Social Psychology

Beth Alison Maloney

Saving Sammy: A Mother's Fight to Cure Her Son's Ocd

The story of one mother's fight against the medical establishment to prove the link between infection-triggered PANDAS and her son's sudden-onset OCD and Tourette syndrome. The summer before entering sixth grade, Sammy, a bright and charming boy who lived on the coast of Maine, suddenly began to exhibit disturbing behavior. He walked and ate with his eyes shut, refused to bathe, burst into fits of rage, slithered against walls, and used his limbs instead of his hands to touch light switches, doorknobs, and faucets. Sammy's mother, Beth, already coping with the overwhelming responsibility of raising three sons alone, watched helplessly as her middle child descended into madness. Sammy was soon diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and later with Tourette syndrome. Unwilling to accept the doctors' prognoses for lifelong mental illness and repeated hospitalizations, Beth fought to uncover what was causing this decline. Beth's quest took her to the center of the medical community's raging debate about whether OCD and Tourette syndrome can be caused by PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorders Associated with Streptococcal Infections). With the battle lines ...

Janis Abrahms Spring

How Can I Forgive You?: The Courage to Forgive, the Freedom Not to

"If you are struggling with issues of betrayal--or the challenge of whether and how to forgive--here is the most helpful and surprising book you will ever find on the subject."--Harriet Lerner, Ph.D., author of The Dance of AngerEveryone is struggling to forgive someone: an unfaithful partner, an alcoholic parent, an ungrateful child, a terrorist. This award-winning book provides a radical way for hurt parties to heal themselves--without forgiving, as well as a way for offenders to earn genuine forgiveness.Until now, we've been taught that forgiveness is good for us and that good people forgive. Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring, a gifted clinical psychologist and award-winning author of After the Affair, proposes a radical, life-affirming alternative that lets us overcome the corrosive effects of hate and get on with our lives--without forgiving. She also offers a powerful and unconventional model for earning genuine forgiveness--one that asks as much of the offender as it does of the hurt party.Beautifully written and filled with insight, practical advice, and poignant case studies, this bold and healing book offers step-by-step, concrete instructions that help us make peace with others ...

Beverly Flanigan

Forgiving the Unforgivable

"A clearheaded study of what life can do to us and possible ways to begin again." -Carl A. Whitaker, M.D., author of Midnight Musings of a Family Therapist and coauthor of The Family Crucible Women and men who have been deeply hurt by someone they love often experience a pain that spirals out to undermine their work, relationships, self-esteem, and even their sense of reality. In Forgiving the Unforgivable, author Beverly Flanigan, a leading authority on forgiveness, defines such unforgivable injuries, explains their poisonous effects, and then guides readers out of the paralyzing anger and resentment. As a Fellow of the Kellogg Foundation, Flanigan conducted a pioneering study of forgiveness, and from that study, from her clinical practice, and from her many years of teaching, researching, and conducting professional workshops and seminars, she devised a unique six-stage program, presented here. Filled with inspiring real-life examples, Forgiving the Unforgivable is both a practical and a comforting guide to recovery and healing.