Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Dread of Death

By Irvin D. Yalom

This book was not sent to us for review but actually handed onto me by my partner who is a journalist to whom it was sent. It is perhaps by chance that I am reviewing it for the journal or, as it turns out, possibly fate. Yalom is a Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Stanford University, awarded The American Psychiatric Association 2000 Oscar Pfister prize (for important contributions to religion and psychiatry, a therapist from California, and also author of The Gift Of Therapy and other books. At times during the text he inferred that perhaps he was not the best of writers but I am immediately going to take him to task, because I thoroughly enjoyed the text.

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Published by Scribe, Melbourne.

ISBN 9781921215667

Price $31.00

Hypnosis For Smoking Cessation: An NLP and Hypnotherapy Practioner's Maual

By David Botsford

Botsford is hypnotherapist and NLP practitioner practising in the UK. This 250-page book also comes with a DVD that contains client handouts and transcripts. He is what is often called a lay hypnotherapist and there is little other indication in the book of what other training he may or may not have undergone. He is by all accounts your communal garden hypnotherapist who on a day-to-day basis performs countless smoking cessation sessions, sometimes with a money back guarantee.

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Published by Crown House Publishing, UK. Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN 9781845900748

Price $83.00

Hypnosis for Pain Control

Demonstration by David R Patterson PhD, ABPP
Series III - Behavioral Health and Health Counseling
Hosted by Jon Carlson PsyD, EdD

Professor Patterson is a rehabilitation psychologist, at the University of Washington, who has a great deal of experience in working with patients who are seeking pain relief through hypnosis. He has worked considerably with hypnotic analgesic effects of hypnosis with burns patients and his research interests are the long-term rehabilitation of trauma patients and adjustments to the reality of pain. Patterson earned his undergraduate degree at Emory University and his PhD at Florida State University. He completed an internship at the University of Southern California, a fellowship in Rehabilitation Psychology at Emory University, and a Medical Psychology residency at the Oregon Health Sciences Center. His clinical experience is both within a hospital and a university setting.

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Published by American Psychological Association, USA. Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN 9781433801273

Price $154.00

A Discourse with Our Genes: The Psychosocial and Cultural Genomics Of Therapeutic Hypnosis and Psychotherapy

By Ernest L Rossi

Ernest Rossi is an American psychologist who many years ago immortalised himself by editing the collection of Milton Erickson's papers. Few people alive in the hypnosis world could be unaware of the phenomenal contributions he has made to the field of hypnosis. He was a winner of the Milton H. Erickson Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award in 1980 for his outstanding contribution to the field of psychotherapy, and has won several other awards for his excellence in research and teaching hypnosis.

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Published by Editris, USA. Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN 978-1932462357

Price $79.00

Healing With Stories

Edited By George Burns

A therapist asked me at a workshop recently if I could recommend a book on metaphor and how to construct and become proficient in therapeutic story-telling. I told her I would consider putting such a book in the review section of the Hypnosis Australia online journal for the November issue, not really knowing what I would choose to review; but then this book arrived from the publisher for review and the book made the decision for me.

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Published by Wiley USA

ISBN 978-0-471-78902-4
Price $67.00

Urban Tantra: Sacred Sex for the Twenty First Century

By Barbara Carrellas

In reviewing a book for a professional journal of therapists, a reviewer has to ask themselves the relevancy of the author and their works. Carrellas, a New Yorker, teaches tantric sex and in this book she writes about it but that it itself does not draw my attention because there are many such teachers out there. The book, however, is beautifully written and I mean beautifully because it is completely without pretension and literally speaks to the second person in simple voice.

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Published by Celestial Arts, USA

ISBN 1587612909
Price $39.00

Using Hypnosis in Family Therapy

By Michele Ritterman PhD

Dr Ritterman, PhD is a psychologist and family therapist who was one of Milton Erickson's students and a pioneer in the field of the integration of hypnosis and family therapy. She has reportedly trained thousands of therapists around the globe on using hypnosis in family therapy. This book was first published in 1983 and republished as a second addition in 2005. As an individual, couples, family therapist and a hypnotherapist this book made great sense to me.

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Published by Zeig, Tucker & Theisen - Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN
1-932462-36-8
Price $59.00

Therapeutic Hypnosis with Children and Adolescents

By William C Wester, II, EdD & Laurence I. Sugarman, MD

Having just reviewed a DVD on child hypnosis by Sugarman, I was reticent before reviewing this book, thinking it might be more of the same. Well, I have to say it was just as excellent but has also turned out to be one of my favorite books of the year and it's only May. The book is exactly what the title tells us it is with a plethora of great contributions and edited in very digestible chunks, making it most palatable for the busy hypnosis clinician.

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Crown House Publishing - Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN 1845900375
Price $78.00

The Hypnotic Use of Waking Dreams: Exploring Near-Death Experiences Without The Flatline

By Paul W. Schenk PsyD

Dr Schenk is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Atlanta, Georgia, USA. Working in hypnosis for more than 25 years, he is an approved consultant with the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis. He is obviously a very skilled therapist and his style of writing is pleasant and easy to read. The title of the book, however, is slightly misleading because it is more about past-life work than near-death experiences; but that in no way detracts from it contents. It is well written, skillful and huge relief from yet another book on therapy by numbers.

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Crown House Publishing - Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN 1845900308
Price $49.95

Hypnosis with kids - DVD Demonstration

With Dr Robert McNeilly

McNeilly was a general practitioner of medicine as a family doctor for ten years before being exposed to Milton Erickson in the 1970s. He is now one of Australia's most vocal proponents of Ericksonian style of hypnotherapy and counselling and a member of the Association of Solution Oriented Counsellors & Hypnotherapists of Australia (ASOCHA), which is a member of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Federation of Australia (PACFA). He has been teaching hypnosis and solution-focused learning in Melbourne and at congresses for 25 years, where he is a director of The Centre of Effective Learning.

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Crown House Publishing - Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN 184590005-7
Price $62.00

Hypnosis In Pediatric Practice: Imaginative Medicine in Action (2006) (DVD) 90 mins

By Laurence Sugarman, MD

This documentary, which is what it calls itself, is an excellent piece of work. The editing and content inclusion gives a wonderful overview of hypnosis in pediatrics medicine, and in my opinion ought to be course material for all medical students and hypnotherapists. It does not intrude into the field of child psychotherapy or psychiatry but stays well within the field of the use of hypnosis in pediatric medicine.

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Crown House Publishing - Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

No image available

ISBN 184590036-7
Price $82.00

Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws
By Kate Bornstein

Kate Bornstein is one of America's greatest thinkers, writers and performers on gender issues today. Her very ethos of existence is to operate outside the box just as if she was a self-assembly person designed by Edward De Bono, marketed by Ikea superstore and delivered with no instruction of how to put her together.

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Published by Seven Stories Press, USA, 2006

ISBN 13: 978-1-58322-720-6
Price $25.00

Gay Sex, Gay Health
By By Dr Alex Vass MD

I reviewed this book the day after Sydney's' Mardi Gras weekend. I picked it up off the pile of books on my desk of books to be reviewed because during the proceeding week it became clear in the press how little heterosexuals really understand about gay people and their culture. When asked at the Mardi Gras party how I knew which people were the undercover cops looking to arrest revellers for drug possession, my reply was clear, "They are the ones that look as if they are afraid of being arrested."

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Published by Vermillion, London 2006 - Imprint of Random House UK

ISBN 009191262-8
Price $45.00

Milton H Erickson, MD, Explorer in Hypnosis and Therapy (DVD
By Jay Haley and Madeleine Richeport-Haley - 60 mins

The DVD is essentially Haley and what a funny thing for me to say when talking about a DVD about Milton Erickson MD, the profoundest medical hypnotist of the 20th century. What I am referring to is that the way the DVD is put together with the Haleys' smoothness and beautiful narrative style. If that were just it, however, I would not be reviewing its content.

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Crown House Publishing - Available in Australia from Footprint (www.footprint.com.au)

ISBN 184590023-5
Price $85.00

Change 101
By Bill O'Hanlon

Bill O'Hanlon is a certified counsellor, a licensed marriage and couples therapist and long-time author who studied with Erickson and was one of the architects of solution-focused therapy. I had specifically requested to review this book ahead of Bill's workshops in Australia and I lay down the pages of a heavy text on the behaviour of retroviruses to read it. At 150 pages, I had expected much more text. In fact, I think I had expected a weighty book crammed with technicalities since Bill has been a therapist for so many years. What I got instead made me laugh. In fact, I got therapy myself as I was reading it because Bill, as always, keeps it simple and weaves his messages into tales. Or is it tales within tales?

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Published by Norton USA

ISBN 13:978-0-393-70496-9
Price $36.95

Ex-Gay Research: Analysing the Spitzer Study and Its relation to Science Religions, Politics and Culture.
Edited by Jack Drescher MD & Kenneth Zucker PhD

In 1973 Dr Robert Spitzer, an American psychiatrist, was one of the main players in having homosexuality removed from The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) which the majority of the world's mental health professionals take as their format to identify pathologies. The removal of homosexuality from the DSM was heavily responsible for the growth and spawning of the the gay liberation movement and made Spitzer a legend. In 2001 Spitzer presented a study at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in New Orleans on persons who had undergone what is termed "Reparative Therapy", generally practised by religious groups, to rid individuals of their homosexuality, which was later published.

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Published by Harrington Park Press: imprint of Haworth Press, New York

ISBN 13: 978-1-56023-557-6
Price $87.95

Hypnosis
Edited by Michael Heap & and Irving Kirsch

This is a volume of reprinted scientific papers on hypnosis stretching over a period of some 75 years. Heap is British clinical and forensic psychologist working out of the Wathwood Hospital, UK who has held various university teaching posts. Kirsch was an academic and researcher at University of Connecticut, USA and now holds the Chair of Psychology, School of Applied Psychosocial Studies, Plymouth, UK. The book's subject matter include the birth of hypnosis, theories of hypnosis, hypnotic suggestibility, hypnotic phenomenon, neuropsychological and neurophysiologic research and theory, clinical applications and professional and legal issues.

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Published Ashgate Publishing, UK

ISBN 0-7546-254-4
Price $297.00

Sex and the Law
Edited by Rosemary Barry

This very easy to read 150-page book provides exactly what the back cover promises - a clear, concise and up-to-date information on how the law in New South Wales relates to sexual matters. The book was put together specifically for healthcare professionals to help them understand relative issues concerning the areas of reproduction and sexual health on a day-to-day basis. It covers medical treatment and the law, consent to medical treatment, the law relating to reproduction, sexual health issues, and sexuality and sexual offences. It also goes through the complaints and liability obligations and processes in which health care workers may find themselves.

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Published Redfern Legal Centre Publishing, Australia

ISBN 0-94720-595-0
Price $29.95

Welcome to the Dance: Caffeine Allergy: A Masked Cerebral Allergy and Progressive Toxic Dementia
Ruth Whalen, MLT (ASCP)

It is rare that a book about a person's personal story should ever be reviewed in an academic hypnosis journal. I knew, however, as soon as the promotional material came across my desk, this would be one of those exceptions. I must declare at the beginning of this review that I am solely prejudiced towards the contents of this book, operating, as a practitioner from more of a naturopathic perspective than an allopathic philosophy.

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Published by Trafford Publishing

ISBN 1-4120-5000-6
Price $61.95

Clinical Applications of Hypnosis
George Gafner

Gafner is the co-director of the hypnosis training program and director of the family therapy training program at Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs Care System. He is also the co-author of Handbook of Hypnotic Inductions and Hypnotic Techniques.

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Published by WW Norton & Company, New York

ISBN 0-393-70444-0
Price $77.95

M.E., Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and Fibromyalgia - The Reverse Therapy™ Approach
John Eaton

This 100-page small but informative book came to us to look at because John Eaton is bringing his Reverse Therapy approach to Australia in late 2005. Commonly known as the mysterious illness ME and associated disorders are the kinds of disorders that GPs generally do not how to treat. The Australian College of Physicians conservatively estimates that between 0.02-0.04% of the Australian population suffer from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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Published by Authors Online, UK, 2005

ISBN:
0755201620
Price $95.95

Pioneer Video Collection
Milton Erickson Foundation

It is interesting that The Milton Erickson Foundation over the past twenty years expanded beyond its roots in the diversity of material they now sell to the wider public, much of which was often only available in university libraries or psychology departments. Its roots were in Erickson's books but now in addition to its books, audiotapes and CDs is a videotape collection that can be shipped anywhere in the world.

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Price $59.00 - $89.95 USD for individual tapes up to $1300 USD for sets

Metaphoria: Metaphor and Guided Metaphor for Psychotherapy and Healing
Rubin Battino, MS

This is a very well written book, which makes it a pleasure to read and even though it is about metaphor it has a disciplined readable structure. That is, it is a metaphor for the construction and delivery of metaphor, not just from an intuitive basis, but as a scientific perspective within the fields of healing and self-development. The accessibility draws the reader in for a good read and many stories about stories.

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Published by Crown House Publishing, UK,USA 2003

ISBN:
1899836829
Price $104.90

Practising Safe Hypnosis: A Risk Management Guide
Roger Hambleton

This book is a very brave attempt to cover what is a deserving subject of the culpability of damage to people from side effects due to having undergone hypnotic procedures. It is not, however, what the title professes it to be - a risk management guide. Hambleton, a lawyer who also holds a Bachelor's degree in psychology and criminology, a Master's degree in law, MPhil research degree from Manchester University, and an advanced practitioner diploma in clinical hypnotherapy, fails to grasp many of the principles of the application of hypnosis.
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Published by Crown House Publishing, UK,USA 2002

ISBN:
1899836942
Price $189.50

Hypnosis and Suggestibility: An Experimental Approach
Clark L Hull PhD

This book, first published in 1933, was undoubtedly a milestone and landmark in hypnosis in its time. Hull (1888-1952) was a psychologist and experimenter at Wisconsin university and later at Yale became a past president of the American Psychological Society. He was Milton Erickson's professor at the university of Wisconsin and largely responsible for igniting Erickson's experimental thirst for research, although Erickson never really acknowledged fully Hull's contribution to hypnosis in that area. This book was largely responsible for new interest in hypnosis at that time particularly after a very dry period of interest and experimentation in the subject because of Freud publicly turning his back on the subject.
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Published by Crown House Publishing, UK,USA 2002

ISBN:
1899836934
Price $117.52

Time Distortion in Hypnosis: An Experimental and Clinical Investigation: Second Edition
By Linn F Cooper & Milton H Erickson

This is a reprint of the original work first published in 1959 by the authors. Since time distortion is a fundamental tool used by hypnotists today it is imperative for all hypnotists to have a profound and concise understanding of the phenomena. Hypnosis can give both the participant and the operator great opportunities to bend subjective time to facilitate goal-orientated tasks in trance. It is rare that a reprint ever stands the test of experimental or clinical intellectual retrospection. This book will be a great joy for the experienced and novice reader in hypnosis.
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Published by Crown House Publishing, UK 2002

ISBN:
189983695-0
Price $65.23

Hartland's Medical and Dental Hypnosis: Fourth Edition
Michael Heap & Kottiyattil K Aravind

John Hartland (1901-1977), an MD, published his first edition of this volume, which has become a standard textbook for many studying hypnosis. Each edition has been a publication in its own right, taking on the knowledge, experience and perspective of the relevant authors. This edition by Heap, a Sheffield-based psychologist and Aravind a Rotherham-based general practitioner, both in Britain, also takes on the character of their knowledge and perspectives on hypnosis and its uses with clinical environments.
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Published by Churchill Livingstone, 2002

ISBN:
0-443-07217-5
Price $90.00

Better Birthing with Hypnosis
By Michelle Leclaire O'Neill, PhD, RN

Leclaire proposes her own birthing system deriving her theory from the Lamaze method and even Read ideologies, but basically suggesting a female reliance on instinct during the birthing process. Whilst she gives a nodding acknowledgement and disclaimer with regard to obstetrics, one cannot help but register her intense dislike of the medicalisation of childbirth by the medical profession. It seemed to slip her attention that the infant mortality rate during the 20th century improved beyond recognition because of the intervention by medical professionals.
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Published by Keats Publishing, 2002

ISBN:
0-658-01533-8
Price $39.15

The Letters of Milton H Erickson
Jeffrey K Zeig, PhD & Brent Geary, PhD (Editors)

This foray into Milton Erickson's correspondence gives a wider view of his thinking and activities in psychotherapy, clinical and experimental hypnosis and the development of brief therapy. It reaffirms him as indeed the pioneer and father of brief strategic therapy that his many disciples repeatedly set him up to have been by the letters he received from his contemporaries.
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Published by Zeig, Tucker & Thiesen, 2000

ISBN:
1891944118
Price: $115.00

The Wild Genie: The Healing Power of Menstruation
By Alexandra Pope

This is a book about women experiencing their menstrual cycle and how to move from suffering to celebrating that, often hidden, biological function. The author, now a psychotherapist, started as an education professional, and it shows in the beautiful way she puts across the stories of many women's experiences and the clear and communicative layout of information.
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Published by Sally Milner Publishing. 2001.

ISBN:
1 86351 279 9
Price $34.95

101 Healing Stories: Using Metaphors in Therapy
By George W Burns

Written by a clinical psychologist and hypnotherapist this book has a foreword by Michael Yapko. With such an introduction, you would of course expect a great deal. Add to that the credentials that the author is director of the Milton H Erickson Institute of Western Australia and the reader suddenly expects their money's worth. I am happy to say every dollar of the purchase price will be well spent.
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Published by John Wiley & Sons. 2001.

ISBN:
0471395897
Price $69.95

Self-Hypnosis for Life: Mind, Body & Spiritual Excellence
By Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH

This is an easy-to-read, step-by-step, original, information-packed compendium which introduces the novice to self-hypnosis and is also a work that therapists can use with their clients. Topics covered include learning self-hypnosis; habit breaking; installing new patterns of behaviours; breathing re-education; eating & weight control; raw food veganism; exercise motivation; confidence building; self-health promotion and healing; values; beliefs & attitudes supplementation; creating inner peace, love, happiness & calm; developing states of excellence.

Published by Extraordinary People Press. 2000. Click here for more details, review quotes etc.

ISBN:
09529482 3 0
Price $36.60

Investigating Stage Hypnosis
By Dr Tracie O'Keefe DCH

In this book, Dr O'Keefe throws a searchlight on a subject that many hypnotherapists wish would go away. However, this somewhat head-in-the-sand attitude will not address the increasingly controversial problem of stage hypnosis. In her previous book, Trans-X-U-All: The Naked Difference, Dr O'Keefe's treatment of that subject was both enlightening and frank. She brings the same fresh incisiveness of thinking to her latest publication Investigating Stage Hypnosis. This is a book that deals with historical background, expert, professional and public statements and opinion, and legal processes.
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Published by Extraordinary People Press. 1998. Click here for more details, review quotes etc.

ISBN:
0 9529482 1 4
Price $23.00