This is How: Proven Aid in Overcoming Shyness, Molestation, Fatness, Spinsterhood, Grief, Disease, Lushery, Decrepitude & More. For Young and Old Alike. is Augusten Burroughs' new self-help book (reviews here, here, and here), one which scorns the genre cliches of goal-setting and affirmations in favor of a hard-nosed philosophy of self-honesty based on lessons learned from his own background of abuse, neglect, and rape. In an interview with CNN, he gives snippets of his views on subjects like the harm of people "clinging to a dream which maybe they don't actually have the talent to do", suicide ("it doesn't release you, it adds a new layer of horror") and the quest for thinness ("the brain is magnificent and to focus on your gastrointestinal track is a complete waste"). (previously)
posted by shivohum on May 14, 2012 - 42 comments

The epidemic of mental illness plaguing the Americans and the overmedication of psychiatric patients are in part artifacts of the diagnostic method. [more inside]
posted by hat_eater on Jun 22, 2011 - 50 comments

Swimming around in a mixture of language and matter, humans occupy a particular evolutionary niche mediated by something we call 'consciousness'. To Professor Nicholas Humphrey we're made up of "soul dust": "a kind of theatre... an entertainment which we put on for ourselves inside our own heads." But just as that theatre is directed by the relationship between language and matter, it is also undermined by it. It all depends how you think it.
posted by 0bvious on Feb 4, 2011 - 17 comments

Everyone in the blue and the green loves David Burns.
His landmark (and most often recommended) book, "Feeling Good" is available in Small, Medium, and you can even Supersize it, complete with exercises, questionnaires and expanded section on medications for depression.
"Feeling Good" is a great book, but Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is good for lots of stuff besides depression.
Like dating, relationship or shyness issues. Solutions that do not involve John Gray, Dr. Phil, Dr. Laura, or heck, even the song "Doctor Doctor" from the Thompson Twins.
No worries, because Dr. Burns has a book for that too, and it rocks. It will get you off the couch, and get you out and smooching in no time.
There are others out there also working with CBT to help you make your life all it can be.
posted by willmize on Mar 21, 2006 - 19 comments