Humpty Dumpty had a great fall... and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The same holds true for those of us with a mental illness. The psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, etc. can assist, but it is up to the individual to create conditions which will allow recovery to happen.

The neurobiological basis of mental illness is often presented in a fatalistic way. That's the brain chemistry you've got, and that's what you're stuck with; as if the individual was unable to change the chemistry inside his or her own head. Breathing changes brain chemistry. So does excercise, the food you eat, the words you speak, the thoughts you think as well as how often you smile.

While drugs are capable of making radical changes in the chemistry of the brain, it is the slow changes over time which will help most in recovery.

"Thorough and informative without being technical...facinating...very enlightening." Psychiatric Rehabilition Journal (Fall 2004 Vol.28 No.2)

"You have made a complex issue easier to understand." Chief Kathryn Landreth, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.

Is a spectacular novel in which Pam Randall, writes about a young girl’s, Kim Tucker, teenage rape and pregnancy. Kim with stood issues such as living with and around family members with psychological disorders... specifically Schizophrenia and Alcoholism.

“Shadows of the Mind” is a Novel about Kim’s life. Having grown up the youngest of twelve children Kim had the opportunity of experiencing three generations. The story timeline depicts the late 1950s - early 1980s.

She watched her siblings grow and learned through their life experiences. Pam Randall discusses much of what Kim learned and her growing experiences in "Shadows of the Mind".

Many people come from small families and do not know the inside and outsides of having a large family. In many ways, Kim felt that she had a heads up on life, through her siblings’ successes and failures. Kim learns later in life, that some things can only be learned through experience!

In Aftershocks of Stress, Crisis and Trauma, Dr. Hartley provides the reader with two distinctive patterns that assist in understanding post-traumatic stress and what to do after it has occurred. One pattern is related to the loss of personal power as a result of trauma, and the other one focuses on taking power back. She assists the reader to identify the various ways trauma occurred, and then illustrates the negative behaviors people adopt to escape from the emotional and physical overwhelm of the trauma. Although these "Zone Out" and "Strike Out" behaviors can give some momentary sense of relief, unfortunately over time the use of them can actually become addictive and dis-empowering. The different stages of identifying and releasing the emotional/physical symptoms are presented, as well as the concept of the subconscious decisions that are made in the midst of traumatic events. Personal stories of dramatic changes in people's lives illustrate the use of various therapeutic modalities to quickly release the symptoms and empower the individual. In this book, you will discover the parallels to the traumas that you have experienced, and realize that you too can let go of the past and take your power back.

This entity is our soul, the essence and total compilation of who and what we are. The soul carries with it all of the information gathered during each experience we have throughout each incarnation of our total existence. We reincarnate many times to provide opportunities for our soul to heal the damage done to it in the past and to grow in strength.

This book provides the rational for this belief and the directions for ways to make the process of living in this incarnation easier so our soul has a chance to heal and grow while we carry on a fulfilling physical life.

The soul is dependent on the cooperation of the human mind and body so it can grow and move along a path planned before this current incarnation. This book shows how and why we experience varying degrees of mental distress and how to understand how the mind can work cooperatively with the soul so there is a resulting growth in mental and spiritual well-being.

• Lighting the motivational fires of the reader from start to finish.
• Giving essential information about panic, its causes, and treatment.
• Preparing the reader to act with the latest in effective skills and tools.
• Tailoring treatment for each situation, using only the attitudes, skills and plans that fit.

The four sections sweep the reader into continuing success. The first two, Information and Preparation, contain:

• Fourteen calming methods for immediate use in the panic situation.
• Eleven effective ways to control worry and stop the worry cycle.
• Fifteen ways for one's partner to help speed recovery.
• Twelve self-tests to pinpoint the reader's panic triggers and skills
• Three major groups of anxiety medications, supplements, and their wise use.

The Actions section brings all these skills together in over 20 detailed success plans for each type of phobia. The Finishing section shows the reader how to go through every major barrier or setback to being panic-free.

The voice of the book is that of a warm, plain-spoken guide that is always at the side of the phobic on the path to recovery. Motivation and encouragement are on every page. Over 100 brief cases illustrates the text in a clear, inspirational way. The voice draws on the authenticity of a clinical psychologist who completely recovered from 8 years of phobia, has counseled over 3000 phobics in a specialized clinical practice, and has made systematic study of phobia and its treatment.

In the frame of a journey to self-discovery, Keith E. Rice pulls together and integrates the most powerful 'cutting edge' models in the behavioural sciences to explain how and why we think and behave as we do. He provides suggestions and strategies as to what we might do about aspects of ourselves we would like to change. He also explores the dynamics of interpersonal relationships and offers suggestions as to how we can get more out of them, using the insights gained.

From Knowing You, Knowing Me, we learn that we have up to 8 'mini-selves' or motivational systems which shape how we think and what we believe about ourselves and others. These systems and how they work are themselves influenced by our natural temperamental dispositions.

The backbone of Rice's integrated approach is the Spiral Dynamics model, developed by Don Beck & Chris Cowan from the work of Clare W Graves. The approach is set on a foundation of Hans J Eysenck's Dimensions of Personality and played out through the Neurological Levels hierarchy of Robert Dilts.

Such is the breadth and depth of this construct that it finds key places for the ideas of Sigmund Freud, Richard Bandler & John Grinder, Erik Erikson, Lawrence Kohlberg, Abraham Maslow, Aaron Beck, Susan Blackmore, William Moulton Marston, Michael Hall, Martin Seligman, Carl Gustav Jung, Jerome Kagan, Joseph LeDoux and James Marcia, among others. Plus, the conflict management mapping of Robert Blake & Jane Mouton and Ken Thomas & Ralph Kilmann. Even Pavlov's dogs and Skinner's rats are put to good use!

Littered with case studies and anecdotes and accompanied by 74 illustrations, Knowing Me, Knowing You makes advanced Psychology both accessible and practical.

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall... and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The same holds true for those of us with a mental illness. The psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, etc. can assist, but it is up to the individual to create conditions which will allow recovery to happen.

The neurobiological basis of mental illness is often presented in a fatalistic way. That's the brain chemistry you've got, and that's what you're stuck with; as if the individual was unable to change the chemistry inside his or her own head. Breathing changes brain chemistry. So does excercise, the food you eat, the words you speak, the thoughts you think as well as how often you smile.

While drugs are capable of making radical changes in the chemistry of the brain, it is the slow changes over time which will help most in recovery.

"Thorough and informative without being technical...facinating...very enlightening." Psychiatric Rehabilition Journal (Fall 2004 Vol.28 No.2)

"You have made a complex issue easier to understand." Chief Kathryn Landreth, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police.

Mental Health - A Layman's Guide by Miriam Plans is a lifeline for the troubled, impaired victims and their families who are frustrated and often harmed by the entrenched, unassailable medical community. They need this layman's appraoch to understanding and coping with their predicament in terms that they can comprehend and which offers measures they can accept and use.

All through the book are specific guidelines for the affected person to follow, namely:

• Identifying and dealing with a possible organic cause of the problem
• Using only the right drugs
• Working with good support groups
• Consulting respected, trusted clergy, lawyers, experts, and other knowlegeable persons
• Learning about psychiatric and psychological practices in historical or current use
• Becoming familiar with ongoing governmental health issues and legislation and how they affect us.

This masterful analysis of the psychiatric community and its practices provides valuable information and advice in crisp everyday language, efficient organization, pleasant readable style, and sincere empathy for the reader needing help.

In Aftershocks of Stress, Crisis and Trauma, Dr. Hartley provides the reader with two distinctive patterns that assist in understanding post-traumatic stress and what to do after it has occurred. One pattern is related to the loss of personal power as a result of trauma, and the other one focuses on taking power back. She assists the reader to identify the various ways trauma occurred, and then illustrates the negative behaviors people adopt to escape from the emotional and physical overwhelm of the trauma. Although these "Zone Out" and "Strike Out" behaviors can give some momentary sense of relief, unfortunately over time the use of them can actually become addictive and dis-empowering. The different stages of identifying and releasing the emotional/physical symptoms are presented, as well as the concept of the subconscious decisions that are made in the midst of traumatic events. Personal stories of dramatic changes in people's lives illustrate the use of various therapeutic modalities to quickly release the symptoms and empower the individual. In this book, you will discover the parallels to the traumas that you have experienced, and realize that you too can let go of the past and take your power back.

The history of mental health services during the past 150 years has been told by a number of authors, usually accompanied by a dozen or fewer photographs. In this remarkable book that history is covered in narrative, but it also includes well over 600 photographs, which have never before been widely published. Many are so rare that they are of events that few have ever seen. The author was given full access to the entire range of photographs held by state mental health facilities in Illinois, in order to identify and preserve for the public this fragile historical resource. In addition he combed through various State, county, and municipal archives, and included his own collection of historical photos to assemble a stunning collection of photographs with historical importance. The majority of photographs have historical relevance beyond the confines of the State of Illinois.

The text begins with the efforts in the 1840s of a group of educated, socially conscious, citizens to improve the plight of the mentally ill in Illinois, including their invitation to the social reformer, Dorothea Lynde Dix, to join their effort. It proceeds through their establishment of a then state-of-the-art asylum built on the Kirkbride plan. Through nineteen chapters, 580 pages, and over 600 photographs the book documents the opening of the first Illinois asylum in 1851, and those to follow, along with the ÒMoral TreatmentÓ that was characteristic of the early days. The book photographically illustrates the ascendance of the asylum, its apex, and the ultimate decline in the middle of the twentieth century that was so common in all States of the U.S., the Provinces of Canada, and in many other countries.

The illustrations in this text include rare photographs of the daily activities of patients, their living conditions, their institutional and occupational assignments, and their leisure activities. There are unusual, turn of the nineteenth century, photos of patients and staff boating, playing tennis and at dances. It includes photos of a pastoral era, and photos of the alternative horrid county poorhouses in the late nineteenth century.

The photos do not neglect the remarkable architecture that was considered to be so critical to the concept of the therapeutic asylum. Through the course of the text, the change from architectural grandure in the past to today's utilitarianism is visually obvious. Many of the older photos of the physical plants are fascinating for what they reveal about the complexity of the institutions that were considered technological showplaces in their day. They generally were the first to have gas plants for gas lighting, dynamo rooms for later electric powered lights, grand auditoriums, natatoriums, swimming pools, fitness spas, large farms, canning plants, and the other aspects of the self- contained community.

The book does not neglect some of the less positive aspects of State hospitals. There are images of terribly overcrowded wards from the 1940s and 1950s that became so overwhelming that the State hospital fell into disrepute. The text also photographically documents the deinstitutionalization era, the growth of community mental health concepts and centers, and the "new" state hospital at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

For the individual interested, in general, in seeing what asylums, State hospitals, and treatment over the past 150 years actually looked like, and for those interested specifically in the Illinois public mental health system, the book is a visual treat.

This entity is our soul, the essence and total compilation of who and what we are. The soul carries with it all of the information gathered during each experience we have throughout each incarnation of our total existence. We reincarnate many times to provide opportunities for our soul to heal the damage done to it in the past and to grow in strength.

This book provides the rational for this belief and the directions for ways to make the process of living in this incarnation easier so our soul has a chance to heal and grow while we carry on a fulfilling physical life.

The soul is dependent on the cooperation of the human mind and body so it can grow and move along a path planned before this current incarnation. This book shows how and why we experience varying degrees of mental distress and how to understand how the mind can work cooperatively with the soul so there is a resulting growth in mental and spiritual well-being.