Child-Mental-Health Books

An interesting book with quick and easy to read chapters that are very well written. The book does, however, read like it is written for high school students or at most college freshman. It is a bit too easy to understand and states the really obvious a bit too much so it isn't a good book for 2nd year college students or above. It might be good for liesure but I doubt you'd walk away having learned anything new.

This poorly written book contains too many errors and misrepresentations to be of any value. As a polemic and "essay" by the group Advocates for Children in Therapy it presents a rather biased and misdirected point of view. The death of this poor child at the hands of the unlicensed persons is unrelated to the title of the book...Attachment Therapy was not on trial. Two persons who were not licensed at all committed a crime.

Exploitation is the theme of this book. Parents are exploited by such fringe groups of unlicensed "therapists" into going along with quackery and other questionable methods. Most people are determined to keep their child(ren) from being labelled, but that does not appear to be the case in this book.

This book brings to light the horrors and emotional atrocity of Attachment Therapy (AT) aka holding therapy. Anybody who has a child who has been diagnosed with RAD will want to read this book. AT is a form of abuse and quacks like the Tinbergens who were ornithologists and NOT experts on autism as well as Martha Welch tout this method. No scientific evidence is presented to support their claims; only unproven anecdotes are offered. If AT/holding therapy really worked, then everybody would be doing it and nobody would have autism or attachment disorders.

On the other hand, Candace, the child featured in this book has an account that has been proven. Court testimony and video tapes have shown this to be a dangerous practice in some cases. Had this child been treated by reputable professionals who were at the very least licensed, she might be alive today. The authors of this book did a good job of exposing this form of fringe treatment for the crock and emotional fraud that it is and uncovered a sad truth about how it claimed a casualty.

While this is a tragic story based on professionals who should never had practiced, the authors go way too far and expres personal vs professional opinions. They loose credibility and objectivity as they all belong to an anti-therapy group, and really have no formal training in any clinical areas. They do not treat children, but are quick to publish and criticize without knowing all the facts. This child was, in fact, tortured and mistreated but these authors also abuse many professionals who are NOT in the same mold as the therapists involved in this case. Mercer, Rosa and Sarner really need to have better training and credentials before professing to be "experts".

This book pulls together information from many different places allowing the reader to view a concise overview of the problem that is "attachment therapy".

The difficulty with this book, from its title onwards, is the fact that it uses one example of bad practise to brand a whole style of therapy, a massive section of child development theory, research and practise dangerous and bad.

Attachment theory is highly evidence based, established over decades, and extremely useful in understanding the nature of human relationships. The fact that children who experience abuse and neglect from their carers in early life generally find making new attachments more difficult is proven beyond doubt. And therefore a number of therapies have developed, some very stronly based on evidence and implemented by highly skilled and professionally trained and licensed clinicians, and others that were less effective or evidence based and more controversial.

So, yes, bad examples of practise exist (as they do in every corner of the world in every field) and it is extremely sad that they have led to deaths, and I'm totally in favour of greater regulation of therapy professions if we can prevent or reduce malpractise. However, the implication of this book is to not only tar these examples, but to tarnish all therapists who work on attachment issues or even believe that they exist! It is the equivalent of finding one brand of anti-depressant medication that in rare cases can cause death, investigating one death, and then saying that proves not only that all anti-depressants are bad, but that it is proof that depression doesn't exist.

I'm generally quite against the medical/American idea that every presentation needs a diagnosis that places the problem within the individual (in this case, placing the attachment disorder within the child, when attachment is a relationship and only shows between TWO people). However, it is really unhelpful to make such sweeping generalisations and not to present any of the evidence about how there is also much good therapy dealing with attachment issues and how to help a new parent compensate for the abuse/neglect of a prior carer.

I'm a clinical psychologist, with a doctorate and eight years training and ten years of clinical practise with children including those removed from their family of origin. I can tell you both from my reading and my experience that there are some wonderful, sensitive, child-centred ways of working with parents and carers with attachment issues, that make significant positive changes for people. We need to be building on these, evaluating them with systematic research, and increasing their availability, because they change people's lives and allow children who have been damaged by their past to begin to feel loved and lovable.

Just because there is a bad example, we shouldn't ignore the hundreds of good examples. That would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I was hoping to learn more about my daughter's PDD but only learned that the author, a chiropractor, believes chiropractic care is THE way to treat "it". The book is very poorly written and seems to give facts about PDD, sensory integration and ADD that could have easily been taken from any text on those subjects. I felt let down and cheated when the chiropractic angle was introduced near the end of the book. I wanted to learn more about PDD but it was not to be with this book. Don't waste your money. If you want a truly informative book with great lists (broken down into age groups), read "The Out of Sync Child" by Carol Stock Kranowitz. THIS is the book that gave me great insight to my child's PDD and sensory integration issues. I felt as though the author could see into my house and was talking about my child.

I HAVE USED THIS BOOK EXTENSIVELY AS A POINT OF CONTACT FOR PARENTS WHO ARE DISCOVERING THAT THEIR CHILD HAS A DEVELOPMENTAL PROBLEM. I FOUND DR. FALLON'S CHECKLIST TO BE A FANTASTIC VEHICLE FOR PARENTS TO FIRST DIGEST THEIR CHILD'S PROBLEM.

UNLIKE SOME OF THE REVIEWERS, I NEVER SAW THIS TEXT TO BE A CLAIM FOR CHIROPRACTIC TO BE ANYTHING OTHER THAN ANOTHER MODALITY FOR TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN WITH PDD. OTHER MODALITIES RECEIVE EQUAL TIME AND ATTENTION.

FOR ANY NEW PARENT WHO IS TRYING TO DETERMINE IF SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THEIR CHILD THIS BOOK IS THE BEST

As the parents of a "special needs" child, sorting through the jargon and understanding the issues around her disability are vital to giving her the best chance in life that we can. This book has been an outstanding source for us. It clearly and effectively communicates the types of conditions we - and she - are facing.

Our child was originally mis-diagnosed with ADHD. Through this book and our own experience, we have learned that many children like ours display symptoms that cannot be clearly classified into neat little boxes. As a result, they require the kind of multi-dimensional therapy that Dr. Fallon advocates.

This is an excellent resource for any parent who wants to know how to help their child and be better informed when dealing with doctors.

If you are looking to see if your child may have a problem.. this is the book for you! An informative check list highlights the book where parents can determine if their child has a problem worth pursuing. This is a checklist whereby parents won't be mis lead.

I do not see this volume as a vehicle for the authors chiroparctic background but rather a vehicle for the novice who knows little about sensory integration and other issues confronting the child.

I have given this book to countless parents in my practice when I have been unable to get them to understand that there may be a problem with their child. For those of you who see a problem, and can not convince your son, dughter patient etc to seek help, this is the book for you!

The other reveiwers were looking at this as some cure all book...hogwash I say........never did the author state anywhere that her chiropratic could help with anything other than sensory integration for these PDD children.

Go get the book now!!!

Don't be mislead by the title. I was looking for good information on PDD-NOS and this book was a "let-down".

I found this book easy to read and even though I thought some of it's idea's a bit out dated, it was a very interesting insite to gender developement.

A fairly comprehensive recitation of literature in the field, but lacking in original voice and too politically correct for my tastes. Would make a good college text if paired with a dissenting voice for a more balanced presentation.

A fairly comprehensive recitation of existing literature in the field, but lacking in original voice, and too politically correct for my tastes. Would make a good college text if paired with a dissenting voice for a more balanced presentation.

While the information in the book is decent enough, I had somehow missed that it has a fairly strong bibilical base. I have since gotten the book, You Have to Say I'm Pretty, You're My Mother, and it's a better fit for what I am looking for. I am planning to send this one onto my sister, whose beliefs are more inline with the christian principles in the book.

"Mom I Feel Fat" is a well-written and thoughtful book to help mothers help their daughters improve their self-images. The author is a licensed professional counselor and she focuses on the entire mother daughter relationship. She asks thoughtful and provoking questions and provides stimulating exercises for the reader.

The author believes a mother has to understand her own emotions and behaviors in order to connect with and help her daughter understand hers, so this book is about the transformation of the mother as well as the daughter, which I agree is very necessary.

I would have given this book five stars were it not for the cover (I wish there were a 4 1/2 star rating, which is what I would like to give it.) The cover shows a model-perfect mother daughter pair, awash in flattering lighting. The real mother daughter pair, not so model-perfect are in a tiny picture on the back.

This otherwise promising book relied too heavily on God and religion for the lay reader.

I found this book very negative. It was not at all what I was lookin for. I did not find it helpful, to people preparing to introduce autism to those in the spectrum.

I believe that there is something for everyone in this book. We didn't find it negative at all.
There are many different worksheets in this book. We chose to use this in many different ways, over the course of several weeks.
Our school psychologist also had a copy, and some of the worksheets were done at school with her, either alone, or in a small group.
We chose to take it slow, allowing our son to move at his own pace. We found it really nice to have a book to help us introduce autism to him, since he never really came to us to ask about his differences. (Two psychologists told us it was time.)
As we started progressing through the book, he started asking more questions, and actually wanting to do more of the worksheets!
I really recommend this to parents who are struggling with HOW to explain autism to their children. Just use your own common sense and use the various worksheets in the way that makes the most sense for your child.

Having been a patient of Marlene Boskind-White's, I will also say that I think that no one should read this book. I had a very difficult time with bulimia and Mrs. White's book made me feel worse about myself than I did before I ever saw her or read her book. Stay away from this book. I don't recommend it to anyone. I care about people who suffer through what I suffered. I have been doing great for 8 years now, no thanks to this book or it's author.

Gives a well presented behavioral approach (with definite feminist leanings) to treating binge/ purgers. The authors are not critical of parents or spouses. They encourage the binge/ purger to take responsibility. They have only a few suggestions for those who are not ready to do so. Nothing about men with this eating disorder is mentioned. Overall this book is extremely practical and helpful.

This book did not prove to be beneficila in helping me undestand my diseases. It made me feel helpless and esasperates. I do not recomend anybody to read this book. If anything it has allowed me to fall deeper into my eating disorder. The book did not present any clear fews on this issues. Every was in a shade of gray, when you deal with this issue you need to stick with black and white.

I understand that the typical Psychology Book is not exactly a riveting novel, but good god, this was way too much. I have never been more annoyed with a text book- I would never voluntarily have read this garbage! She would have had a much shorter book if we weren't forcefed her life story at every possible chance she could insert it in. This woman is very full of herself...very full. There were a lot of typos, a lot of redundent sentences, and a lot of crap we didn't need! I hope for the rest of the psychology students of the world that this author reads these reviews and vows never to write another text book again. If I ever have a class that requires another text book by her, I will drop without hesitation! And change majors the next morning!

In my 4 years as an undergraduate i have never read such a poorly written book. She has more typo's then I have including multiple references to the NEO-PR (NEO-PI-R). She incorrectly summarizes groundbreaking research (i.e. Ceci, Rosenblum, & Debruyn, 1999). Her feminist agenda flows freely all over this book along with usless stories about her self that dont add to the text. DO NOT PURCHASE THIS BOOK FOR YOUR CLASS. You and your students will regret it.

Hellen Bee is able to carry one through the years of adulthood through many avenues. Using scientific studies she interprets the data in meaningful ways. Inclusion of personal accounts and her conversational style make the reading interesting. The book continually ties previous ideas to new concepts giving a nice continuity. I especially enjoyed her occasional insertions of the not-so-scientific spiritual aspects of the adult experience, which I was not expecting in a textbook. My ideas of what it means to grow old were challenged and changed during the reading of this book. Some myths of adulthood are adeptly smashed making the thought of aging not such a frightful one. The only criticism I would include is that occasionally the point being made was not clear to me and a few conclusions seem to have contradictory statements in following chapters. That may be expected in the field of psychology, however.

This article seemed to read better for an educator, then it did for a parent like myself. While there were a few suggestion for coping with changes, they were more generalized than I had hoped. I had hoped this article would give more specific suggestions.

However, it has given me an idea or two on how to get started. First of all, I believe that I will share this article with my autistic middle schooler's teachers, as it may answer some of their question and concerns.

I bought this e document and I found it useless, lacking of any kind of original information and/or tips strategies for anything. Just vague comparisons and the definition of AS don't make it worth the 6$. It basically says all over the place ¨support ¨¨support ¨¨support¨, what is the news here?

Great for research and education. Very limited insight into what to actually do when presented with a anxious child. I am a clinician and I was hoping this would assist me in treatment, it has not!!