Wisconsin Community Mental Health Counseling Centers, Inc.

Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success
by Harold S. Kushner 

A person's longing for significance--which can lead to excessive ambition, moral compromise, and preoccupation with status--often stands in conflict with a longing to be good. In Living a Life That Matters, Harold S. Kushner (the Massachusetts rabbi whose bestselling books include When Bad Things Happen to Good People) suggests that the most successful lives are the ones that most effectively manage and resolve that conflict. For example, Kushner retells the biblical story of Jacob, in a chapter whose lesson is named by its title, "How to Win By Losing." Hamlet, Dirty Harry, and Exodus are a few of the dozens of examples he cites while elaborating on the essential lesson of this book: that success and significance converge in every act of love, generosity, and self-sacrifice that we make for our families, friends, and communities. --Michael Joseph Gross 
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How Good Do We Have to Be? A New Understanding of Guilt and Forgiveness

In this self-proclaimed "radical" investigation of healing from guilt and shame, Kushner turns toward the act of forgiving as the answer to many human conflicts. HOW GOOD DO WE HAVE TO BE? asks how we can be better perceived by others and teaches empowerment by offering forgiveness to those who may have hurt us. Kushner's wise words are reflected in his voice. The rhythm and cadences of his sentences are simultaneously soothing and powerful (traits that may have come from his long experience as a rabbi). Listeners will come away with a sense of strength in discovering the gentleness necessary to accept, forgive and move on.
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The Yalom Reader: Selections from the Work of a Master Therapist and Storyteller
by Irvin D. Yalom, Ben Yalom

In this anthology of Irvin Yalom's most influential work to date, readers will experience the diversity of his writings, with pieces that range from the highly concrete and clinical to the abstract and theoretical and, of course, even to the literary. Yalom opens the reader with frank and enlightening autobiographical introduction and then proceeds through four distinctive parts,"Group Psychotherapy," "Existential Psychotherapy," "Merging Group and Existensial Psychotherapy," and "On Writing." The structure of the book follows in many ways the trajectory of Yalom's career, and the selections include excerpts from his text books, an award-winning monograph on existential group therapy; previously unpublished case studies, and excerpts from Loves Executioner; When Nietzsche Wept, and Lying on the Couch. In addition, Dr. Yalom has written a new introductory essay for each of his trade books, which focus on the evolution of his career and thinking since the books were originally published.
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