Guest Blog: Becoming a Better Parent, by Bob Lang
November 8, 2012
We’ve just added a new book on parenting to our store called Becoming a Better Parent: Ten Things We Need to Know About Parenting written by Bob Lang, LPC, LAC, MAC, SAP, a licensed mental health and substance abuse counselor based in Colorado, USA. We asked Bob to write a short synopsis of the book. Enjoy!
Bob Lang: I’m excited to talk with you about my book “Becoming a Better Parent.” Unlike other parenting books, my book goes beyond current limitations to provide a comprehensive and compassionate model that focuses on the entire parenting continuum. It contains a combined wisdom that has become my passion and is presented in a way that sheds new light on an age old subject. As a licensed mental health and addictions professional in providing forensic and therapeutic services, I’m delighted to share these system based perspectives on parenting with you. This book is an integrative and inclusive model of parenting that is based on 30 years of experience, knowledge, research, and know-how.
Intended to enlighten the path for parenting in the future, my only mission is to generate a similar enthusiasm in moving toward a better understanding of parenting. It is an effective blend of the art and science of parenting that provides us all with a new parameters-based approach for understanding the true complexity of parenting. Intended for professionals and parents alike it provides us all with a new framework for developing a multidimensional insight into the parent-child system.
My search for an answer to the driving question, ‘what does it mean to be a good parent?’ has opened up the horizon to a new frontier in parenting. These pathways form a new theoretical orientation to parenting that I hope creates a similar desire in your own search for truth. This book has developed its own course and has become a divergent path from the current advice driven parent literature that seeks to transcend our common knowledge of parenting. It attempts to transform our current views about parents, children, and their relationship, and creates a cohesive theory of effective parenting. It probes the deepest places of our hearts, minds and souls so we can all seek to create a better world for our children and make a difference in the future.
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Unhooked Books: unHooked Books is an online bookstore specializing in personality disorders, high-conflict people, living healthy, eating healthy, and better managing life.
Megan Hunter is founder and CEO of and Life Unhooked, a speaking, training and consulting company that provides a fresh perspective and approach to help companies and individuals identify and overcome the damaging behaviors of HCD’s – whether they are employees, customers, vendors, board members, or anyone in your life. Most importantly we help you ‘unhook’ from these peoples’ behaviors so that you can make the right, next decisions – cleanly and clearly. She is also the co-founder of the High Conflict Institute launched in 2007 with Bill Eddy, LCSW, Esq., an internationally renowned expert in High Conflict Personalities. She has been the recipient of several awards including the President’s Award by the Arizona Family Support Council (2005), the Friend of Psychology Award by the Arizona Psychology Association (2006) and the Outstanding Contribution Award by the Association of Family and Conciliation Courts (2010). She is a volunteer in several organizations including a member of Tanzania Project and Vice President of Personality Disorder Awareness Network (PDAN). She holds a BA degree in business from Chadron State College and an MBA from the University of Phoenix. To contact Megan about speaking engagements or to gather more information, email megan@lifeunhooked.com
Bob Lang:
Bob is a licensed mental health and addictions counselor, has his Master’s degree from Northern Arizona University and has been in practice since 1983. He was the founder and is the owner of Family Treatment Centers and is a co-occurring specialist. Bob is a forensic and legalistic evaluator and is an expert witness. He is a Family Systems authority and works as a consultant, writer and presenter. He is member of the state and national professional associations in mental health and substance abuse.
If you are in the helping professions or know someone who is, I can’t recommend this book highly enough…
July 5, 2012
Hi, I’m Megan Hunter, CEO/speaker at Life Unhooked, publisher at HCI Press and CEO/founder at Unhooked Books. I’m dedicated to being your resource for information on unhooking from high conflict people at work and in your personal life so that you can be happier and healthier.
Millions of you are in a “helping” profession, someone who helps other people. Firefighters, law enforcement, mental health professions, legal professions, medical professions, funeral home directors and many, many more. If this describes what you do, you’ve likely felt the effects of other people’s stress and trauma. In the mental health community, the stress and trauma is commonly referred to as compassion fatigue, burn-out, or just plain stress. Recognition of this condition in the helping professions has been acknowledged for many years but new research shows the level of devastation it can have on the helper. A new term that seems more accurate, descriptive and all-encompassing has come about – vicarious trauma.
Vicarious trauma is officially defined as the effect on you, the helper, from controlling your empathy while hearing other people’s trauma-content stories. Think about it, when you hear about a tragedy from a friend, you react with shock, surprise or some type of physical and/or emotional response. You express empathy. People in the helping professions are required to control their empathy while they hear trauma stories. The result over time is vicarious trauma.
So, what does vicarious trauma do? And why is it important for helpers to know about it and recognize it within themselves? Because if the helper doesn’t know about it, recognize it and acknowledge it, they are likely to end up with problems like depression, food and/or substance abuse or other addictions. Vicarious trauma takes away from life and helpers must know how to prevent it or treat it if they have it.
I published this book for two therapists, Vicki Carpel Miller BSN, RN, LMFT and Ellie Izzo, PhD, LPC, because I knew this was important for millions of people who probably make no connection between their sadness, depression, addiction and other problems and their chosen profession/vicarious trauma. Vicki and Ellie wrote Second-Hand Shock: Surviving & Overcoming Vicarious Trauma with the goal of helping anyone in the helping professions recognize and either seek treatment if necessary or follow the workbook portion of the book to alleviate vicarious trauma.
The authors begin with an understanding of how your brain and body react to trauma. Then with nineteen telling stories of vicarious trauma-in-progress, they lead you through a unique process that effectively addresses second-hand shock. The Second-Hand Shock Workbook, included in the book, is a straightforward guide to assist you in recovering from occupational trauma and restore you to a more balanced life.
If you are in the helping professions or know someone who is, I can’t recommend this book highly enough. Helpers will be at their best personally and professionally when they become aware of this hidden danger and know how to alleviate it and prevent it.
Just Stop! It’s Easier Than You Think…
June 20, 2012
Hi, I’m Megan Hunter, CEO/speaker at Life Unhooked, publisher at HCI Press and CEO/founder at Unhooked Books. I’m dedicated to being your resource for information on unhooking from high conflict people at work and in your personal life so that you can be happier and healthier.
Search for the terms, dating, relationships, weight loss, dieting, or stop smoking in the Amazon bookstore and you’ll find hundreds or maybe even thousands of relevant books. Every book has a perspective and value but few offer readers the option of digging beneath the surface to get at the underlying reasons for our addictions and bad habits. So, when I was approached by two therapist/educators about publishing a series of books that would do just that, I was sold!
The therapists, Vicki Carpel Miller BSN, MS, LMFT and Ellie Izzo, PhD, LPC, found that the majority of their clients shared commonalities, regardless of the issue. They typically had unresolved, underlying issues (or should I just call it what it is in lots of cases – traumas) that usually hung around for years, maybe even since childhood. They developed a method called the Rapid Advance Process to help clients quickly achieve success. But, they thought, what about the people who don’t seek therapy for help? How can they be reached? Thus was born the Just Stop Series.
They started with Just Stop Doing That!, a book that introduces the Rapid Advance Process and a clear, simple explanation of how bad habits form and get stuck in a loop in our neurocircuitry. The reader gets a brief education about the genesis of bad habits, then starts on a path of getting at those life places where they’re stuck. Working through the 5-step workbook portion forces the reader to answer questions about their own history, just like you would in therapy. By the time you get through all 5 steps, that bad habits will either be broken or nearly broken.
The second and third books in the series, Just Stop Picking Losers! and Just Stop Eating That!, focus on dating/relationships and dieting/weight loss. They use the same Rapid Advance Process and a new series of questions that guide the reader through their history and into success and freedom.
Just Stop Eating That! goes beyond calorie counting and yo-yo dieting. Ultimately, Vicki and Ellie teach you to use your thoughts to break the old neurocircuitry that keeps you eating too much, then walk you through the Rapid Advance Process to get quickly to life-altering changes. No more diets. No more bouncing around. Simply understanding what lies underneath, getting rid of old thought patterns and learning new ones.
Just Stop Picking Losers! uses stories from people who chose the wrong person and others who chose the right person, they help the reader stop repeating history and start picking the right person. I love this book because Vicki and Ellie don’t mince words. They caution us to stop ignoring the red flags, help us understand why we keep picking the same relationships over and over, and give us the tools to break the old brain thoughts and replace them with new thoughts that help us pick the right person (aka, healthy person).
Pick up a copy of one or all three. If not for you, then pick them up for your friends. It’s money well-spent. In fact, the $12.95 price is only about 10% of what you’d pay for just one therapy session. Value, value, value. Success, success, success.
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