We all face adversity, both man-made and natural. How do we survive the loss of a loved one, a betrayal, illness, even impending death, and still find meaning in our lives? Even a "normal" life can seem empty, in spite of material possessions, success, power, and pleasure. In our search for fulfillment and meaning, we work through our past and present conflicts, cuddle our inner child, and redesign our outer adult. We attend workshops on life and secular spirituality and explore the comforts of traditional religion. We get married and divorced, experiment with drugs and alcohol, change jobs. And while our restlessness and unease may abate temporarily, the hollow feeling that there is something missing always returns.

In his profound and accessible work, The Art of Serenity: The Path to a Joyful Life in the Best and Worst of Times, Dr. T. Byram Karasu offers us the key to an extraordinary state of mind -- authentic, soulful happiness -- in the face of everything our life has to offer and take away. The door to this state of mind is opened by a combination of soul and spirit. It involves the soul through the love of others, love of work, and the love of community. It involves the spirit through belief in the sacred and belief in transformation. It culminates in the love of and belief in God. Brilliantly synthesizing psychology and spirituality, Dr. Karasu will guide you to explore the deepest yearnings of your heart.

There is no end to the journey to real happiness; there is no best place to start or best time to begin. So where and when to start? Start here, where you are, and start now.

The Gravity of Weight: A Clinical Guide to Weight Loss and Maintenance, by Sylvia R. Karasu, M.D., and T. Byram Karasu, M.D., is a scholarly and critical inquiry into the field of overweight and obesity. Reviewing more than 900 publications, from some of the early classical papers to the most recent research, the authors have integrated the complex psychological and physiological aspects of the mind, brain, and body to explain why the control of body weight is so daunting for so many people. Written primarily for clinicians in all health-related fields, including physicians, psychologists, nurses, social workers, and nutritionists, as well as for their intellectually curious patients, The Gravity of Weight explores the controversy regarding obesity as a disease with morbidity and mortality, as well as the complex methodological issues involved in obesity research. The authors delineate the extraordinary metabolic complexities implicated in weight control as well as the importance of circadian rhythms and sleep as they relate to weight and even disorders such as the night eating syndrome. They also investigate the psychological aspects of overweight and obesity, including discrimination against the obese and the fat acceptance movement, and they discuss some of the most common diets as well as the psychotherapeutic, pharmacological, and surgical treatment options currently available for these patients. The Gravity of Weight: A Clinical Guide to Weight Loss and Maintenance is a comprehensive, multidisciplinary text that synthesizes some of the most essential information for successful weight control: • The role of the environment, including diet, disordered eating, and portion control, in weight management • The National Weight Control Registry and the study of those successful at weight control • The importance of differentiating weight loss from weight loss maintenance • The qualitative and quantitative measurements of physical activity, including the role of exercise for maintenance of weight loss • The contribution of genetics to "the obesities" • Depression and obesity: cause or consequence? • Psychotherapeutic strategies, including cognitive behavioral therapy • Medical and surgical treatment approaches and their effectiveness Drs. Karasu have drawn from both professional and personal experience to write The Gravity of Weight: A Clinical Guide To Weight Loss and Maintenance. Both had fathers who suffered from morbid obesity. One died at the age of 56, while the other lived to be 91. The authors' professional curiosity led them to question how differences in environment, genetics, and overall physical and psychological health can affect one person's longevity and another's early passing. In searching for the answers to some of the most perplexing questions regarding weight, the authors have created what is perhaps the most comprehensive exploration of the relationship of the mind, brain, body and our environment to overweight and obesity. The resulting text deserves a prominent place in the library of those who work in this field.

In a deeply layered psychological narrative, T. Byram Karasu, one of America s leading professors of psychiatry, illustrates that the age of narcissism has metamorphosed into the more virulent age of sociopathy, where selfishness, greed, and the violation of the rights of others have become fixtures of daily life. Gotham Chronicles tells the gritty story of Mallory, a young woman who offers Rolfing massage therapy to the elite of Manhattan. Gradually drawn into a world of prostitution and illicit drugs, she struggles to write a novel about her life. Her clients include an assistant district attorney, a hedge fund manager, a semiretired real estate tycoon, and a drug-addled college professor. Corruption, disloyalty, deception, arrogance, and treacherous cynicism rule the world of these intertwined lives, where sex, drugs, and excessive money lead to consequences both permanent and tragic. In a deeply psychological story, Karasu shows the age of narcissism has been replaced with a more malignant age of sociopathy. Selfishness, greed, and obsession have become part of everyday life and empathy seems to be a dying emotion. Mental health professionals and anyone interested in our own destructive psychology will find Mallory's story both interesting and revealing.

T. Byram Karasu says that healing, at best, is not what the healer does, but what he is; that what really matters are not the schools of psychotherapy, but the psychotherapists themselves. In this deeply moving and self-revealing book, Karasu portrays the therapist as healer through a series of clinical vignettes from the treatment of a younger therapist whom the author perceives to be more intelligent, talented, and better educated than himself. This patient, a veteran of a classical analysis and two lengthy therapies, challenges the therapist at every turn and engages him in a search for new experiential truths. The reader is privy to the internal monologue of the therapist as he conceives of and rejects interpretations, looks to varied experts for help, and ends with an inner voice not heard before.

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In the course of our lives, we struggle to establish careers and relationships that we hope will infuse us with a sense of purpose. While important titles, wealth, power, and possessions may represent a life that is successful in the eyes of others, pursuit of these achievements prompts us to seek more of the same again and again. However, it is only through a fundamental understanding of faith in God that we can discover His purpose for each of us in life, and can in turn pursue a meaningful existence and achieve lasting happiness. In his authentic and profound book The Spirit of Happiness, Dr. T. Byram Karasu explores the psychological barriers that prevent so many of us from allowing faith to become an integral part of our lives and from becoming truly serene and fulfilled human beings. We all experience many difficulties and conflicts in our daily lives, meeting challenges at work and in relationships, suffering through illness, losses, and failures, feeling anxious, depressed, or simply empty and purposeless. If we view such ordeals through the wisdom of the Holy Bible, which Dr. Karasu presents to us here as the ultimate self-help book, we can learn to understand and identify with God's Holy Purpose. Psycho-spiritual exercises, including meditations and affirmations based on God's word, are placed at the end of each chapter to help focus the reader's spiritual intention and lead the way to a more joyful and rewarding existence. Beautifully written and deeply moving, The Spirit of Happiness begins where most self-help books end.

We all have indistinct outlines of our life's trajectory, but we need to formulate a much clearer guiding principle of existence and learn the art of living. From our accumulated knowledge base, we need some generic guideposts. Eight Brief Lessons on Life provides these guideposts. Its lessons evolve from a highly condensed distillation of thousands of years of wisdom-uncommon common sense. It provides a template for the essence of being, becoming a grown-up, and living a joyful and successful life.

In Life Witness: Evolution of the Psychotherapist, T. Byram Karasu demonstrates how a young therapist can become an expert clinician by transcending his own school of therapy. Every young therapist attempts to perfect his skills by anchoring onto a single paradigm and becoming an expert technician of that particular school. Within the first five to ten years of practice-the so-called experiential evolution phase-the therapist finds that no single paradigm is suitable for treating all psychopathology. The therapist thus begins to appropriate techniques from other schools of psychotherapy, and by shifting paradigms, synchronizes himself with the patient's mind. It is from this synchronization that all his techniques begin to evolve and an expert clinician can evolve into a master psychotherapist. The therapist who has transcended his school of psychotherapy now must transcend the field of psychotherapy itself. If he wants to address the patient's existential issues as well, the therapist first has to come to terms with those issues himself. After all, the therapist can take the patient only so far as he himself has come. Life Witness demonstrates that this formative evolution phase of a therapist encompasses a broad education in literature, philosophy, and spirituality. Karasu ultimately concludes that therapists must find the meaning and purpose of life before they can cultivate an authentic self and become someone whose presence is itself therapeutic. Once this occurs, all "therapeutic messages" will naturally emanate from within.

In Life Witness: Evolution of the Psychotherapist, T. Byram Karasu demonstrates how a young therapist can become an expert clinician by transcending his own school of therapy. Every young therapist attempts to perfect his skills by anchoring onto a single paradigm and becoming an expert technician of that particular school. Within the first five to ten years of practice-the so-called experiential evolution phase-the therapist finds that no single paradigm is suitable for treating all psychopathology. The therapist thus begins to appropriate techniques from other schools of psychotherapy, and by shifting paradigms, synchronizes himself with the patient's mind. It is from this synchronization that all his techniques begin to evolve and an expert clinician can evolve into a master psychotherapist. The therapist who has transcended his school of psychotherapy now must transcend the field of psychotherapy itself. If he wants to address the patient's existential issues as well, the therapist first has to come to terms with those issues himself. After all, the therapist can take the patient only so far as he himself has come. Life Witness demonstrates that this formative evolution phase of a therapist encompasses a broad education in literature, philosophy, and spirituality. Karasu ultimately concludes that therapists must find the meaning and purpose of life before they can cultivate an authentic self and become someone whose presence is itself therapeutic. Once this occurs, all "therapeutic messages" will naturally emanate from within.

Following the Roman poet Virgil metaphorically, T. Byram Karasu unflinchingly plunges into the depths of our collective unconscious. With this luminous book of poems, he draws on profound psychological insights to reveal much about the human mind. Karasu skillfully and courageously addresses the many nuanced layers of tenderness, sex, regret, deceit, guilt, and death in this debut collection of poetry. With his uncanny ability, irreverence, and transgressive intimacy, he achieves a sense of timelessness.

Of God And Madness is the story of Adam, an emotionally troubled young man whose spiritual journey enables him to become a godly adult. Adam is a child of a Jewish woman (a palace concubine) and the last sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Raised in palatial surroundings by a French Catholic governess, Adam is exposed to the teachings of all three of the religions of Abraham, as he is tutored by an Armenian Christian music teacher, a Muslim imam, and a Jewish rabbi. In this intriguing saga, which spans the first fifty years of the last century, Adam comes of age during the tumultuous end of the Ottoman Empire while attempting to maintain his own precarious sanity. Ensnared by the havoc created by World War I in Istanbul and World War II in Paris, as well as the turmoil in Jerusalem during the final years of British rule, Adam struggles to make sense of God. This is the story of a man who began searching for God and ended up finding himself. 'A passionate tour-de-force of faith and psyche and a captivatingly transformative journey.' _Deepak Chopra Cover photo: The Hagia Sophia (in Greek it means 'The Holy Wisdom'), located in Istanbul, Turkey, which served originally as an Orthodox Christian cathedral and later as an Islamic mosque, is now a secular museum.

Given the fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce, you would think marriage wouldn't be so popular, but getting married is one of the most popular of all life events. In fact, many new couples are willing to face considerable debt for the wedding ceremony alone It seems that many people spend more time on planning the wedding than on thinking about marriage and what it entails. The Art of Marriage Maintenance is about marital life after the wedding. It is about psychological and biological difficulties between men and women that make marriage so challenging. It is about why passion is in danger of fading within marriage, how hormones exacerbate behavior, and how the brain confounds us. It is about how pregnancy and having young children and adolescents often catapult a marriage to its breaking point and how the stresses of mid-life contribute to marital discord. It is, in effect, how to ensure a happy enduring marriage. It is the art of marriage maintenance.

Given the fact that 50% of marriages end in divorce, you would think marriage wouldn't be so popular, but getting married is one of the most popular of all life events. In fact, many new couples are willing to face considerable debt for the wedding ceremony alone It seems that many people spend more time on planning the wedding than on thinking about marriage and what it entails. The Art of Marriage Maintenance is about marital life after the wedding. It is about psychological and biological difficulties between men and women that make marriage so challenging. It is about why passion is in danger of fading within marriage, how hormones exacerbate behavior, and how the brain confounds us. It is about how pregnancy and having young children and adolescents often catapult a marriage to its breaking point and how the stresses of mid-life contribute to marital discord. It is, in effect, how to ensure a happy enduring marriage. It is the art of marriage maintenance.