Neurobehavioral Counseling & Consulting

09/09/2026

When I heard Dr. Lucy Hone had written a second grief book, I thought, "What else could she possibly say?" Her Resilient Grieving got me through some of the darkest days of my life after losing my friend. I had already learned her three strategies: accept that suffering is part of life, focus only on what you can control, and ask yourself "Is what I'm doing helping or harming me?" I thought I'd already found what I needed.

But then I picked this one up. And I realized I had been grieving one specific kind of loss, the death of my friend, but completely ignoring the dozens of other losses I was carrying.

That's what this book is about. And I had no idea how much I needed it.

Resilient Grieving was written in the wake of Hone's daughter Abi's death in a car accident. This book was shaped by a different kind of heartbreak. Over the years after writing the first book, Hone spoke with thousands of people facing life's toughest moments, not just death, but all the other "living losses" that go unseen: the loss of identity, relationships, roles, health, safety, or certainty about the future.

We grieve so much more than death loss. Divorce. Infertility. Estrangement. Job loss. A diagnosis that changes everything. Moving away from a place you loved. Losing a friendship. Watching your parents age. Hone calls these "hidden grief" losses because society rarely recognises them, leaving people feeling isolated and unseen.

Reading that made me stop. I thought about my divorce three years ago. The loss of my identity as a wife. The loss of my in-laws, who I'd loved like my own parents. The loss of my home. The loss of the future I had imagined. I had treated each of these as separate crises, not as grief. But they were grief. All of them. And I had never let myself mourn any of them fully. I'd just moved on, or tried to.

This book is organised around twenty transformative questions, derived from Hone's previously unpublished research. It gently carries you from the rawness of early loss—"Why am I so tired? Who am I now? Will I ever feel happy again?"—to a place of growth, meaning, and renewal. Each question is a chapter. And each chapter feels like a compassionate conversation with someone who has sat exactly where you're sitting.

5 Lessons That Hit Me in the Gut

1. Living losses deserve to be grieved just as much as death.
This was the biggest lightbulb moment for me. I'd never thought of my divorce as grief. I'd thought of it as a failure. Something to get over, to move on from. But Hone says, "Grief is not confined to bereavement". Diagnosis, divorce, estrangement, job loss, these are losses too, and they deserve to be treated that way. When I finally allowed myself to feel the grief of losing my marriage, not just the anger or the relief, but the actual, deep grief, something shifted. I stopped fighting it. And that's when I started healing.

2. You're not broken. You're responding to a broken situation.
I'd been telling myself I was "weak" for still struggling with my divorce years later. But Hone reframes this entirely. Your grief is a natural response to loss, it's a sign that you loved, that you cared, that you were invested in something important. You're not broken. You're human. And that simple reframe helped me stop beating myself up.

3. There's no "right way" to grieve.
Hone is outspoken about the inadequacy, and even potential harm, of Kübler-Ross's Five Stages model of grief. Grief isn't linear. It isn't tidy. You don't go through stages and then emerge cured. I wish someone had told me this years ago. I spent so long feeling like I was "doing grief wrong" because I'd cycle through anger and sadness and acceptance all in the same hour. But Hone says it's messy, unpredictable, and deeply personal. And that's normal.

4. You can't control the loss. You can control what you do next.
This is the heart of Hone's entire approach. She teaches you to "focus ruthlessly on what you can control" and ask yourself regularly: "Is what I'm doing helping or harming me?". I started applying this to my grief. I couldn't control that my marriage ended. But I could control whether I isolated myself or reached out to friends. I could control whether I stayed in bed all day or went for a walk. These tiny choices added up. They didn't fix anything, but they kept me moving forward, one small step at a time.

5. Growth can coexist with loss.
Hone's research into post-traumatic growth shows that positive psychological change can emerge from struggling with highly challenging circumstances. This isn't about toxic positivity. It's not saying "everything happens for a reason." It's saying that alongside your pain, you can also discover strengths you didn't know you had. Deepen relationships. Find new purpose. Live more intentionally. I started volunteering. I reconnected with old friends. I started therapy. None of this made the loss go away. But it gave me something to hold onto alongside it.

I finished this book feeling like I'd finally given myself permission to grieve everything I'd been carrying, not just my friend’s death, but the marriage I lost, the future I mourned, the pieces of myself I'd let go of. Lucy Hone writes with a rare blend of scientific expertise and lived experience. She's been where I am. She's lost a child. She's had to rebuild her entire life. And she's not asking you to be "strong" or "positive" or "resilient" in some abstract way. She's giving you actual, research-backed tools to survive. And more than that, to eventually, maybe, thrive.

Her TED talk, Three Secrets of Resilient People, has been viewed over nine million times and is ranked among the Top 100 TED Talks of all time. I think the reason it resonates so deeply is that she's not a guru on a mountain. She's a woman who lost her daughter and had to figure out how to keep living. And she's sharing what she learned.

If you're carrying hidden grief, the kind no one sees, the kind you don't know how to name, read this book. Let Lucy Hone take your hand and walk you through it. You don't have to do it alone. And you don't have to do it perfectly. You just have to keep going. One question at a time.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4wHbEmf

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09/07/2026

We treat happiness like a prize to win, yet we still wake up with the same background anxiety and self-doubt. The reason is simple: your brain was never built to make you happy. It was built to hunt danger, hoard resources, and keep you alive. Modern culture exploits that survival code, promising that a better title, more money, or the next purchase will finally make you whole.

It's a lie. In The Science of Happiness, psychologist Bruce Hood proves that chasing happiness inward is a dead end. Lasting peace of mind isn't something you unlock by obsessing over yourself—it happens when you turn your focus outward to the world around you.

1. Kill your self-obsession Viewing the world through a me-first lens kept your ancestors alive, but today, obsessing over your image, flaws, and social status will just burn you out. The endless story you tell yourself about who you are is mostly a fictional narrative spun by your brain. Drop the constant self-analysis. When you stop taking yourself so seriously, your inner critic shuts up, and you actually get room to breathe.

2. Isolation is slow poison Your brain reads solitude as danger; pull back from people long enough and your system enters a low-grade panic state that destroys your physical health. Group chats and online routines are a fake substitute—they starve you of real human contact. Getting in a room with actual people isn't a leisure activity; it is non-negotiable biological maintenance.

3. Stop looking sideways Measuring yourself against the people around you was an evolutionary tool to survive in a tribe. Applying that instinct to curated social media feeds is psychological su***de. You are judging your raw reality against someone else’s highlight reel. Catch yourself making the comparison, kill the impulse, and judge your life strictly by your own standards.

4. Train your mind to spot the wins Your brain automatically scans for threats, flaws, and problems because that’s what kept early humans from getting eaten. In the modern world, that wiring just makes you miserable. Optimism isn't a magical personality trait you’re born with; it’s a muscle. Forcing yourself to notice what’s going right slowly rewires your neural pathways to handle daily life.

5. Seize control of your attention An idle mind almost always defaults to anxiety, future-worry, and past regret. Letting your focus drift guarantees a bad mood. You have to direct your attention with brute force. Pour yourself into deep work, real hobbies, or physical action. Keeping your mind anchored to the outside world stops it from tearing itself apart from the inside.

6. Generosity is self-defense Modern self-care culture tells you to pamper yourself, but chasing comfort only breeds emptiness. Real satisfaction comes from serving something outside your own skin. Being generous lights up neural rewards that buying yourself a treat can never match. Shift your default question from "What do I get out of this?" to "How can I help?" and your life instantly gains weight.

7. Stop analyzing your feelings The fastest way to stay miserable is to sit around monitoring your mood, measuring your progress, and hunting for happiness like a line item on a checklist. You cannot think your way into peace. Get out of your head, get outdoors, build deep friendships, and pour yourself into real work. Stop chasing happiness—let it catch up to you while you’re busy living.

Book/Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4xBHbXt

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09/07/2026

Preorder Lysa TerKeurst’s new book today.

09/06/2026

09/04/2026

We all get angry sometimes. It's a normal, human emotion. But when anger becomes frequent, intense, or uncontrollable, when it damages relationships, clouds judgment, leads to regretful behavior, or leaves you feeling embarrassed, it's time to make a change.

This is not a book about suppressing your anger. It's not about pretending you don't feel it. It's about understanding why you get angry, what triggers it, and how to respond in ways that don't leave you feeling worse afterward.

Tafrate and Kassinove are clinical psychologists with decades of experience using cognitive-behavioral interventions to treat anger. This book is the distillation of that work: a practical, research-backed program for getting anger under control without losing your voice or becoming a doormat.

The book offers ten proven strategies for managing anger, and it's grounded in the authors' "Anger Episode Model," which breaks down what happens from trigger to response to aftermath. There's no shame here, just clear, compassionate, and practical guidance.

5 Lessons That Stick With You:

1. Anger is not a problem, it's a signal.
We often treat anger as the enemy. Tafrate and Kassinove reframe it: anger is information. It tells you that something is wrong, that a boundary has been crossed, that an expectation hasn't been met. The problem is not the feeling, it's what you do with it. Learn to listen to the signal without being hijacked by it.

2. Your thoughts drive your anger, not the situation.
The CBT insight at the heart of the book: it's not the event that makes you angry, it's your interpretation of the event. Two people can have the same experience and respond completely differently. If you can change your thoughts about what's happening, you can change your anger response.

3. Physical awareness is the secret weapon.
Anger is a full-body experience. Your heart rate increases. Your muscles tense. You start breathing shallowly. The book teaches you to notice these physical signs early, before you're fully triggered, so you can intervene while you still have a choice. This is where relaxation and mindfulness exercises become essential tools.

4. You are not your anger.
One of the most important reframes: your anger is a part of your experience, but it's not who you are. You can observe it, feel it, and still choose how to respond. You are not a "bad person" for getting angry. You are a person who gets angry sometimes, and who can learn to manage it better.

5. Change requires practice.
There is no magic wand. The strategies in this book work only if you practice them. You'll need to track your anger, try new responses, and learn from what doesn't work. The authors emphasize patience: you won't get it right every time, and that's okay. Progress, not perfection.

Anger Management for Everyone is a straightforward, practical, and compassionate guide to getting control of your anger. Tafrate and Kassinove offer ten proven strategies grounded in cognitive-behavioral therapy, with clear steps and exercises for applying them to your life.

It won't make you a different person overnight. But it will give you the tools to stop letting anger run your life. One step at a time.

Read it when you're ready to stop regretting your anger. Keep a notebook nearby, you'll want to start an anger log.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4x9IPyH

09/04/2026

I picked up this audiobook on a night when an unwanted image would not leave my mind, curiosity drove me toward something that promised concrete tools rather than reassurance alone, and the authors’ clinical calm made the whole thing feel like sitting in a kindly, efficient therapy session. Senn Annis’ narration has a steady, conversational cadence that turns clinical language into practical coaching, and Winston and Seif pace the material so exercises arrive exactly when you are ready for them. Listening, I paused to try an on the page worksheet, rewound to hear a case example again, and that hands on, clinical style made the book’s methods land as actions I could test right away. Below are eight lessons I took, written from my point of view, showing how the authors drove each idea home, and how each lesson can help anyone who listens.

1. Learn the difference between thought and intent, naming frees you from false guilt
The authors begin by explaining that intrusive thoughts are common, they are different from wishes or plans, and they often reflect the brain’s tendency to generate alarming material rather than any real desire. Because they use clear examples and simple metaphors, I could not ignore how ordinary these thoughts are, and once I started labeling them as intrusive rather than meaningful, the first layer of panic eased. For readers, making this distinction reduces shame, prevents overreaction, and creates the psychological space needed to apply further strategies.

2. Understand the habit loop that fuels obsession, diagnosing the loop lets you intervene
Winston and Seif lay out how trigger, thought, reaction, and safety behavior form a repeating cycle, they provide worksheets that map your personal loop step by step, and the combination of explanation plus hands on mapping made the pattern painfully obvious in my own life. Once I could see where I automatically responded, I had clear targets for change. Anyone who maps their loop can identify which reaction to modify, design targeted experiments, and stop feeding the cycle that amplifies intrusive content.

3. Exposure with response prevention is uncomfortable but decisive, practice beats avoidance
The book carefully introduces ERP as a core method, it gives graded exercises and scripts so exposures do not feel reckless but are systematic, and hearing patient stories and step by step instructions made the method feel doable rather than terrifying. I started with a tiny, guided exposure and learned that tolerating short discomfort reduced the thought’s intensity later on. For readers, ERP teaches the mind new evidence, reduces the power of the intrusive content, and is one of the most reliably effective ways to weaken obsessive loops.

4. Reduce safety behaviors because they maintain the problem, the alternative is curious testing
The authors explain how checking, mental reviewing, and avoidance give temporary relief but reinforce fear long term, they offer replacements such as brief postponement of reassurance and graded experiments to gather disconfirming evidence. The concrete replacement phrases and real life examples made it hard to keep believing that safety behaviors were helpful. Readers who stop automatic safety rituals will accelerate recovery, learn that feared outcomes are unlikely, and regain control over their responses.

5. Use cognitive techniques to test catastrophic meanings, gentle reality testing matters more than argument
Winston and Seif teach how to examine assumptions, generate alternative explanations, and collect objective evidence, they provide scripts for gentle Socratic questioning rather than blunt reassurance, and the stepwise approach made cognitive change feel like a careful investigation rather than a pep talk. I used a quick reality test after an intrusive fear and its estimated likelihood dropped dramatically. Anyone who learns this method will be better at separating worst case stories from probability, reducing the urgency these thoughts create.

6. Practice mindfulness and acceptance to change your relationship with thoughts, noticing is more powerful than fighting
The book offers short mindfulness exercises and acceptance phrasing that reduce the struggle against thoughts, the narration guides a few practices so I could try them immediately and feel how noticing without chasing or pushing changes the tone of anxiety. Over time the intrusive material lost its grip because I stopped feeding it with struggle. Readers who cultivate mindful acceptance will tolerate uncertainty better, reduce compulsive responding, and experience less distress even when intrusive content appears.

7. Use behavioral experiments, small tests generate new, persuasive data for the brain
Winston and Seif give practical experiment templates to test feared outcomes, they emphasize measurement and follow up so the tests are informative, and their case examples of experiments succeeding made it irresistible to try my own. I ran a short experiment and the result contradicted my catastrophic prediction, which undermined the thought’s credibility. For readers, experiments produce real evidence that changes belief, they replace avoidance with curiosity, and they speed learning in ways talk alone cannot.

8. Build relapse prevention and self compassion into the plan, setbacks are data not failure
The authors end with relapse planning, flexible maintenance strategies, and a strong emphasis on kind self talk, their compassionate clinical voice stresses that progress is nonlinear and gives concrete steps for returning to practice after a slip. I found that having a short relapse script and a few go to exercises removed the shame that used to prolong setbacks. Readers who plan for relapse and treat themselves kindly will recover more quickly from setbacks, maintain improvements long term, and preserve motivation to keep practicing.

Listening to this audiobook felt like receiving a compact CBT toolkit delivered with clinical warmth, each chapter pairs explanation with immediately usable exercises, and the combination of clear narration, worksheets, and patient examples made the methods testable the same day. If you actually listen and try even a few of the practices, you will likely notice intrusive thoughts lose intensity, compulsive responses decrease, and your capacity to live with uncertainty increase.

Book/Audiobook: https://amzn.to/4pl7P2F

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09/02/2026

Erik Peper, PhD, BCBa, Stoyan Vezenkov, PhDb, Violeta Manolovab, Lauren Mason, PhDc and Richard Harvey, PhDd a BiofeedbackHealth, Berkeley, CA; b Center for Applied Neuroscience Vezenkov, Sofia, Bu…

09/01/2026

Developmental trauma is different from shock trauma. It's not a single event, a car accident, a natural disaster, an assault. It's the slow, insidious damage done by chronic misattunement, neglect, abuse, or instability during childhood. It's what happens when your nervous system learns, early and deeply, that the world is unsafe, that you are alone, that you must adapt to survive, and those adaptations become the architecture of your adult self.

The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma is the follow-up companion to Laurence Heller's earlier Healing Developmental Trauma. It presents the NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM), an integrated mind-body framework that addresses complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and the relational wounds that traditional trauma therapies often miss.

NARM is not about reliving trauma or excavating the past. It's about understanding how your nervous system adapted to survive, and then gently, carefully, rewiring those adaptations so you can finally live from your authentic self.

This is a clinical guide, written for therapists, counselors, and helping professionals. But it's also accessible to anyone who wants to understand developmental trauma more deeply, whether for their own healing or to support someone else's.

What the NARM Model Offers:

The book outlines NARM's four pillars and how to apply them in therapy:

1. The Organizing Principles. The NARM model is built on five core principles, including relationality, connection to Self, the importance of agency, and the understanding that survival strategies are not pathologies but adaptations.

2. The Five Adaptive Survival Styles. NARM identifies five common ways the developing self adapts to survive traumatic environments (Connection, Attunement, Trust, Autonomy, and Love/Sexuality). Each style represents a different way of organizing experience and relating to others.

3. A Focus on the Present. Instead of diving into the past to "process" trauma, NARM works with present-moment experience. The past informs the work but isn't the work itself.

4. The Therapeutic Relationship as the Vehicle of Healing. NARM emphasizes that healing developmental trauma happens primarily through the therapeutic relationship itself, not through techniques or protocols.

5 Lessons That Stick With You:

1. Developmental trauma is not a diagnosis, it's a relational wound.
It's not about what's "wrong" with you. It's about what happened to you, and how your nervous system adapted to survive.

2. Your survival strategies are not your enemy.
NARM distinguishes between the Self, your core identity, and the survival style you developed to cope. The goal is not to eliminate the survival style. It's to understand it, befriend it, and gradually allow the authentic Self to emerge.

3. Healing happens in the present, not the past.
You don't have to relive every painful memory to heal. You just have to build the capacity to be present, with your body, your emotions, and your relationships, without being hijacked by the past.

4. The therapeutic relationship is the medicine.
If you're a therapist, this is the most important takeaway: NARM is not a technique. It's a relational orientation. Your presence with your client is the primary healing agent.

5. Post-traumatic growth is possible.
NARM is fundamentally hopeful. It recognizes the depth of developmental trauma and offers a clear path toward not just relief but transformation.

The Practical Guide for Healing Developmental Trauma is a vital resource for anyone working with complex trauma. Laurence Heller and Brad Kammer offer a clear, compassionate, and deeply practical framework for understanding and healing the wounds of childhood.

If you're a therapist, this is a book you'll return to again and again. If you're a survivor of developmental trauma, it will give you language for what you've experienced and hope for what's possible.

Read it if you're ready to move beyond the diagnosis and toward authentic healing.

BOOK: https://amzn.to/4xu0Dp0

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09/01/2026

Often, it can seem as if faith and spirituality are disconnected from emotional wellness. Since emotions are such a significant part of life, how can it be that God left the path to emotional peace and recovery out of scripture? The problem isn’t scripture, the problem is societal conditioning ...