A groundbreaking exploration of the neuroscience of spirituality and a bold new paradigm for health, healing, and resilience.

Whether it's meditation or a walk in nature, reading a sacred text or saying a prayer, there are many ways to tap into a heightened awareness of the world around us and our place in it. Lisa Miller draws on decades of clinical experience and award-winning research to show that humans are universally equipped with this capacity for spirituality, and that our brains become more resilient and robust as a result of it. Bringing scientific rigour to the most intangible aspect of our lives, Miller's counterintuitive findings reveal the measurable positive effects of spirituality: for better decision-making, a healthier brain and an inspired life.

Brimming with inspiration and compassion, this landmark book revolutionizes our understanding of spirituality, mental health and how to find meaning and purpose in life.

Many people say they believe in heaven, but very few of them are able to articulate anything specific about their belief, leaving only questions. Is heaven a real place? Is it a city or a garden or both? Can you keep your body there? If so, can you eat, drink, make love? Are you recognizable as yourself in heaven? Do your relationships continue there? Or is heaven something else? A radical idea? A disembodied, unconscious existence? A sense of progression toward perfect understanding, justice, beauty, truth? Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theologians and scholars have dissected these questions - and others like them - for thousands of years, yet in today's world, most people leave them pretty well alone, content to live with a shallow or incomplete sense of what they do believe. Lisa Miller dissects these ancient theologies and their different ideas regarding an afterlife by looking at what the beliefs are, how they have impacted one another, and also how they have reacted to the needs and lifestyles of their followers through the ages. By looking at profiles of real people and history, and analyzing conversations with scholars, "Heaven" forces people to grapple with their beliefs about heaven. It holds up a mirror to allow Americans to gauge how their ideas about heaven measure up to traditional and popular ideas throughout history in an accessible, palatable way.

A stunning four-color biography of Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in the bestselling tradition of Notorious RBG and Pelosi that explores her explosive rise and impact on the future of American culture and politics. The candidate was young-twenty-eight years old, a child of Puerto Rico, the Bronx, and Yorktown Heights. She was working as a waitress and bartender. She was completely unknown, and taking on a ten-term incumbent in a city famous for protecting its political institutions. "Women like me aren't supposed to run for office," Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said in a video launching her campaign, the camera following her as she hastily pulled her hair into a bun. But she did. And in perhaps the most stunning upset in recent memory, she won. At twenty-nine, she was sworn in as the youngest member of the 116th Congress and became the youngest woman to serve as a representative in United States history. Before long, Ocasio-Cortez had earned her own shorthand title-AOC-and was one of the most talked-about public figures (loved and loathed) in the world. Her natural ability to connect with everyday people through the social media feeds grew her following into the multimillions. Every statement she made, every tweet and Instagram Live, went viral, and her term had barely begun before people were speculating that she could one day be president. The question seemed to be on everyone's mind: How did this woman come from nowhere to acquire such influence, and so fast? Now, in Take Up Space, that question is answered through a kaleidoscopic biography by the editors of New York magazine that features the riveting account of her rise by Lisa Miller, an essay by Rebecca Traister that explains why she is an unprecedented figure in American politics, and multiform explorations (reportage, comic, history, analysis, photography) of AOC's outsize impact on American culture and politics. Throughout, AOC is revealed in all her power and vulnerability, and understood in the context of the fast-changing America that made her possible-and perhaps even inevitable.

Praise for the first edition: 'The content of the book is excellent.... The strength lies in its detailed application of ideas to practice. The use of the case material to illustrate application is excellent and works well.' - Helen Cosis-Brown, University of Middlesex This new edition of Counselling Skills for Social Work argues that good counselling skills are at the heart of effective social work practice. Building on the success of the first edition, this core textbook brings a range of therapeutic models, with their theoretical underpinnings and skills, directly into a social work context. By looking at how the underlying theory can be applied to professional practice, chapters identify the key skills which can be employed for the most effective social work intervention. Key features of the book include: - a practical skills-based approach; - a focus on service-user experiences and arange of case-studies drawn from a variety of `real-life' settings; - a new chapter dedicated to counselling young people; - chapter content is linked to the most recent NOS and GSCC guidelines structuring training and practice; - end-of-chapter Reflective Questions and Tips for Practice summarising the key theoretical concepts and their applications. Written in a lively and engaging style this updated new edition will be an invaluable text for undergraduate students in social work. It will also be useful for qualified practitioners to enhance understanding of communication and the process of change through the medium of counselling skills.

Psychotherapists are increasingly expected to incorporate the spiritual as well as the psychological dimension in their professional work. Therapists also are increasingly required to utilize evidence-based practices and demonstrate the effectiveness of their practice. An ever-increasing number of spiritually-oriented psychotherapy books attest to its importance but, unlike these books that primarily focus on the therapist's spiritual awareness, the second edition of Spirituality in Clinical Practice addresses the actual practice of spiritually oriented psychotherapy from the beginning to end. Dr. Len Sperry, master therapist and researcher, emphasizes the therapeutic processes in spiritually oriented psychotherapy with individual chapters on: the therapeutic relationship assessment and case conceptualization intervention evaluation and termination and culturally and ethically sensitive interventions. The days of training therapists to be spiritually aware and sensitive to client needs are over; therapists are now expected to practice spiritually sensitive psychotherapy in a competent manner from the first session to termination. Dr. Sperry organizes his text around this central focus point and, as in the original edition, continues to provide a concise, theory-based framework for understanding the spiritual dimension. Readers can use this framework as the basis for competently integrating spirituality in an effective, evidence-based psychotherapy practice.

What makes children in their 'terrible twos' behave as they do? How can parents decide when their child is ready for day care, and manage their child's transition to a trusted child minder? Lisa Miller guides parents through their two-year-old's development, from how to deal with a 'bossy boots' to understanding the central importance of toys, and the development of language and nonverbal communicative skills. She describes ways in which parents can help a young child express or resolve difficult feelings or jealousy, come to accept and welcome a new-born sibling, and negotiate friendships.