New Harbinger Reorganizes, Created Publication Technology Department

by Bridget Kinsella

"As it sees the increased need for electronic versions of its books along with the potential opportunities for digital book files, New Harbinger reorganized its 50-person staff and created a new publication technology department.

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Excerpt from The Family Recovery Guide

The seeds of healthy growth are sown in the transition stage; in early recovery, they begin to take root. Here, the foundation for the individual identity is set in place, bringing new found stability. Early recovery can be a time of unparalleled personal change, hope, and excitement; it can also be a time of trauma, especially at home, where the family members are still functioning with out a strong, healthy family system. Even as growth begins, tensions and set backs are to be expected. During early recovery, the alcoholic and co-alcoholic are still extremely dependent on their relationships with their recovery programs. Their main focus at this time is education about alcohol ism and the process of recovery in general, and on the specific ways in which each particular individual has experienced these realities. To facilitate this education, they learn recovery language, which helps them organize their past experiences and under stand their ongoing thoughts and feelings. By internalizing this new language and the abstinent behaviors that were set in place during transition, they begin to solidify their new alcoholic or co-alcoholic identities. The healthy behavior they practiced in transition starts to become less conscious and more automatic as their impulses to drink or take care of the drinker finally begin to decrease.

Excerpt from What's Eating You?

focus

This exercise will help you become more aware of your individuality and understand that who you are inside is the real you.

Every day, we are bombarded with television, radio, and magazine ads that focus on plastic surgery, dieting, clothes, and make-up. The media focus on appearance is so strong that many of us fall into the trap of identifying our outside appearances as the “real” us and forgetting who we really are on the inside.

So how do you focus more on who you are inside? How are you different from everyone else? How do you find the real you? One way is to remember that you are more than your appearance.

by guest blogger Susan Albers, Psy.D., author of 50 Ways to Soothe Yourself Without Food , Eat, Drink, and be Mindful and Eating Mindfully

If you are a mindless eater who is in need of motivation to change your ways, a little movie therapy might just be what you are looking for.

Movies aren't just entertaining. Every now and then a good flick can teach you something important and transform your feelings and actions. This is good news for people who want to eat healthier but need some help getting into the right frame of mind.

How does it work? Consider other movies and documentaries that have made you rethink important social issue. Thank You for Smoking is a parody that makes you ponder the manipulative ways companies market potentially harmful protects to the public. Traffic gives you a peak into the underworld of drugs. Movies like these delve into the impact of harmful substances on the individual. They also illuminates what goes on behind the scene politically. The movies listed below will take you from your kitchen cupboard to farms across the globe.

Excerpt from The Good Eater

As the basket ball team made the four-hour drive to the San Luis Obispo basketball tournament (the biggest tournament of eighth grade), Coach Whitmore entertained us by predicting who we would all be when we grew up:

Excerpt from Transforming Depression

How well you manage your attitudes and emotions each day determines to a large extent how much vitality you will experience overall. Most people think fatigue sets in because of all the things they have to do or because they didn’t get enough sleep. They often overlook the energy drain from out-of-control emotions.

Different triggers in life can cause stress to run through your system, creating frayed nerves, fatigue, and overwhelming, out-of-control feelings. Once this occurs, it’s important to recover from the stress fast, otherwise your energy drains away. Taking emotional responsibility to get into heart rhythm coherence helps to rebalance your system. Coherence also helps you develop the intuitive discernment to see how to stop draining energy and renew your vitality. This is especially important when you are trying to lift depression.

by Susan Albers, Psy.D.

Clients with eating problems often develop a number of mindless eating routines. Eating in the car on the way to work, snacking at their computer, or munching during their favorite TV show each night are a few common examples. Help your clients identify the mindless eating behaviors that have simply become habitual. These behaviors are often much easier to tackle than emotional eating behaviors.

read the rest here.

by guest blogger Melissa Kirk, co-author of Depression 101

I remember the moment I realized my rumination was contributing to my chronic low mood and sense of frustration with life. I lived about a mile away from my job, and in nice weather I would walk to work through neighborhoods of beautiful homes and lush gardens. People in Berkeley love their gardens! On my walk, though, I tended to ruminate - to obsess over what was wrong in my life, to replay difficult incidents and conversations, to worry about what I was missing: the right relationship, the perfect body, the "right" personality. By the time I got to work, I would often feel more tense or distracted than when I had started out, and often I would have missed the beauty of the homes and gardens along the way.

I always thought there was something inherently wrong with me that I got depressed and sad; I figured that somewhere, way back when, I hadn’t learned some vital lesson that others - the ones who didn’t get depressed - had learned. In the back of my mind I always figured I was flawed in a deep, core way that meant that I would never have the things that others had: marriage, successful career, physical beauty, the ability to connect easily with others. This is what I would ruminate over on my walk: why can I never seem to be able to do the things others do? What was wrong with me?

Excerpt from The Mindful Path through Worry and Rumination

Do you become more easily aggravated, frustrated, irritable, or angry than you would like? Do you find yourself driven to tears, feeling overwhelmed or exhausted by things that seem to feel minor to other people? If you’re prone to rumination and worry, you prob¬ably do. Your stress response and your inner critic feed off each other, spending all of your emotional energy so that there’s none left for happiness and joy. One of the things that emerges with both secure attachment and regular mindfulness practice is a skill that psychologists call distress tolerance, which refers to the degree to which you can maintain your peace of mind, equanimity, and focus in difficult situations.

by guest blogger Judith London, Ph.D., author of Connecting the Dots

The appearance of Alzheimer’s touches relatives or friends, close or distant, to change every aspect of their relationship with a loved one who has this disease. As Alzheimer’s advances, the only constant may be the love that you have between you, and that you can still maintain, if you don’t give up on the person prematurely.

by guest blogger Susan Eikov Green, author of Don't Pick On Me.

All children experience some form of bullying. They may the target of a bully or they may be a bystander who witnesses bullying. We usually think of bullying as a physical act – pushing, shoving, fighting, hitting. But bullying can also be verbal – threatening, taunting, teasing, name-calling - as well as emotional. Being ostracized or being the subject of a rumor and gossip can be just as damaging as a push or a shove.

Of course some playful teasing is normal and children need to learn how to "give-and-take" in relationships. But bullying goes beyond that. Many children feel helpless and don’t know what to do when they are picked on. Their first reaction may be to either cry or get angry and go on the attack. They don’t realize that crying or fighting only gives the bully the satisfaction of knowing that whatever he’s done has worked! It won’t stop the bully – it will just make it worse.

But there are some simple strategies kids can learn to help them deal with bullies – strategies that will build their confidence and self-esteem so they can develop healthy relationships and friendships.

Discuss these strategies with your child.