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List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £4.95
Author:
Carl R. Rogers
By Constable
 Person centred/client centred therapy, 2007-02-17
This book is user friendly and is extremley informative. This book clearly explaines the concepts of cient focused therapy and an excellrnt tool for use in training as well as your own personal development. This book is a must for the novice.
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £3.50
Author:
Mike Pannett
By Constable
Loved it, 2008-08-20
Have just finished this book, and LOVED it. I found it kept my interest from start to finish. It was poignant-hilarious-interesting. I found out about the book from reading the extracts in the Daily Mail over the w/end. Am so pleased i went out and got the book. I am now going to pass it to my son who wants to join the Police. I hope a sequel is on the cards!!?
List Price: £9.99
Our Price: £4.89
Author:
Carl R. Rogers
By Constable
A humble masterpiece, 2007-10-15
This book by Carl Rogers on client-centered therapy may lack the drama, the force or the cleverness associated with some books on other forms of psychotherapy. What it doesn't seem to lack is a quiet wisdom that flowed from Rogers' many years of experience and sensitivity to his patients.
Despite some redundancy, being a collection of papers and presentations from Rogers over many years, "On Becoming A Person":
1) presents a branch of psychotherapy distinct from psychoanalysis and learning theories as well as from behaviorism, focused more on basically well people growing than on helping disturbed people get better.
2) is rooted in Roger's positive view of human nature as basically good and constructive, as he discovered in encounters with his patients. Roger's emphasis on empathic understanding, on not imposing theoretical speculations about the clients state of mind and on avoiding forceful interference would seem to avoid some of the abuses associated with some other psychotherapies.
3) presents ideas about the helping relationship that Rogers extended from psychotherapy into other areas such as education. Rogers's nondirective approach suggested to him the possibility of a progressive education free of examinations, of grades, of conclusions, and even of teachers.
4) despite its "fuzziness", Rogers does present some experimental evidence in favor of client-centered therapy as compared to those based on learning theory and behaviorism.
5) Rogers' shows appreciation of the growing power of the behavioral sciences but expresses concern less this science, like other sciences, becomes manipulated by politicians to the detriment of people. He basically wonders, if a culture is to be designed, as Skinner had suggested, what safeguards there are on the designer.
Rogers may seem too rosy and to be cherry-picking his results. The kind of measurements he presents, such as a psychological test measuring "changes in the self" based on self reporting may seem too fuzzy. How long it takes, compared to other available approaches, to get effective change seems not to have been a primary consideration for Rogers and may explain the rise of more recent approaches like Cognitive Therapy and Constructive Living. As a lay person, I respect the humane treatment Rogers recommended toward those entering psychotherapy as clients.
A major contribution by Rogers seems to be his recognition that his clients were not objects to do things to but rather fellow people whose experience he could share in.
List Price: £21.00
Our Price: £11.65
Author:
Melanie Fennell
By Constable and Robinson
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy treats emotional disorders by changing negative patterns of thought. It is now internationally established as a key method of helping overcome longstanding conditions such as panic attacks, depression, anxiety, gambling addictions and some eating disorders. The first thing that is attractive about this book is the total lack of "technicalese"; this, coupled with its logical construction makes it not only interesting but also easily accessible to the lay reader. To begin with, a guest author explains the history, meaning and relevance of cognitive therapy. This is followed by Melanie Fennell focusing on "Low Self Esteem" as an introduction to the main body of the book. The reader is then asked to participate in a self-assessment exercise. Having proven to have low self esteem, the reader is shown not only the impact self-esteem can have on their lives, but also many of the resultant issues--physical, emotional and social. "Having cleared the ground", the author proceeds to explain the importance of and means to identifying triggers to bouts of low self-esteem. This can be as a long-established predilection or as the result...
A really helpful, life changing book, 2008-08-07
This book is based on Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), which basically sets out to help you become aware of where you are thinking unrealistically (or just plain wrongly), and to replace these thoughts with helpful and more realistic ones.
I was really scared for a fair while that this book wouldn't help me, but actually it has, and loads. By about half-way through, I was daring to believe people actually loved me, I was approaching groups of people and joining in with the conversation, and being open about who I am - and starting to enjoy doing so, and not assuming everyone disliked me.
However, you need to know that this book is sometimes difficult to read, and to change will be hard. This is not a book that you "read". This is a book where you read a section, then you have to do the exercise - sometimes daily, for a couple of weeks - more like a "workbook". If you read this book cover-to-cover, it will have little discernable effect on your life. However, if you put the time in, you will notice real changes fairly soon.
I have to confess by being really confused and a little upset for some of the people who gave this very negative reviews - it doesn't advocate simplistically thinking "positively" in the face of all the evidence. To the contrary, it helps you set up experiements to discover what the truth actually is, and what you can do about it, and helps you examine the evidence from your experiments in a more rational way.
Finally, you can only do this if you *want* to change - yes, this book is aobut changing quite fundamental thoughts you may have about yourself, which you may have clung to for years like a safety blanket and not want to believe actually aren't true. And it will be hard! However, for me it's been really worthwhile. Good luck!!
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £3.04
Author:
Susan Richards
By Constable
Chosen By a Horse, 2008-06-29
This book was written with a true depth of emotion. It showed great love for a horse---a feeling I believe you can only experience if you have a horse of your own with a strong connection. When Lay Me Down was finally put to rest it brought tears to my eyes.
I would recommend this book to anyone with or without horses, it brings out the true feelings of love towards horses and what they can do for people.
List Price: £12.99
Our Price: £8.04
Author:
Steven Saylor
By Constable
Book Eleven in the Roma Sub Rosa Series, 2008-05-02
Steven Saylor's fascination with Ancient Rome began in childhood. A history graduate and former newspaper and magazine editor, he lives in Berkeley, California and has a huge number of fans of the Sub Rosa series he has written featuring Gordianus the Finder.
For avid readers of Saylor's books, this one will have been well worth waiting for, particularly as it features the return of the wonderful character of Gordianus the Finder, Ancient Rome's answer to the modern day private detective. Gordianus, along with the character of Marcus Didius Falco from the Lindsey Davis books are my favourite characters from any of the Roman whodunnits gracing the book shelves at the moment.
The civil wars that have plagued Rome are now over. Pompey, one of the main protagonists is dead. His opponent Caesar has returned to Rome amid rumours that not all of the resistance has been quashed. Nonetheless the Roman senate has appointed him as Dictator. He is not the only Roman to return home. Gordianus and his wife, Bethesda has recently returned from Egypt. Gordianus has retired from his profession of `Finder' but finds it impossible to refuse a call from Calpurnia, Caesar's wife.
Rumours abound about plots and conspiracy against the life of Caesar and the person hired by Calpurnia to look into these conspiracies, has turned up dead on her own doorstep. Gordianus agrees to help, but not from any love for Caesar. The person found dead on Calpurnia's doorstep was a friend of Gordianus and for old times sake Gordianus will do everything in his power to find the killer.
List Price: £7.99
Our Price: £3.73
Author:
Patrick Hamilton
By Constable
Superb wartime classic, 2006-04-14
Bombed out of her London flat, Miss Roach, thirty-nine and alone, takes up residence at the Rosamund Tea Rooms at Thames Lockdon. Here we encounter an array of lost, rootless, lonely people, the flotsam and jetsam of the War - the slaves of solitude.
The story unfolds through the eyes of the shy, self-effacing Miss Roach, a woman whose natural decency stands in stark contrast to the casual cruelty of the people around her; her fragile sense of self-worth, constantly undermined by her back-stabbing friend, the odious Vicki Kugelmann, the drunken ineptitude of her American lover, Lieutenant Pike, but most of all, her humiliation at the hands of one of Hamilton's most grotesque fictional monsters, the repellent Mr Thwaites - bully, narcissist, and Fascist sympathiser.
Despite the apparent tragedy of Miss Roach's situation, the pathos is relieved by Hamilton's unique black humour and his ability to write perfect, utterly convincing dialogue, infused with waspish comedy. Ever-present is the War itself, robbing the characters of their little comforts, dictating their everyday lives. An underrated, enjoyable, entertaining read. Great to see this wartime classic back in print again!
List Price: £8.99
Our Price: £3.25
Author:
David Craig
By Constable
Squandered, 2008-08-01
David Craig assembles data that, when assessed across the total New Labour period, points not just to outrageous incompetence, but to structural problems in how the country is run that suggest that the UK government simply cannot deliver its leadership role. The book is an indictment of New Labour but it also shows how the Tories and the civil service contributed to what is now an economy in free fall.
David Craig's figures speak for themselves. The message is clear. more and more of our money is being taken from us to create a class of inexperienced, incompetent and unaccountable parasites who are not only doing nothing to advance the cause of the people but who have become ulcers, draining life from the economy and constraining the creativity of the British people. When looked at over time, as 'Squandered' does, and free from wildly unjustified claims of 'prudence', we see details of:
- lazy promotion of pseudo growth by the active encouragement of low wage immigration on a scale never experienced before
- cuts in spending on equipment for the soldiers in the field at a time when the government pursues a deeply flawed policy of invasion (that was opposed by the mass of the UK populace
- growth in administrators and 'management' far in excess of the growth in numbers of nurses, police, soldiers and teachers
- profligate government borrowing at a time when the economy was buoyant to be paid back when the business cycle is reversed
- Public Private Finance 'Initiatives' that have increased the costs of the services being provided and which have been so badly managed that the tax payer will be carrying an unpredented economic burden for decades to come
- pension policies that mean 99% of civil servants have essentially unfunded, inflation-proof, final salary based pensions, while 72% of the private work force have nothing that compares to this - yet who have ot foot the bill out of future taxes (not out of pension funds that are earning interest)
- above all, our money has been spent and our futures put in hock without achieving any compensatory benefits: failing, dirty hospitals, new and refurbished schools whose new designs are condemned as 'mediocre' by the National Audit Commitee; falling education standards and higher rates of illiteracy; more serious crimes and increaing numbers of prisoners despite large sums spent on policing
- sale of over half the nation's gold stock when the gold market was at rock bottom, handled in such an absurd way that the price was driven even lower before the gold was even sold - putting billions in the hands of a Chinese Government wise enough to buy when price was low
- creation of quangos lined with unqualified party faithful who are now also on inflation-proof final salary linked pensions and who have absolutely no accountability to the people or the government
- pumping of money needlessly into a corrupt, unaccountable and self-serving EU whose accounts have been rejected by auditors for 11 years
- increasing the number of MPs while 50 - 60% of law making is now done from Brussels
- foolhardy promotion of poorly specified, intrinsically unworkable software projects such as ID cards and natioanl databases, whose costs escalate while their benefits either recede or disappear
- billions spent irresponsibly on consultants who added little value and on projects whose budgets are invariably out of control, from NHS computers to Olympic villages.
David Craig's book covers all the major government departments. It shows that the incompetence is not isolated - it is endemic. Despite the terrifying message of 'Squandered', Mr Craig offers some constructive proposals to prevent the current situation leading to a major collapse of the economy. He himself, though, appears to have little confidence that either our elected or our unelected masters will be capable of carrying them out.
New Labour inherited a healthy economy, freed from the disastrous Exchange Rate Mechanism (which Labour had advocated as strongly as the Tories) at a time when world markets were growing rapidly. Inflation for the 5 years before and after the arrival of new Labour was about the same. But where did the resulting wealth go? Sucked into taxation and unproductive house price rises, into abortive government spending and the creation of 600,000 new jobs for civil servants. The result - inflation and recession. Where are the genuine productive new jobs that New Labour claimed to have been created? They are with low wage immigrants while the numbers of the nation's euphemistically named 'economically inactive' has doubled.
My interpretation of Mr Craig's book is that the UK's system of government has failed us and will continue to do so unless there are major changes, not just in faces but in the selection process that resutls in such incompetence.
Despite all the verbiage, 'New Labour' turned out to be 'Old Labour' disguised in spin. MR Craig's figures show how Labour has repeated its old pattern of taxing success and spending on failure. It has pandered to a financial industry thta does not invest in Britain and discouraged investment in British technologies that can reduce the costs of living and improve out living standards. It has spent billions instead on abortive projects that have brought us close to cultural and economic breakdown.
In the absence of a competent opposition, in the face of New Labour's in-fighting following the failures of Phoney Bliar and Gawdhelpyou Brown, and with a media industry that has exchanged investigative journalism for celebrity baiting, 'Squandered' is the wake-up call we have been lacking. It's a bitter read, but thank you, David Craig for pulling it altogether and pointing us (and maybe our unbeloved Leaders) towards a different future.
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