At once a loving legacy and an unsparing depiction of a devastating illness, Danielle Steel’s tribute to her lost son is a gift of life, hope, healing, and understanding to us all. “This is the story of an extraordinary boy with a brilliant mind, a heart of gold, and a tortured soul. It is the story of an illness, a fight to live, and a race against death. I want to share the story, and the pain, the courage, the love, and what I learned in living through it. I want Nick's life to be not only a tender memory for us, but a gift to others. . . . I would like to offer people hope and the realities we lived with. I want to make a difference. My hope is that someone will be able to use what we learned, and save a life with it.” —Danielle Steel From the day he was born, Nick Traina was his mother's joy. By nineteen, he was dead. This is Danielle Steel's powerful, personal story of the son she lost and the lessons she learned during his courageous battle against darkness. Sharing tender, painful memories and Nick's remarkable journals, Steel brings us a haunting duet between a singular young man and the mother who loved him—and a harrowing portrait of a masked killer called manic depression, which afflicts between two and three million Americans.

From Hadley Freeman, bestselling author of House of Glass , comes a “riveting” ( The New York Times ) memoir about her experience as an anorexic and her journey to recovery. In 1995, Hadley Freeman wrote in her diary: “I just spent three years of my life in mental hospitals. So why am I crazier than I was before????” From the ages of fourteen to seventeen, Freeman lived in psychiatric wards after developing anorexia nervosa. Her doctors informed her that her body was cannibalizing her muscles and heart for nutrition, but they could tell her little else: why she had it, what it felt like, what recovery looked like. For the next twenty years, Freeman lived as a “functioning anorexic,” grappling with new forms of self-destructive behavior as the anorexia mutated and persisted. Anorexia is one of the most widely discussed but least understood mental illnesses. Through “sharp storytelling, solid research and gentle humor” ( The Wall Street Journal ), Freeman delivers an incisive and bracing work that details her experiences with anorexia—the shame, fear, loneliness, and rage—and how she overcame it. She interviews doctors to learn how treatment for the illness has changed since she was hospitalized and what new discoveries have been made about the illness, including its connection to autism, OCD, and metabolic rate. She learns why the illness always begins during adolescence and how this reveals the difficulties for girls to come of age. Freeman tracks down the women with whom she was hospitalized and reports on how their recovery has progressed over decades. Good Girls is an honest and hopeful story of resilience that offers a message to the nearly 30 million Americans who suffer from eating disorders: Life can be enjoyed, rather than merely endured.

A TRUE STORY OF OBSESSIVE LOVE TURNING TO OBSESSIVE HATE IN THE CRUCIBLE OF THE DIGITAL AGE Give Me Everything You Have chronicles author James Lasdun's strange and harrowing ordeal at the hands of a former student, a self-styled "verbal terrorist," who began trying, in her words, to "ruin him." Hate mail, online postings, and public accusations of plagiarism and sexual misconduct were her weapons of choice and, as with more conventional terrorist weapons, proved remarkably difficult to combat. James Lasdun's account, while terrifying, is told with compassion and humor, and brilliantly succeeds in turning a highly personal story into a profound meditation on subjects as varied as madness, race, Middle East politics, and the meaning of honor and reputation in the Internet age.

From the time he was in the first grade, Marc Summers feared that if his bedroom wasn't perfectly neat and his shirts didn't hang exactly one-fourth of an inch apart in the closet, something terrible would befall his parents or himself. It wasn't until many years later that the source of his anxiety became clear: like an estimated 6 million Americans today, Summers suffers the effects of obsessive compulsive disorder. A frank and often hilarious narrative, Everything in Its Place tells the story of Summers's journey from compulsive room cleaner to family man, television celebrity, and Obsessive Compulsive Foundation spokesperson. Describing his struggle to maintain personal relationships and build a career, the ups and downs of being on medication, and what it's like to be compelled to straighten the fringes of a rug at two o'clock in the morning, here is a compellingly readable and ultimately uplifting memoir.

Leo Gorcey, The Hollywood Legend - Leo Gorcey, Jr., His Happy Ending: The son of a Hollywood legend takes you on a humorous and heartfelt journey of survival, strength, forgiveness, and hope.

It has been said that the only warriors who do not suffer after combat are those who were killed. I cannot attest to that for all battle tested warriors but I certainly can for one---me. Some years ago a young, 13 year old eighth grade student from the Fairfield, Iowa Middle School once asked me, "Were you wounded in the war? I had been invited to speak in Mrs. Broz's class for many years to talk about my wartime experiences. I had been asked and answered many questions but this one was different. I paused, thought deeply and quickly, and replied. "Yes I was wounded, seriously wounded but not a wound that anyone could see and fix." His question gave me pause to quickly think about warriors in all the wars that have been fought, including mine, whose wounds were unseen, untreated and debilitating even though no blood was shed. I spent a sleepless night wondering if my answer had satisfied him...or me. What was there about my military service that left me so hopeless and so helpless when I returned home to civilian life? Was it me? The military itself? The combat? This is what I recalled; perhaps the answers would come as I wrote my experiences down. "I've been practicing Transcendental Meditation for 40 years. It's a great tool for reducing stress ... especially the stress our men and women of the Armed Forces are going through now." --Clint Eastwood, Academy Award-Winning Film Director "Stress causes, anxiety, depression, and violent behavior. Transcendental Meditation is a remarkable process for reducing stress-it can help people live a long and better life." --Mehemet Oz, MD, America's Doctor "In this riveting memoir, a true American hero describes how Transcendental Meditation changed his life for good. A must-read for those struggling with the aftershocks of combat, and their loved ones." --Norman Rosenthal, M.D. Author of Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Meditation "The hidden cost of war includes long-term pain and suffering for may veterans and their families. This wonderful book shows how meditation can be a practical, simple, and effective way for our returning warriors to find peace." --Professor Linda Bilmes, Harvard University, co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War "The Resilient warrior is a riveting read. What is especially impressive is how Jerry Yellin conflates his own war and PTSD experiences, and those experiences of other veterans, with the powerful compelling evidence of the benefits of using meditation as a means to overcome this disorder. I highly recommend this book to anyone seeking relief from stress, regardless of the source of the trauma." --Donald Mikkleson, Vietnam Veteran "My son, Dory, was an eight-year Army veteran who committed suicide early this year and I have suffered terribly. On a really bad day, a few weeks after Dory's death, Jerry Yellin suggested that I read The Resilient Warrior and learn to meditate. Since starting to meditate I can feel the stress leaving me, and my days and nights are getting a little better day-by-day, week-by-week. I strongly recommend Jerry's book to veterans and families of veterans, and anyone who is looking for a way of the nightmare of PTSD." --Lin Klock, Vero Beach, Florida Author Jerry Yellin Jerry was a WW 2 fighter pilot from Hillside, NJ. He flew P-51's over Japan from Iwo Jima. Married to Helene for 60 years, they have four sons and six grandchildren. Jerry is the author of the award winning historical fiction book The Blackened Canteen and his memoir Of War and Weddings . The soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war." --General Douglas Macarthur

Strange is not a word he should use (it’s not quite politically correct), but sometimes Joel Yanofsky can think of no other way to describe life with his son, Jonah—life with autism. Jonah is “on the spectrum” of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), but knowing the correct terminology makes it no easier for Yanofsky to understand his ten-year-old son’s complicated relationship with the world. While his wife, Cynthia, an art therapist, assumed the burden of researching ASD and investigating effective treatments for Jonah, Yanofsky tried other approaches. In this funny and moving account of a year in their life together, he chronicles his struggle to enter his son’s world using the materials he knows best: self-help books, feel-good memoirs, and literary classics ranging from the Old Testament to Dr. Seuss, as well as knock-knock jokes, riddles, and puns—all the wacky routines Yanofsky calls schtick. Told with candour, insight, and compassion, Bad Animals is not only about autism; it’s about the things that make life worth living.

Contained within this book is a fascinating treatise on analytical psychotherapy, written by the seminal Austrian psychologist, Wilhelm Stekel. A comprehensive and accessible outline of psychoanalytical methodology, this scarce text will appeal to both amateur students and seasoned practitioners alike. Wilhelm Stekel (1868 - 1940) was an Austrian physician and psychologist, most famous for his works: "The Interpretation of Dreams: New Developments and Techniques" (1943) and "Sadism and Masochism: The Psychology of Hatred and Cruelty" (1929). He was an early follower of the seminal Sigmund Freud, often described as Freud's most distinguished pupil and commonly hailed as one of the founding fathers of modern psychoanalytical methodology. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

This antiquarian book contains Wilhelm Stekel's 1923 treatise on nervous anxiety, "Conditions of Nervous Anxiety and their Treatment". A fascinating and informative analysis on the subject, this book will appeal to those with an interest in psychology and psychoanalysis, and constitutes a worthy addition to collections of allied literature. Contents include: "The Nature of Repression", "Basic Concepts of Anxiety Neurosis", "Clinical Picture of Anxiety Neurosis: The Anxiety Attack", "Clinical Picture of Anxiety Neurosis: Anxiety Neurosis with Cardiac Phenomena", "Clinical Picture of Anxiety Neurosis: Digestive Disturbances", etcetera. Wilhelm Stekel (1868 - 1940) was an Austrian psychologist and physician. He was an early follower of the seminal Sigmund Freud, often described as Freud's most distinguished pupil and commonly hailed as one of the founding fathers of modern psychoanalytical methodology. Many vintage texts such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive, and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition. It comes complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.