Resource Type: Books

PsychAlive’s library includes many books on subjects of relationships, parenting, self-development, self-destructive thinking and suicide. See a list of recommended titles from PsychAlive’s contributing experts in the field of mental health.

Psychological Defenses in Everyday Life

by Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D. Joyce Catlett, M.A. Psychological Defenses in Everyday Life is a rich resource that broadens personal understanding by examining the origins of childhood pain, subsequent defense formation, and the pervasiveness and destructiveness of resulting maladaptive, addictive behaviors in adults. The authors point a way toward reversing the damaging process that keeps individuals… Read more »

The Self Under Siege: A Therapeutic Model for Differentiation

by Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D., Lisa Firestone, Ph.D. Joyce Catlett, M.A. How much of our identity or ‘self’ is truly representative of our own wants, needs, and goals in life and how much does it reflect the desires and priorities of someone else? Are we following our own destiny or are we unconsciously repeating the… Read more »

Compassionate Child-Rearing: An In-Depth Approach to Optimal Parenting

In this revolutionary work, Dr. Firestone develops the theory and underlying dynamics involved in disturbed family relationships and the “poisonous pedagogy” that characterizes generally accepted patterns of child-rearing. The author expands on the phenomenological descriptions of the traditional abuses of children previously offered by Alice Miller, R.D. Laing, James Garbarino, and others, and explains how… Read more »

Fear of Intimacy

By Robert W. Firestone, Ph.D. Joyce Catlett, M.A. In Fear of Intimacy, the authors bring almost 40 years of clinical experience to bear in challenging the usual ways of thinking about couples and families. They argue that relationships fail not for the commonly cited reasons, but because psychological defenses formed in childhood act as a… Read more »