used to examine the technique's ability to make the psyche change through psychological, mythological, and neurobiological paradigms in child and adult participants. Content themes, such as allegory and alchemy, are touched upon alongside spatial themes that include placement and the concept of center. Whether new to the field or veterans, clinicians will find this a solid basis on which they may cultivate their practice.

Order a copy here.

Living Waters by Alissa HirshfeldLiving Waters: From Harvard Halls to Sacred Falls

by Alissa Hirshfeld, MFT


When April is suspended from Harvard University, she moves to a Northern California commune seeking clarity about her next step, but when she becomes friends with Andrea, a middle-aged psychotherapist dying of cancer, the direction of her life takes an unexpected turn. Interweaving themes of coming of age, soul-searching, sexual awakening, loss and grief, the paranormal, family, friendship, forgiveness and faith, this book will make you laugh and cry in turn. It's been described as "a cathartic therapy session" by enthusiastic readers and "like being at a spa."

Living Waters: From Harvard Halls to Sacred Falls won the Shelf Unbound 2019 Notable Best Indie Book Award.

Order a copy here.

Facing the Truth of Your Life

by Merle Yost, LMFT


We are born into the school of life. Everything that happens, big and small, soft and hard is a lesson about who we are and how the world works. Once we leave home, it is necessary to reexamine those lessons and the conclusions that we took from them. Only then can we begin to separate from who we were told we were supposed to be and find out who we truly are.

FTT is a guide to both begin to question and to take some deep hard looks at those conclusions that control how you see the world. It is both validating and confronting while supporting you in uncovering, processing and freeing yourself from ideal, belief's, perspectives and absolute facts that don't work for you anymore. Only then can you create the possibility of knowing you and finding a deep, lasting happiness.

Too much of life is about running from the pain of the past and present. If you are ready to stop or at least consider stop running, then you are ready for Facing the Truth of Your Life.

Order an autographed copy here

Hippie Chick: Coming of Age in the 60s by Ilene English, LMFT

In Hippie Chick, a rebellious teenager finds her mother dead in the bathroom. To save her from living alone with a difficult father, her older sister sends her a one-way plane ticket to leave New Jersey. Landing in San Francisco, she is thrust into a lifestyle way beyond what she is ready for, and that challenges all previous notions of how one behaves. It is 1963, and we are brought along as Ilene becomes immersed in the unfolding of the sixties during the earliest days of sexual freedom, psychedelic drugs, the jazz scene, and rock 'n' roll. This is a deeply personal story of how one young woman manages to survive and even to thrive in the face of the whirlwind of experiences coming at her. It is filled with a rich tapestry of moments that run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous, and everything in between.

Order it at Copperfield's books here

Dancing with Fire: A Mindful Way to Loving Relationships by John Amodeo PhD, LMFT

Winner of the 2014 Silver Independent Publisher Book Award in the relationship category and winner of the Spirituality and Practice Award as one of the best spiritual books of 2013!

The search for inner peace is often met with what seems like a conflicting path- the irresistible pull of love and connection with others to which we are drawn.

Reconciling these opposites, John Amodeo shows how spirituality and vibrant relationships are identical. He says that Buddha's concept of the root of suffering is misunderstood. It is not desire that causes suffering; desire is the fire that springs from the basic life force. Drawing upon the science of attachment theory, Amodeo illuminates how the root of our suffering is disconnection from ourselves and others, which is fueled by clinging to what doesn't serve us...

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Choose Life: Poetry, Prose and Photography by Jan Ögren, LMFT (Author)

The poems in Choose Life knock on your door like a familiar friend stopping by to share a cup of tea. Finding themselves a comfortable chair in your living room, they speak of universal themes offering reassurance, hope, and encouragement. Each poem shows up with a photograph so that you can see as well as hear their whisperings of wisdom and magic. Choose Life is dedicated to my 98-year-old father's philosophy of life. His life’s purpose is encouraging people to look forward to growing older, to try something new, to be positive and to exercise daily.

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Sasha Finds Her Freedom by Dianna Grayer, PhD, LMFT

Sasha is a young girl who finds comfort and support in nature amongst the trees in the preserve behind her home. She doesn't feel she can share her identity with her family and doesn’t understand why she can’t be herself. With the support of her special tree, Spirit Tree, she finds the confidence and the courage to tell the truth.

Order it on Amazon here...

After a Parent's Suicide: Helping Children Heal by Margo Requarth, LMFT

The premature death of a parent can be devastating for young children— with the consequences far more profound when the parent dies by suicide. Amidst the resulting grief, turmoil and confusion, the surviving parent is faced with the monumental task of tending to the emotional lives of the children left behind. In this instructive and impassioned work, longtime children’s bereavement counselor and psychotherapist Margo Requarth, MA, LMFT, charts the complex emotional waters every family must navigate in the wake of a previously unimaginable suicide death. Starting with the haunting tale of her own mother’s suicide, Requarth weaves together her experience counseling “survivors,” poignant interviews with children, teens and parents, and the latest research on suicide and its aftermath. What emerges is a groundbreaking “how-to” guide for parent survivors: how to manage both the immediate and long-term implications of the suicide, how to talk to your children, how to see them through the heart-rending anguish to a place of acceptance, healing, and finally, a renewed and deepened capacity for joy.

Order it here...



Are you a RECAMFT member who has written a book?

Please let us know so we can include it in our library. We will feature one book per member.  Send the information about your book to therapy@recamft.org

Self-Love Diet: The Only Diet That Works by Michelle Minero, LMFT

Testimonial by Pamela Carlton, MD

This book is a must read. It is especially helpful for anyone with an eating disorder or chronic dieting and the people who love them. What a wonderful world it would be if women loved and accepted themselves and their bodies unconditionally. Michelle Minero helps the reader along that path. She helps us to see the ways that our society and we ourselves perpetuate self-criticism. She then presents ways in which we can change that critical self-talk into self-love. At the end of each chapter Michelle Minero gives practical action points that help the reader incorporate the key concepts into their life. I will definitely be recommending Self-Love Diet: The Only Diet That Works to my patients and their families.


-Pamela Carlton, MD

Director, The Carlton Clinic for Eating-Related Disorders

Author, Take Charge of Your Child's Eating Disorder

Order it on Amazon here.

I Love You, Clowns Are Scary: Hoʼoponopono for Kids and Other People by Kitty Wells, LMFT (Author), Christie Noe (Illustrator)

Ho'oponopono is an elegant and easy ancient Hawaiian healing and forgiveness practice, available to everyone. Although designed for middle grade readers, I Love You, Clowns Are Scary appeals as well to the inquiring minds of college students and their grandparents. Book One tells the story of Dakota's dream-like inner quest to save a lost and frightened child and the discovery of a magical way for a very scary problem to be transformed. In Book Two, Dakota continues to explore Ho'oponopono at school with the help of some mentors and friends and shares with the reader a fun way, Slo-mo-pono, to have a similar letting go experience. Throughout this introduction to Ho'oponopono, the conscious and subconscious are explored, as well as the superconscious, the spiritual center deep within the mind...

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Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry by Jennifer Shannon LMFT (Author), Doug Shannon (Illustrator), Michael A. Tompkins PhD ABPP (Foreword)

Ancient sages compared the human mind to a monkey: constantly chattering, hopping from branch to branch—endlessly moving from fear to safety. If you are one of the millions of people whose life is affected by anxiety, you are familiar with this process. Unfortunately, you can’t switch off the “monkey mind,” but you can stop feeding the monkey—or stop rewarding it by avoiding the things you fear.

Written by psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon, this book shows you how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over using proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness techniques, as well as fun illustrations. By following the exercises in this book, you’ll learn to identify your own anxious thoughts, question those thoughts, and uncover the core fears at play...

Order it on Amazon here...

Simon's Crossing: A Novel by Charles William Asher, D.Min, LMFT

  (Author), Dennis Patrick Slattery (Author)

Forced to carry the cross of Jesus, Simon of Cyrene, a little known biblical figure, reluctantly yields to his task. At the same time, Simon struggles with personal loss and a fiery desire for revenge. In Simon's story, the vulnerability of our own journeys is laid bare as we cross paths with a simple wooden cross and a redemptive twist of fate.

In Simon's Crossing, this ordinary man, from Cyrene, steps boldly out of the pages of the Bible. He senses that his own life depends on the Nazarene staggering just ahead of him. Persuaded by sacrificial love, we too discover what it is like to cross over into the imaginal power of a story well-told, where salvation lies close at hand. Simon's story compels us to carry on as well.

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Body, Brain, Love: A Therapist's Workbook for Affect Regulation and Somatic Attachment by Karen Rachels, LMFT

Karen Rachels' "Body, Brain, Love: A Therapist's Workbook for Affect Regulation and Somatic Attachment," is a first-of-its-kind contribution to the dynamic and unfolding world of body-brain integration. This workbook accessibly integrates three critical areas of therapeutic work brought to us by the Decade of the Brain: 1) brain-based attachment theory, 2) the neuroscience of affect regulation, and 3) practical somatic skills to grow clients' brains.

Therapists have the opportunity to view their own experiences through the lens of neuroscience including their own dysregulation and how their attachment strategies interweave with the attachment strategies of clients. By offering a more experiential and somatic way to absorb the information, learning is easy and immediately applicable for therapists seeking to effect transformation with clients.

This book bridges mindfulness and neuroscience-based self-help books with the more academic, didactically-focused books for therapists. It uses a self-help format but is, in fact, for therapists. Post-tests, charts with clarifying exercises, specific self-focused exercises, games, case vignettes, and a complete session transcript all facilitate learning in both a cognitive and experiential manner.

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