Crenshaw's Books & Decks

Siegel is a Harvard-trained psychotherapist who has developed a branch of medicine called Interpersonal Neuro-biology, an innovative method of integrating brain science and psychotherapy, which considers the mind something that goes beyond the brain.

I really love his approach to human psychology, the fact that this is not a book about alternative medicine or self-help, but very alternative in its scientific approach to psychotherapy. The parts of the book I enjoyed the most are the pages devoted to specific medical cases that Doidge himself treated, which show how this sort of therapy works.

The two basic elements of Mindsight, which provide the individual with emotional stability and development are, according to this book, integration and flexibility. Integration is necessary for the mental and social health of the individual and is acquired in different ways: 1/ integration of consciousness. 2/ Horizontal integration (right and left hemispheres of the brain). 3/ Vertical integration (brain to body). 4/ Integration of explicit and implicit memory. 5 /Integration of our personal narrative, that is how we construct and describe our past and present to the world. 6/ Integration of our different social and emotional states. 7/ Integrating of the "I" with society and the real world. 8/ Integration of life and death, as we are born to die.

The main drawback of the book, to me, is the very long introduction describing how the various parts of the brain and how the brain operates. Page after page with too much information. The target of the book is the general public, so a shorter version, and more structured, it would have worked better. After all, the main target of the book is the general public, not the medical profession.Moreover, Doidge is not especially didactic, not even well-structured, so this part is -or it was for me- difficult to swallow.

Lying with the Heavenly woman is an essay that reflects on the relationships of a man with his outer and inner female using Jungian psychology. The first part is devoted to the feminine elements in a man's psyche in general and the second is devoted to what happens when these elements are distorted, contaminated and mixed together, and how they affect the way a man relates to women in general, and the women in his life in particular.

Johnson has a deep knowledge of Jungian Psychology and mythology, and he uses them in this book to explore the relationship of the male psyche with his inner/outer female. Johnson does a good job at describing the mother complex, the mother archetype, the relationship with the sister and the hetaira, but other times he says obvious things that are of little help or depth, while the concept of anima is barely sketched and not properly explained.

The e-book is very short, barely 100 pages, and it feels more like a collection of hurriedly arranged notes on the topic than a proper book. The writing is less precise and more vague than in other of Johnson's books, some of the punctuation and paragraphs too long and unpolished at times.

There are many pearls of wisdom in this book, but I would go for any of the other books by Johnson on the male and female psyche before buying this one. In other words, I would read He and We first.

I am a fan of Robert A. Johnson's work and writing, but this book feels like unfinished stuff, a hurried work, and lacks the practicality, depth, and polish of other of his books. This is not a book either, is more a booklet or essay.

The booklet feels a bit lousy and way below Johnson's talent and knowledge and I would read this book once you get a better idea what the concept of Jungian shadow is from other book. Then, this book will make sense and will be a nice addition.

This is a very comprehensive book on setting and keeping healthy boundaries and handling boundary infringements successfully. There are many real life examples and conversations used to show how the boundaries are trespassed, and a retake on them to demonstrate how the issue could and should have been handled.

There are many practical items of advice that you can take and apply to your life to keep and restore your boundaries. You will find yourself (or people you relate to) reflected in many of the behaviours described in the book, too.

The first 11 chapters are the ones with more detailed information and more insight on boundaries. I especially liked the chapter about anger management and friends. The second part of the book focus more on daily life aspects of human relationships, and, except for some chapters (like sexual, Internet, therapist boundaries), I would consider most of the issues discussed there an etiquette or tact issue more than a proper boundary issue.

The book is very easy to read, easy to understand, very didactic, and very well structured, and you can make it a manual to check different issues at different times.

The main downside of the book is the fact that trifle matters like vacations or gifts are discussed with family rape and domestic violence. Those things should never be put together. Never ever. The same applies to the gender issues discussed here. I agree with all it is said about gender, but a book on boundaries is not, from my point of view, the place to discuss gender bias.

Once we have the data, what we do with it? We want to know more about ourselves to improve ourselves, right? Ritberger gives examples on how she deals with some of her clients' issues, so I was expecting her to share some of her practical knowledge with the reader. Unfortunately, she stops writing when the book was getting interesting. Questions that came to my mind were, among others: How do we compensate or correct our negative personality type characteristics? Does our colour type attracts more people of other colour types? What happens if our personality is 50% two colours? Why there aren't blue colours in this classification?  Should we mingle more with some colour types for our personality to shine more and have a more balanced life?

The book is easy to read and very entertaining. Although psychologically and medically backed, there is a lack of academic notes and references (which I expect from a Ph.D. writer), which make the text a bit of... fluff. Most importantly, you will learn little about yourself. You will learn which colour personality type you are, and say yes to many of the characteristics attached to it... in the same way you recognise yourself in a good description of, say, your Chinese horoscope.

I think the book (Kindle edition at least) should be half price in Amazon. Nine dollars for so much fluff makes me colour purple, purple out of annoyance.