Reichian Psychotherapy, Humanistic Counselling and Shamanism in Putney, London

Resource Library

Books, Articles and Video clips

The books, articles and video clips below are a few favourites that I would like to share with you. Where possible the links connect to the author's own websites. To search research library use (Ctrl+F) or search books by author.

Books

What would happen if you were to allow everything to be exactly as it is? What if you gave up the need for control, and instead embraced the whole of your experience in each moment that arose?

Adyashanti - Emptiness Dancing

Who are you when you are not thinking yourself into existence? What is ultimately behind the set of eyes reading these words? In Emptiness Dancing, Adyashanti invites you to wake up to the essence of what you are, through the natural and spontaneous opening of the mind, heart, and body that holds the secret to happiness and liberation.

Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett - How Emotions are Made

In How Emotions Are Made, pioneering psychologist and neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett draws on the latest scientific evidence to reveal that our common-sense ideas about emotions are dramatically, even dangerously, out of date – and that we have been paying the price. Emotions aren't universally pre-programmed in our brains and bodies; rather they are psychological experiences that each of us constructs based on our unique personal history, physiology and environment.

Orson Bean - Me and the Orgone

The book tells how, after ten years of unsuccessful psychotherapy, Orson Bean discovers medical orgone therapy, a therapeutic intervention that focuses on renewing what it describes as "energy flows" within the patient and melting muscle armor. Orgone is Wilhelm Reich's name for the "life energy". It is a strongly personal account of a man who gets a second chance at a personal sexual revolution, feeling his body beginning to change, feeling freer and more alive and also seeing his relationships transformed. It is also a rare personal testimony of the effects which this form of therapy is said to facilitate.

Dr. Elsworth F. Baker - Man in a Trap

Man in the Trap, is must reading for anyone interested in learning more about medical orgone therapy, the release of muscle armor and Wilhelm Reich. The book’s description of the different human character types has never been equaled. All or us without exception, started out life as a beautiful, newborn baby, full of life and love.

Ellen Bass & Laura Davis - The Courage to Heal

The Courage to Heal is an inspiring, comprehensive guide that offers hope and a map of the healing journey to every woman who was sexually abused as a child—and to those who care about her. Although the effects of child sexual abuse are long-term and severe, healing is possible.

James Broughton - Packing up for Paradise

Wildly indiscriminate, Broughton clings to a grab-bag mysticism throughout his career, and, like his mentor, Blake, he celebrates innocence in childlike ditties and develops a self-referential mythology. Fifty years of James Broughton's poetry is Eros Ascendant and Transcendent.

Gary Chapman - The 5 Love Languages

How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life? In the #1 New York Times bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you'll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman's proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner--starting today

Patrick J Carnes, Phd - The Betrayal Bond

For seventeen years The Betrayal Bond has been the primary source for therapists and patients wrestling the effects of emotional pain and harm caused by exploitation from someone they trusted.

Mantak Chia - The Multi Orgasmic Couple

The Multi-Orgasmic Couple —along with The Multi-Orgasmic Man and The Multi-Orgasmic Woman, the other volumes in the ground-breaking trilogy—is the first popular, accessible book designed to help sexual partners achieve new levels of sensual pleasure and intimacy.

Deb Dana - Polyvagal Meditations

The Science of Feeling Safe Enough to Fall in Love with Life. The autonomic nervous system is at the heart of our lived experience. It influences the way we live, love, and work; it guides how we move through the world.

Listen to these short 4min meditations offer a moment to regain balance in our day.

David Deida - Dear Lover

Every woman knows the fairy tale--find the right man, give him what he wants and needs, and he'll love you forever. But when the myth you've been asked to believe fails to deliver--when you sense you've been settling for far less than you know in your heart is possible--then how do you attract and keep a man capable of meeting what you most passionately yearn for?

David Deida - The Way of the Superior Man

A Spiritual Guide to Mastering the Challenges of Women, Work, and Sexual Desire. The Ultimate Spiritual Guide for Men. What is your true purpose in life? What do women really want? What makes a good lover? If you’re a man reading this, you’ve undoubtedly asked yourself these questions—but you may not have had much luck answering them. Until now. In The Way of the Superior Man, David Deida explores the most important issues in men’s lives, from career and family to women and intimacy to love and spirituality, to offer a practical guidebook for living a masculine life of integrity, authenticity, and freedom.

Giulia Enders - Gut

A Sunday Times bestseller — now with revised and expanded content on the exciting new science about the gut-brain link. Our gut is as important as our brain or heart, yet we know very little about how it works and many of us are too embarrassed to ask questions. In Gut, Giulia Enders breaks this taboo, revealing the latest science on how much our digestive system has to offer.

Gia-Fu Feng and Jane English - Tao Te Ching

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal name.

Jeannette M Gagan - Journeying

From the fertile ground of psychology and the historic matrix of shamanism comes this daring and pioneering template for healing. This book will be of interest to anyone invested in healing--from seekers to practitioners. Included are case examples illustrating the psychotherapeutics of journeying.

Atul Gawande - Being Mortal

For most of human history, death was a common, ever-present possibility. Being Mortal is a book about the modern experience of mortality - about what it's like to get old and die, how medicine has changed this and how it hasn't, where our ideas about death have gone wrong. The systems that we have put in place to manage our mortality are manifestly failing; but, as Gawande reveals, it doesn't have to be this way. The ultimate goal, after all, is not a good death, but a good life - all the way to the very end.

Stan Grof - Holotropic Mind

Hailed as "the successor to Jung and Freud" (Richard Tarnas, author of "The Passion of the Western Mind" ), Stanislav Grof presents his revolutionary unified model of human consciousness that explains our behavior, evolution, personality, and the mind-body connection.

Eliana Harvey - White Eagle Medicine Wheel cards

With the agreement of elders and spiritual advisors in the United States and Canada, Wa-Na-Nee-Che, and his scribe Eliana, reveal how this sacred knowledge can benefit us all. Wa-Na-Nee-Che-- which in Lakota means He who is needed by the people-- is one of the very few remaining Native Americans willing to share the original wisdom of the old way of life. White Eagle Medicine Wheel is a resource for problem-solving on all fronts, whether at home, at work, or in relationships.

Marie De Hennezel - Intimate death

Marie de Hennezel is a gifted psychologist who works as part of a remarkable team of doctors and nurses in a hospital for the terminally ill in Paris. The men and women who come there do not always know that they are dying. It is Marie de Hennezel's aim to bring them - and their loved ones - to this knowledge and then to encourage them to live each day that remains as fully and serenely as possible.

Morton Herskowitz D.O. - Emotional Armor and Muscle Armor

Orgone is the name that Wilhelm Reich gave to the energy that moves us. Reich believed that where there is emotional repression there is a concomitant protoplasmic contraction in the body. - muscle armor. Because this physical tension tends to become chronic with time, binds energy and constricts the free pulsation of our bodies, muscle armor can truly imprisons us for life when unconscious.

Derek Hyatt - Stone Fires - Liquid Clouds : Shamanic Art

This text portrays the modern artist as a shaman - a visionary who is not afraid to see into the future by studying the past. The shaman evokes ancient memories and contacts the world beyond appearances, in this case using the Yorkshire moors as a visual vocabulary.

Sandra Ingerman - Soul Retrieval

Sandra Ingerman describes results of combining soul retrieval with contemporary psychological concepts in this visionary work that revives the ancient shamanic tradition of soul retrieval for healing emotional and physical illness. The revised and updated edition includes a new afterword by the author.

Jack Kornfield - A Path with Heart

Perhaps the most important book yet written on meditation, the process of inner transformation, and the integration of spiritual practice into our Western way of life, A Path With Heart brings alive the possibilities of inner peace, wholeness and the achievement of happiness.

Krishnamurti - Freedom from the Known

Krishnamurti reveals how we can free ourselves radically and immediately from the tyranny of the expected. By changing ourselves, we can alter the structure of society and our relationships. The vital need for change and the recognition of its very possibility form an essential part of this important book's message.

On Death and Dying – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

One of the most important psychological studies of the late twentieth century, On Death and Dying grew out of Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross's famous interdisciplinary seminar on death, life, and transition. In this remarkable book, Dr. Kübler-Ross first explored the now-famous five stages of death: denial and isolation, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Dr John Lee - What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Menopause

The original and classic book, on natural progesterone by John R. Lee M.D., the pioneer in the use of natural hormones. Includes detailed and current information on using natural hormones, as well as diet and exercise, to treat menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, loss of libido, and osteoporosis.

Barry Long - Making Love

Barry Long addresses the fundamental issue of lack of love and sexual unhappiness teaching men and women to get their partnerships right by being honest. Cutting to the core of the problem his compassion and practical common sense helped many couples to make a new start together or separately. This is tantric teaching of the highest degree introduced to our tangled relationships.

Dr Mario Martinez - The Mindbody Code

Dr. Martinez illuminates the pathways to healing the archetypal wounds of shame, abandonment, and betrayal; how to break through the ceilings of abundance that limit prosperity and create the subcultures of wellness that will help you reach your full potential.

Gabor Maté MD - When the Body says No
Can a person literally die of loneliness? Is there a connection between the ability to express emotions and Alzheimer’s disease? Is there such a thing as a “cancer personality”? When the Body Says No provides the answers to critical questions about the mind-body link – and the role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases.

Mary-Frances O'Connor - The Grieving Brain

For as long as humans have existed, we have struggled when a loved one dies. Neuroscientist and psychologist Mary-Frances O’Connor, PhD, shares the effects of grief on the brain. She makes cutting-edge neuroscience accessible through her contagious enthusiasm and guides us through how we encode love and grief. With love, our neurons help us form attachments to others; but, with loss, our brain must come to terms with where our loved ones went, or how to imagine a future that encompasses their absence.

Osho - Love freedom and aloneness

The model of the traditional family is breaking down, children barely into their teens are experimenting with sex, and half of all marriages in developed countries end in divorce. In LOVE, FREEDOM AND ALONENESS, Osho explains why these phenomena are happening and how they can actually be viewed as a cause for celebration rather than worry. In a post-ideological world, where all the old moralities are clearly out of date, we have a golden opportunity to redefine and revitalize the very foundations of our lives.

Osho – Meditation: The First and Last Freedom

Osho turns the traditional notion of meditation practice on its head. Meditation: The First and Last Freedom shows that meditation is not a spiritual discipline separate from everyday life in the real world. In essence, it is simply the art of being aware of what is going on inside and around us.

Osho - Zen Tarot cards

These cards are based on the wisdom of Zen, a wisdom that says events in the outer world simply reflect in the outer world simply reflect our own thoughts and feelings, even though we ourselves might be unclear about what those thoughts and feelings are. So it helps us to turn our attention away from outside events so we can find a new clarity of understanding in our innermost hearts.

Frank Ostaseski - The five invitations

Death is not waiting for us at the end of a long road. Death is always with us, in the marrow of every passing moment. She is the secret teacher hiding in plain sight, helping us to discover what matters most. Life and death are a package deal. They cannot be pulled apart and we cannot truly live unless we are aware of death. The Five Invitations is an exhilarating meditation on the meaning of life and how maintaining an ever-present consciousness of death can bring us closer to our truest selves.

Esther Perel - Mating in Captivity

The story of sex in committed couples. Our quest for secure love conflicts with our pursuit of passion. And often, the very thing that got us to into our relationships - lust - is the one thing that goes missing from them.

Candace B Pert Phd - Molecules of Emotion

Why do we feel the way we feel? How do our thoughts and emotions affect our health? Are our bodies and minds distinct from each other or do they function together as parts of an interconnected system? In her groundbreaking book Molecules of Emotion, Candace Pert provides startling and decisive answers to these and other challenging questions that scientists and philosophers have pondered for centuries.

Jordon B. Peterson - 12 Rules for life

Drawing on his own work as a clinical psychologist and on lessons from humanity's oldest myths and stories, Peterson offers twelve profound and realistic principles to live by. After all, as he reminds us, we each have a vital role to play in the unfolding destiny of the world.

Ram Dass - Be Here Now

In March 1961, Professor Richard Alpert - later renamed Ram Dass - held appointments in four departments at Harvard University. During a period of experimentation with Psilocybin and LSD, Alpert peeled away each layer of his identity, disassociating from himself as a professor, a social cosmopolite, and lastly, as a physical being. Fear turned into exaltation upon the realization that at his truest, he was just his inner-self: a luminous being that he could trust indefinitely and love infinitely.

Matthieu Ricard - Happiness

Although we are materially better off than ever before, surveys show that we are depressed and listless. In his revolutionary book, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard shows that happiness is not just an emotion, but a skill that can be developed.

Marshall B Rosenburg Phd - Nonviolent communication

Most of us are hungry for skills to improve the quality of our relationships, to deepen our sense of personal empowerment or to simply communicate more effectively. Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life partners practical communication and emotional literacy skills with a powerful consciousness and vocabulary to help you create the life you want peacefully

Gabrielle Roth - Sweat your Prayers

Sweat Your Prayers is an expedition through the 5Rhythms™. Roth has harnessed the raw power of rhythm into a path of self-realisation which gives us a practice, a perspective and a philosophy that allow us to celebrate the wild, ecstatic dancer within.

Rumi - Whispers of the Beloved

A breathtaking new collection of translations of poems by Rumi, one of the world’s most loved mystical teachers. Jalal-uddin Rumi was born in what is now Afghanistan in 1207. His poetry has inspired generations of spiritual seekers, both from his own Sufi school and well beyond. His poems speak to the seeker and the lover in all of us.

Sarita & Geho - Tantric Love

A guide to Tantric sex featuring meditations supplemented with ground-breaking explanation of male-female dynamics plus help for relationship problems.

John E Sarno MD - The Mind/Body Prescription

Musculoskeletal pain disorders have reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with most doctors failing to recognize their underlying cause. In this acclaimed volume, Dr. Sarno reveals how many painful conditions-including most neck and back pain, migraine, repetitive stress injuries, whiplash, and tendonitises-are rooted in repressed emotions, and shows how they can be successfully treated without drugs, physical measures, or surgery.

Anne Wilson Schaef - When Society becomes an Addict

Anne Wilson Schaef eloquently articulates the problems and processes of addiction and co-depenency. Challenging readers to move beyond their own dependency issues and to recognize the addictive system we live in, she offers us a much clearer option of choosing, not to die, but to live. She makes new and long overdue connections between addictive individuals and society.

Daryl Sharp - Jungian Personality Types

This book is an excellent way of being introduced to C.G.Jung's Model of Typology. A brief list of areas explored include, the two personality attitudes - Introversion and Extroversion - and four functions or modes of orientation -Thinking - Intuition - Sensation - Feeling.

Michael Singer - The Untethered Soul

The Untethered Soul begins by walking you through your relationship with your thoughts and emotions, helping you uncover the source and fluctuations of your inner energy. It then delves into what you can do to free yourself from the habitual thoughts, emotions, and energy patterns that limit your consciousness. Finally, with perfect clarity, this book opens the door to a life lived in the freedom of your innermost being.

Martha Stout - The Sociopath Next Door

Martha Stout reveals that a shocking 4 percent of ordinary people--one in twenty-five--has an often undetected mental disorder, the chief symptom of which is that that person possesses no conscience. He or she has no ability whatsoever to feel shame, guilt, or remorse ... They can do literally anything at all and feel absolutely no guilt ... Fundamentally, sociopaths are different because they cannot love.

Bruce Tift - Already Free

Psychotherapy and Buddhism seek to provide freedom from suffering, each way of working contains valuable tools to help us heal, grow and find happiness. Already Free opens a fresh and provocative dialogue between these two profound perspectives on the human condition.

Eckhart Tolle - A new Earth

Right now the world is filled with angry, raging egos. But there is a better way and in A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle provides the spiritual framework for all of us to move beyond ourselves in order to make this world a better, more evolved place to live.

Bessel Van der Kolk - The Body Keeps Score

The effects of trauma can be devastating. Van der Kolk offers a bold new paradigm for treatment, moving away from standard talking and drug therapies and towards an alternative approach that heals mind, brain and body.

Alan Watts - The wisdom of insecurity

In this fascinating book, Alan Watts explores man's quest for psychological security, examining our efforts to find spiritual and intellectual certainty in the realms of religion and philosophy. The Wisdom of Insecurity underlines the importance of our search for stability in an age where human life seems particularly vulnerable and uncertain. Watts argues our insecurity is the consequence of trying to be secure and that, ironically, salvation and sanity lie in the recognition that we have no way of saving ourselves.

Mike Williams - Follow the Shamans Call

This evocative and experiential guide reveals how you can immediately begin to transform your life by following the path of the shaman. Author Mike Williams, Ph.D., presents hands-on exercises and engaging true stories from decades of shamanic practice and academic study into ancient European traditions.

Music Medicine

Music Medicine Top

Anugama - Shamanic Dream

Especially suitable for trance meditations. A heartbeat drum accompanies the continued low repetition of the mantra "Om Tat Sat". Japanese Shakubachi flute and Brazilian Berimbau dance delicately around each other while resting on drumming and drone from the keyboard. "Chakra Journey" features the rhythm of crickets, gongs, and Tibetan bells, resulting in total relaxation and rejuvenation.

Marcey Hamm - Inward Harmony

Continuous angelic music that should bring balance and harmony to all of life. This recording promotes balance and harmony. If there is stress, anger, emotional or physical pain.

Jeru Kabbal - Quantum Light Breath - Original version

Jeru used verbal and energetic guidance along with evocative music to lead you into the recognition of the mind’s separate realities and to encourage an experience of the mystery of true presence.

Marconi Union - Weightless

British ambient band Marconi Union has drummed up Weightless....aural bliss. It combines warm drones and drifting sounds with sparse heartbeat rhythms, slowing down very gently throughout the piece, encouraging a deep sense of relaxation in the body, it's use of specific rhythms, deep bass tones, frequencies and intervals inducing an almost trance like state in the listener. 10 Hour version on YouTube

Osho - Dynamic Meditation

This meditation is a fast, intense and thorough way to break old, ingrained patterns in the bodymind that keep one imprisoned in the past, and to experience the freedom, the witnessing, silence and peace that are hidden behind those prison walls. The meditation is meant to be done in the early morning, when “the whole of nature becomes alive, the night has gone, the sun is coming up and everything becomes conscious and alert.

Osho - Kundalini active meditation

Best done at sunset or in the late afternoon. Being fully immersed in the shaking and dancing of the first two stages helps to “melt” the rock-like being, wherever the energy flow has been repressed and blocked. Then that energy can flow, dance and be transformed into bliss and joy. The last two stages enable all this energy to flow vertically, to move upward into silence. It is a highly effective way of unwinding and letting go at the end of the day.

Peace Mother - Sacred Chants

The Shamanic Trance Chant is supremely soothing, inducing easy relaxation and profound peace. The soft drumming and Peace Mother's voice brings you sacred sounds, which have the power to dissolve stress and heal you physically, emotionally and spiritually. Listening to this chant opens the door to your inner stillness and healing abilities.

Professor Trance - Shaman's Breath

Frank Natale's trance-centric classic is designed to summon and celebrate the power of spirit. Medicine Trance was inspired by the long dances of the North American Indians whose dances would often last for days. These long dances may appear monotonous to an uninformed observer, but the purpose was to evoke deep healing, visions and to honor the natural cycles of life.

Sarita & Geho - Tantra Universal Heart Meditation

A guided tantric meditation for spiritual liberation through the Universal Heart Principle. This meditation offers a method originating from secret Tantra teachings from Mongolia for opening to the universal heart. Ideal for couples, singles or groups. Music by Bhakta / Voice guidance: Geho and Sarita.

Sarita & Geho - Tantra Soulmate Meditation

A technique to transform lovers into soul mates through the alchemy of love and meditation. Voice guidance: Geho and Sarita.

Steven Halpern - Chakra Suite

Chakra Suite uses the 7 musical keynotes to resonate and balance the 7 chakras. Pure electric piano tones, chimes, synthesizer overtones, and, Tibetan singing bowls to create a pure sonic background for healing specified for each chakra.

Steven Halpern - Sensual Pleasure

Steven Halpern's music creates an exquisite, sensual ambience relaxing your mind and body. Tensions melt away effortlessly - your skin becomes more sensitive - you feel loved and open.

Articles