Oxford University Press, 2003

“…Our population is becoming increasingly diverse, so we will increasingly face problems brought about by differences. This book is about communications; about crossing the divide that cultures and society sometimes widens rather than lessens. We hope this book will teach you how not to be afraid to talk to each other and to understand our uniqueness. We believe that only through frank and honest discussions can we become fully aware of the differences that make us unique. Only then can we really enjoy the beauty and richness of the multicultural artwork that is the human tapestry of America.”(From Diversity, “Introduction: Weaving the Tapestry,” by Dr. John Robinson and Larry C. James.)

In this book, Drs. John Robinson and Larry James organize the ideas and insights of the best and brightest thinkers into an intimate and compelling tour of diversity in race, ethnic differences, aging, sexual orientation, disability, and religion. Each chapter is written by a member of that group, and is also a renowned scholar or educator. The writing is clean, with an economy of words and theory that brings the information into sharp, meaningful focus. The reader is let into the inner circle, in a frank and honest way, to grasp the experience of another.

John told the Times that this readability did not come easily. “When I wrote it, Larry was at Walter Reed, because he’s military. We would get a chapter, I’d go over to Walter Reed and get a private or a sergeant, and have them read it. If they could understand, it was okay. If they couldn’t, it went back to the author. I wanted the man on the street to be able to read it and say, ‘Oh, I got that, I didn’t know that.’”

“We had some very high level academic people writing those chapters and to try to convince them to write a non-academic style was hard. I sent it back not because of the academic rigor, but because it was too rigorous.”

Diversity in Human Interactions can be used as a tool for human-relations training or college textbook. But anyone with an interest in social interactions will find it a fascinating tour through human experience, and a treasure chest of insights about differences.

“It is used by the military and several universities,” John noted. “It’s used by a few corporations, when they do their diversity training. Because I did not want a theoretical book, when you read it you won’t see theory. You’ll see what it’s like to be, for instance, Asian. What do Asians want to be called? What do Hispanics want to be called?”

A chapter by Diane Willis and Dolores Subia Bigfoot, titled “On Native Soil: The Forgotten Race: American Indians,” explains how the Chippewa call themselves Ojibway, The Dine’ people are called Navajo, and the Tis-Tsis-Tsas are called Cheyenne. The Winnebago recently returned to their original name, Tohono O’Odham, moving away from the name thrust on them by others and history books.

“Native American is one of the worse terms we have,” John explained. “Indians don’t like to be called Native Americans. They want to be called Cherokee or Choctaw or even American Indians. Because Native American was a congressional term, it included Alaskans, Native Hawaiians, and American Indians. So American Indians loss their identity in that term,” he explained.

“Na Kanaka Maoli: The Indigenous People of Hawai‘i,” a chapter on Hawaiians, is written in a different style, with a different voice, than other chapters. John, who travels to Hawaii regularly said, “It’s one of the few books that has a chapter on Native Hawaiians. And when you read it, the style of writing is completely different from the other chapters.”

“What Difference Does A Difference Make?” by Beverly Greene, “… sets up the whole thing,” John said. She writes about why people want to see differences, the positives and the negatives, and deeper insights into the understanding people have of others.

How did John conceive the book? “It was because of Anne Rice,” he said, an author he admires and would occasionally cross paths with in New Orleans. “Anne Rice wrote a book called Feast of All Saints,” he said, “which is about New Orleans, antebellum era, pre and post.” Her book explained the diversity of the city for John. “From there I said, humm… I need to write something a little more academic, that people could use.”

“The big publishing companies came after it when we told people what we were interested in doing,” John noted. “Larry and I were approached by about six different publishing companies. We chose Oxford University Press, because of the name and they offered us the most assistance with the most autonomy.”

“It’s still selling extremely well,” he said. “Frequently I’m getting notes from Oxford saying, ‘Did you know that some University or corporation picked it up?’ Because of the way it was written. It can be used by anyone. The guy in the mailroom can read it, as well as the CEO of the company. It’s timeless.”

Dr. John Robinson, author of Diversity In Human Interactions, came to Louisiana in the 80s and now is professor at Howard U. Medical School, in D.C. He is Vice Chair of the Psychology Bd there, and holds the ABPP in Clinical Health Psychology.

Oxford University Press 2008

“Introduction to Clinical Psychology covers the history, theory, practice, and potential future of the discipline and provides a comprehensive overview of interviewing, assessment, psychotherapy, community intervention, and public policy.

The text describes psychological assessment procedures in detail and provides case studies demonstrating how the tests are administered and interpreted. It presents psychotherapy from both the traditional “schools” perspective and the practical perspective of number of individuals being seen-individual, couple, group, and family.”

This undergraduate text is written in a conversational tone that is genuine, straightforward, and sprinkled with interesting anecdotes of the authors’ experiences bridging technical information into more practical meaning. Much of traditional clinical psychology is covered, but fascinating chapters on specialties and “The Dynamic Future of Clinical Psychology,” pull together the technology and career directions that many readers will enjoy. Included are sections on Neuropsychology, Health Psychology, Forensic Psychology, Sport Psychology, Geropsychology, Clinical Child Psychology and Pediatric Psychology. Linking into career directions the authors expand on “Serious Mental Illness,” “Trauma,” “Public Policy Activities,” “Executive Coaching.” Emerging topics include “Prescriptive Authority,” “Behavioral Health,” “Assessment,” “Positive Psychology,” “Diversity,” “Technology,” and “Lifespan Psychology.”

Dr. Janet Matthews told the Times that her path to getting Clinical Psychology published was a “fairly complicated story.” During a SEPA convention she met a senior editor from Mayfield Press. The two struck up an easy friendship and he asked her to consider writing a book. Janet did not really want to do another book at that time, but later she encountered the Mayfield editor again at the APA convention. “Over breakfast, on a paper napkin,” she said, “we did a rough table of contents for an introduction to clinical psychology.” She agreed to write the book, scheduling a sabbatical leave to do the work. However, in the meantime Mayfield was sold, and her editor decided to retire. Janet did not pursue the book with the new owner, but she still had approval for the leave. Then during an APA convention, a friend suggested she attend an Oxford University Press party to meet an editor. She did so and this led to a contract. After many changes and delays due to changes in Oxford’s college textbook division, the book was finally published. She said, “The book actually took about eight years to go from contract to publication.”

What does Janet like best about writing? “For me it is probably seeing the finished product,” she said. “Being able to look back over the process from that initial outline and proposal to the final book is very fulfilling. Since I tend to write at home rather than in my office, I also enjoy the solitude of working on a book. My cats were still alive when I was doing this work and so having a whole day (I usually wrote on a day when I could spend the entire day on the process) when I could be creative and yet take a break and rub their fur was truly serene.”

“One frustration is dealing with the reviewers hired by publishers,” she said. “Some of them really provide good feedback but others just seem to miss the whole point of the book and therefore you then have to explain to your editor why you are definitely not going to make the changes they suggest.”

In regard to future writing projects, Janet does not have anything planned at present. “I have also considered using one part of my clinical book as a potential “stand alone” careers book and talking to a publisher about it. At this point, I am not sure I want the hassle of doing it because it involved considerable interviewing, editing, and generally rough time constraints that I don’t want while I am so involved in current APA roles.” Janet is the chair of Board of Educational Affairs, president-elect of APA’s Division 31, and she has a scheduled attendance at two Fall APA leadership conferences – Educational Leadership Conference in September and Science Leadership Conference in November.

Understandably, Dr. Matthews said, “I will need to think more carefully about this before proceeding.”

June 2010 Oxford Press

Publisher: “The roots of religion stretch as far back as half a million years, when our ancestors developed the motor control to engage in social rituals–that is, to sing and dance together. Then, about 70,000 years ago, a global ecological crisis drove humanity to the edge of extinction. It forced the survivors to create new strategies for survival, and religious rituals were foremost among them. Fundamentally, Rossano writes, religion is a way for humans to relate to each other and the world around them–and, in the grim struggles of prehistory, it offered significant survival and reproductive advantages. It emerged as our ancestors’ first health care system, and a critical part of that health care system was social support. Religious groups tended to be far more cohesive, which gave them a competitive advantage over non-religious groups, and enabled them to conquer the globe.”

In his new book, Supernatural Selection: How Religion Evolved, Dr. Matt Rossano provides an integrative view of the evolutionary history of religion, an approach filled with insights and stimulating logic. He shows how belief in the supernatural has served an adaptive purpose for humans–that it is religion that has made us human.

Analyzing both sides of a debate spurred by Richard Dawkins’ atheist manifesto, The God Delusion, Dr. Matt Rossano believes that this debate overlooks what science can tell us about religion.

Chair of the Psychology Department at Southeastern and an evolutionary psychologist, Matt said, “For Richard Dawkins and a few other notables, the world knows nothing quite so wicked as religion. We would all be far better off without it and all that trails in its wake: suicide bombers, Taliban-style tyranny, child-abusing clergy, science-denying creationists, etc.” Matt believes that Dawkins was missing or ignoring something very fundamental. “If religion was so clearly damaging to the human psyche and so corrosive of human society how could it have ever evolved?” And he wondered, “How is it possible that every culture throughout human history has had religion?”

Matt said, “Compounding the conundrum is the fact that time and again studies showed that religious people tended to be happier, healthier, more generous and civic minded than their non-religious counterparts. Religion is also tenacious,” he said. “Enlightenment thinkers promised that religion would fade as science and reason provided a more accurate picture of the natural world. To the bewilderment of Dawkins and his ilk, the world seems to have reneged on that Enlightenment promise.”

Matt has studied the evolution of religion and other uniquely human cognitive traits for some time. He is the author of Evolutionary Psychology: The Science of Human Behavior and Evolution. His book chapter “The Archaeology of Consciousness,” in Cognitive Archaeology and Human Evolution, and other numerous papers, address evolution, ritual, religion, and moral behavior. “Making friends, making tools, and making symbols,” is coming out soon in a special issue of Current Anthropology, focusing on working memory and human evolution.

“It was not until I ran across an essay by William James,” Matt said, “that the central theme of the book began to take shape.” In The Will to Believe, James contended that relational trust provided a rational basis for religious faith. If we want friends, James argued, we have to be willing to trust them. “Demanding up-front evidence of someone’s trustworthiness risked insulting them,” Matt explained, “thereby killing the friendship before it ever got started. Relationships require a bit of irrational risk-taking. For James, the risk was worth it since the rewards of personal relationships far outweighed the intellectual compromise required to set things in motion.” James then extended this logic to religion.

“Other evidence seemed to confirm that at its core, religion was not about doctrines, creeds, institutions, or even miracles, but about relationships,” Matt said. In Supernatural Selection, he reviews important work by psychologist Lee Kirkpatrick, who has shown that attachment theory provides a profitable theoretical framework for understanding religion. “A secure attachment to God can provide the same physical and psychological benefits as secure attachments to other humans,” he noted. Additionally, anthropologist Roger Lohmann’s fieldwork found that religious conversion was better understood as the adoption of a new set of relationships rather than a new set of doctrines or beliefs.

Prominent Darwinian philosopher Dr. Michael Ruse (Florida State University) heartily endorses Rossano’s approach to the subject: “Supernatural Selection is a fascinating account of how religion arose in response to our human adaptive needs”, says Ruse, “…[it] will be at the forefront of all future discussion on this topic.”

Matt said, “I hope the book gives people a different perspective on religion. Just as human relationships can be either good or bad, so to with religious relationships. Just as human relationships almost necessarily involve a degree of irrationality, so to with religious relationships.”

“Really, the focus in both cases ought to be more on the outcomes of the relationship. Is it good or bad for the person and those around them?”

Dr. Matt Rossano, Chair of the Psychology Department at Southeastern Louisiana University, on the steps of the old Holy Ghost Church, Hammond, LA. Supernatural Selection will be available in June at Amazon and selected bookstores

Analytic Press

Several things converged for Dr. Anne Dean when she decided to write Teenage Pregnancy. “I got tired of being holed up in my windowless office at UNO writing articles about Piaget and the development of mental imagery,” she said. “After ten years of doing this, I, and I think the field of developmental psychology, both agreed that enough was enough.”

Then Anne learned “participant observation’ or ‘ethnographic’ field method with the help of Dr. Martha Ward, an anthropologist at UNO, which opened up new ways of study for her. With the help of Henry Reiff, one of her students, she connected with a rural community of African-Americans who had “lived on the ‘backplace’ of a sugar plantation” for generations. Anne and Henry approached the community, offering tutoring for the children in exchange for being able to observe how the children learned right from wrong. But after a few months and many discussions over meals at a local po-boy shop called “Fat Daddy’s,” Anne and Henry realized that the most important concern to the women in this community was teenage pregnancy.

“Over and over we heard stories of how they had become pregnant as teenagers…how these pregnancies and births had affected their lives–they said for the worse, but there was usually a subtext of more positive feelings about these developments. We also realized that the focus of almost all of the stories we heard was not the teen’s relationship with the baby’s father, but the relationship between the teenage girl and her mother. This relationship, in the end, became the main focus of the book.”

Being a “number researcher at heart,” Anne eventually applied for and won a large grant from NIH to continue the work. With the help of two other graduate students, Mindy Malik and Sarah Ducey, she began looking at the dynamics in the attachment relationship between the teenagers and their mothers, comparing those teens who had become pregnant with those who had not.

Teenage Pregnancy is a smoothly written, readable and compelling study, complete with excerpts and theoretical discourse about women’s lives in the rural South. Peter Fonagy, Ph.D., University of London writes, “This is an important and fascinating book… The rigorous methodology does not in the slightest obscure the interpersonal and intrapsychic struggles the young women face. Dean’s clinically meaningful application of attachment theory concepts and methods sets new standards for the field. In sum, Teenage Pregnancy is a unique study that stands without peer in this complex and difficult field.”

When asked about the writer’s life, Anne told PT that she learned a lot in the course of getting her book published. “I learned that I can write well on subjects about which I am passionate,” she said. “Several reviewers and editors commented on this, to my surprise, for my high school English teachers had always conveyed the opposite opinion.”

She added, “I learned after the fact that a surefire way of losing the attention of readers is to try to cram everything I know or have ever thought into one small space using language that even I have difficulty understanding.”

Getting published was not without its frustrations. Her book was nearly to press when Lawrence Erlbaum invited a well-known African-American sociologist to write a preface. However, because the sociologist felt that white researchers could never understand African-American psyches or culture, the publisher reneged on the contract, surprising both Anne and the publisher’s own editors. Fortunately, Analytic Press immediately took over the book. “This was a frustrating experience,” Anne said, “but in the end, I think I learned many useful things about myself and the writing world in the process.”

Anne is currently working on her new book, Tragic Irish Heroes. After retiring from UNO and going into full-time practice, Anne realized she wanted something new to write about. Her husband, also practicing psychiatry and psychoanalysis, was ‘also game for a sabbatical.’ So, the couple spent six months in Northern Ireland studying conflict from a group dynamics perspective.

In her new work, Anne tells the stories of nine, dead, tragic heroes (Brian Boru, Roderick O’Connor, Hugh “the Great” O’Neill, Owen Roe O’Neill, Patrick Sarsfield, Wolfe Tone, Daniel O’Connell, Charles Stewart Parnell, and Michael Collins) with an underlying psychoanalytic theme. “But this is a theme that remains latent,” she explained, “with nary a word spoken or written out loud in psychoanalytic language. I am struggling to write in a style that will appeal to a much wider audience, trying to forget everything I knew about writing articles for psychology journals.”

She said, “My latent thesis is that the psyche of the current Irish hero in Northern Ireland, Gerry Adams, M.P., consists in large measure of identifications with this pantheon of dead tragic Irish heroes — identifications that I believe have manifested themselves in various ways during his lifetime, and that the best way for Adams to avoid another tragic outcome is through awareness of these identifications. Thus, the book is written both for and about Adams.”

Dr. Anne Dean, a native New Orleanian, now lives in Eugene, Oregon, near her daughter, son-in-law, and one-year old granddaughter. Licensed in Louisiana and Oregon, she devotes most of her time to writing, playing tennis, training for walking marathons, baby-sitting, and taking singing Dr. Anne Dean and granddaughter Sydney, relaxing. lessons. She makes frequent visits to N.O. to see friends, relatives and former colleagues. She graduated from Wellesley College, George Washington U., with her doctorate from Catholic University in D.C. She graduated from the New Orleans Psychoanalytic Institute in ’96.

John Hopkins University Press

Jill Hayes, PhD and coauthors Rebecca Clark, MD, PhD, Gloria Richard-Davis MD, Katherine Theall, PhD, and Michelle Murphy, JD.

From the Publisher: Specialist authors first describe fertility assistance, surrogacy, and adoption, clearly outlining the requirements of each strategy. They compare the medical, emotional, financial, and legal investments and risks involved with each of these options. Then they introduce the issues that people will need to consider when deciding which path to parenthood is best for them. Along the way these experts offer encouragement for changing course under any number of circumstances. Supporting the detailed information in this book are personal stories of the often long, winding, and emotional road to parenthood — from in vitro fertilization to egg donation to surrogacy to adoption. Armed with professional knowledge and inspired by the experiences of others who have gone before them, prospective parents will be informed and reassured by this unique resource.

Dr. Jill Hayes brings to life the psychological elements in this authoritative yet practical work that assists readers over the complicated and serious personal journey of infertility. Writing with her colleagues from Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center, she helps combine the medical and psychological landscape for the modern woman or man who is part of the more than one million couples seeking help to become a parent. The educational track of the book is amplified by personal accounts of individuals’ journeys, and rounded out with legal perspectives.

Planning Parenthood covers the depth and breath of this important topic by tapping the knowledge, wisdom, and empathy of five female authors—two physicians (Clark, Richard-Davis), an epidemiologist (Theall), and attorney (Murphy), and psychologist Dr. Jill Hayes. The authors produce a readable, timely and reliable work for those dealing with the emotionally complicated situation of infertility.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” Jill answered as to how she became a coauthor. “Dr. Clark and I both had fertility problems. She and I had worked at the HIV Clinic in New Orleans together for a number of years, had written another book together, and had enjoyed that process. So she asked me to be a coauthor with her on her newest book.”

“Dr. Clark identified a niche that had not been filled by the various books on fertility and other pathways to becoming parents. Her vision was to provide prospective parents with a “cost-benefit analysis” of the various ways they could become parents, including discussions of the pro’s and con’s of the various methods, and inform future parents of when enough was enough and when it was time to move on to the next step.”

As to writing with coauthors, Jill notes that it was, “Painless for me.” She said, “Dr. Clark may not say the same for working with me. She’s great taskmaster. Her gentle nudging was just the right touch to make me meet most of the deadlines.” But it wasn’t always easy to find time to write. “The two biggest issues for me were carving big blocks of time out of my schedule to do the research and writing that was necessary, and then making myself write instead of the 20 million other things that seemed much more important, like rearranging my sock drawer.”

While Jill admits it might sound like a cliché, she said that the most fulfilling part of writing is “helping people during troubling times.” She was stunned when she found out her first book was going to be reviewed by the New York Times. But then, she said, “I realized that our book was going to help many, many people.”

The authors have produced a compassionate, informative guide for the growing number of couples who receive fertility assistance, seek information about surrogacy, or benefit from help in changing directions toward the choice of adoption. Planning Parenthood is available at bookstores everywhere.

Jill Hayes, Ph.D., is a clinical neuropsychologist in private practice and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.

Evolutionary Psychology: The Ultimate Origins of Human Behavior comes from two very big minds, thinking about big things, in a big way, and at a high level of abstraction. The authors stride quickly through the maze of ideas about the adaptive origins of human behavior, and they do it with a grasp of the big picture that few authors in this area are able to match. All the while it’s as if they’re holding the reader’s hand saying, “There’s more, let’s keep going. It’s all connected.”

With just ten chapters, Ultimate Origins is a “short, broad introduction to evolutionary psychology.” The authors cover every conceivable topic in this complex, fascinating and emerging field, all in 275 pages. They include “Encephalization and the Emergence of Mind,” “Mating and Reproduction,” “Ontogeny,” and “Social Order and Disorder.” Themes tie into current psychological theory with “Personality and Psychopathology,” and flow into Dr. Jack Palmer’s interest in Positive Psychology in “The Creative Impulse,” and “Ancient Mammal in a Brave New World.” The highlights and boxes, called, “Through a Glass Darwinian,” are wonderful.

Readers see how broad the viewfinder is when the authors address our place in the universe, with “From Big Bang to Big Brain.” Jack said, “There are many good books on evolutionary psychology today, but one thing that still makes our book unique is the broad and holistic view that Linda and I take. The study of the evolution of human behavior begins with the “Big Bang,” so we feel that having at least a rudimentary understanding of cosmology and evolutionary biology is enormously helpful for understanding the human mind, behavior, consciousness and our place in the universe. Culture and environment play an essential and significant role, but these can only be completely understood in relation to the greater whole.”

Linda Palmer is Jack’s “beloved wife and best friend of 32 years.” She has a master’s in Experimental Psychology from ULM, is a talented writer, and managing editor for several small publishers. The Palmers have a daughter who works in news and documentary production on the West Coast.

Jack noted his early interest in human origins, reading Desmond Morris’ The Naked Ape, at age 15. He completed an undergraduate in zoology at Clemson University, with an emphasis on ethnology, and entered University of Georgia’s biopsychology doctoral program to study primatology. “So,” he noted, “although my Ph.D. is in psychology, my training is grounded in physical anthropology, biology, and psychology. Evolutionary psychology was a natural outgrowth of those interests.”

He decided to write Ultimate Origins when he saw that “Huge strides and discoveries in neuroscience, genetics and evolutionary biology were providing great hope for unlocking the mysteries of human behavior.” After he began teaching physiological psychology and neuropsychology at ULM, he felt the need to “make more of this exciting information available.” So, he designed and began teaching a course on evolutionary psychology. “I wanted to help students understand how the combined effect of genes and environment shape us into what we become. And, how important a positive environment is for the development of children because of how it impacts on the way in which one’s genes express themselves. Human behavior is not the product of just genetics or just environment or a simple combination. The two interact in very complex ways to produce an enormous range and depth of human behavior.”

“It is to ULM’s great credit,” he told me, “that our psychology department has had a strong scientific foundation, more so than most state universities of this size. We have a great faculty and excellent department head, Dr. David Williamson. Both our Psychology Department and our College of Education and Human Development have provided a supportive atmosphere for the science of psychology.”

“At the time I began writing the book, Linda was teaching Physiological Psychology at Louisiana Tech University, and we were enjoying discussing these topics, so that was another motivating factor. The book evolved from our many discussions.” Dr. Palmer is currently working on a new book, Science, Wisdom and the Future: Humanity’s Quest for a Flourishing Earth, due out in 2010. He is both a contributor and the technical editor for the text, with chapters from leaders in physics, business, philosophy, psychology, history, cosmology, religion, and the arts.

Evolutionary Psychology: The Ultimate Origins of Human Behavior is available at Barnes & Noble online.

From the publisher: “In a series of encounters over seasons and years, Newlin captures the island’s intricate details from the terror of raging wind to the tickle of a snail’s foot. She camps on the edges, hikes the interior, and wades the lagoons, immersed entirely in fourteen rugged miles of woods, ponds, and marsh. In her prose, the island begins to coalesce as an intense and transformative place, a wilderness beyond the grip of mainland sprawl.”

Dr. April Newlin Rieveschl, once resident of New Orleans and graduate of LSU, writes as April Newlin. She is a nature writer. “This is a genre that is non-fiction literature about the natural world,” she explained. “It can include personal essay, natural history, narrative and journal writing. It is interdisciplinary in the sense that nature writers come from many different disciplines – creative writing, biology, ecology, history, astronomy, etc. Some of the better known writers would be Thoreau, Rachel Carson, Rick Bass, and Terry Tempest Williams.”

Horn of Plenty is a work of natural history, combined with personal narrative, about the wilderness island, ten miles off the coast of Mississippi, called Horn Island. With no roadway access, no facilities, no water or electricity, April and her husband traveled by boat to reach this remote site, remaining for days and even a week at a time to research and experience this piece of natural wilderness.

Horn Island was first popularized by the watercolor artist, Walter Anderson whose work hangs in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, at the Walter Anderson Museum, and also has been exhibited at the Smithsonian. For Horn of Plenty, Donald Bradhurn, winner of the Ansel Adams Inaugural Award for conservation photography, contributed his photos to April’s book.

How did she come to write? “I have always had an abiding love of the natural world,” she said, “imprinted from an early age during summers in Waveland, Mississippi and during many family vacations to wondrous landscapes such as Yellowstone.” About 15 years ago, she started reading the nature writers and from there, began her own work. Along the way, she had the help of a very special western writer named Ann Zwinger who became her mentor.

In 1996, April sent in her first submission but never received a response. “Then one day,” she said, “my husband was perusing nature books in a bookstore and came across my essay, in the anthology that had not responded to me, American Nature Writers.”

“In time,” she said, “I became more daring and decided to write a column in the local weekly near our beach house in the Florida panhandle.” While living in New Orleans, running her practice and raising their two sons, she wrote the column Wild Sense, for a full seven years. She has also written for many other venues including magazines such as Audubon and journals such as The Michigan Quarterly Review and Isle, a publication of the Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment. Her latest piece, “Hatch”, will be out next fall, in an anthology of nature writing edited by Florence Caplow and Susan Cohen. She has also become a Master Naturalist in Florida in both Coastal Systems and Wetlands. And, she received a Florida Press Association award for outdoor writing. She and her work are featured in the educational video for the National Seashore Parks along the Gulf Coast.

So, why write? “Because I want to give voice to the beauty and wonder of the natural world, to remind people of their connection to place, and to invite them into that way of being in the world. This is where psychology and nature writing intersect for me. We, as a culture, have become increasingly disconnected from nature and I think that diminishes us. As Thomas Berry said, ‘you can’t have healthy people on a sick planet.’ Theodore Roszak wrote that our relationship with the natural world is but a shrunken vestige, that we have repressed and forgotten the richness and essence of that connection. When place becomes familiar, it becomes part of who we are, it expands our sense of self, it shores up our sense of identity. Heinz Kohut’s concept of self-object works here – the natural world ‘functions’ for the self to shore it up, stabilize it, expand it. I think that it is in our relationship with the other than human world that we discover and realize many more aspects of our own humanity. Have you ever found yourself in the gaze of a wild animal, locked eyes with a bald eagle, come eye-to-eye with a 300 pound loggerhead as she surfaces and breathes? These moments will take you to places within yourself that you cannot get in any other way. Some researchers say that our experience of nature is carried with us after we return to our daily lives, that it enhances our mood and changes how we feel – they call this ‘the wilderness effect’ and it is palpable. Those who live close to the land know their place like an ‘other.’ Knowledge of the birds and their song, of the plants and their seasons brings a familiarity that becomes love. E.O. Wilson calls it ‘biophilia,’ the love of life, of living things. And he says that this is part of who we are, that, you might say, it is instinctual. For me, writing about the natural world couldn’t be a more natural endeavor.”

“I’m listening to the roar of Ida this morning as she swings past on her way inland. I always have a sense of living on the edge here, but never more so than during one of these storms.” (Newlin to Nelson in personal communication.)

Dr. Robert Baker came to the conclusion that he was going to write Joshua’s Way when he suddenly woke up one night with his “thoughts churning.” He said, “I couldn’t stop it, the whole thing just came to me. I couldn’t get back to sleep until I laid it all out, chapter-by-chapter.”

Dr. Baker, a licensed clinical psychologist in New Orleans, “didn’t do anything practical with the outline for several years,” placing the project on his back burner. But three years later, things changed.

He and his family were driving home at night after Thanksgiving when they found themselves in a terrible thunderstorm. The car began hydroplaning. “Nothing I tried could correct it, nothing worked. We began to spin and spin, around and around. I remember very clearly when we were twirling around, thinking that in the next few seconds we’d all be seriously injured–or die.” But finally the car crashed into the side of the bridge they were on and came to a complete stop– in the middle of the Interstate. Thinking now they’d be hit by oncoming traffic, after somehow surviving this far, he wasn’t sure he could move them out of harm’s way in the damaged vehicle. But luckily Robert was able to start the car and somehow pull over. “Three days later I was on the computer and it was like an egg that cracked, stuff started pouring out of me.” He completed the entire book in only three months.

Joshua’s Way is a mystery, and in the same vein as Celestine Prophecy. Two levels of mystery played out in a story line packed with psychological ideas and spiritual meanings. Bob decided to self-publish, and then went to the major book companies.

“Twelve people gather in a home north of New Orleans for a weekend retreat and are given this promise, “You will likely encounter thoughts, feelings, sensations and intuition beyond anything you’ve ever conceptualized” … “Dr. Joshua Randall plans to share his discoveries that may be key to the next phase of human evolution.” But then he and his wife disappear.

“John Hilliard, private investigator, hired to help solve the mystery of the disappearance of Dr. and Mrs. Randall, finds himself pulled into enigmas far more complicated. What starts as a search for two missing people takes the investigator on a journey to the heart and soul to discover the source of that which we all seek, an answer to the ultimate mystery.”

Fr. Larry Hein, S.J., author of Compassionate Energies Dancing the Cosmic Dance, said, “This is a must for anyone interested in the spiritual journey going beyond the known, …” And Harville Hendrix said, “I could not put it down. It is full of suspense and powerful insights and offers a radical new paradigm for the search for transcendence.”

Up-Coming Events Page 10 Robert said he was inspired by the many intriguing psychological experiments that he has studied along the way in his career, even as far back as graduate school. And Joshua’s Way is rich with these bits and pieces of psychology as well as Louisiana life and landmarks. Somewhat of a Renaissance man, Robert continues to delve into the invisibles, currently exploring quantum physics, hypnosis, power therapeutic modalities and energy healing. He’s still practices some clinical work but is moving more into sports psychology. (See December edition for more on his Master’s Track and Field accomplishments.)

You can purchase the book by email, rbaker1501@aol.com or phone, (504) 834-3393. Or, mail your check for $14.00 (which covers the book and shipping) to Dr. Robert Baker at 1501 Melody Drive, Metairie, LA, 70002.

While not the primary author, contributors Dr. Claire Advokat and Dr. Joseph Comaty are the writing associates for long-time expert Dr. Robert Julien for the 11th edition of the enduring textbook, A Primer of Drug Action.

The first edition was published over 30 years ago, and the work has evolved right along with the science of psychopharmacology, with new discoveries and findings integrated and explained through 21 chapters. Primer continues to be the definitive work on psychopharmacology of drugs and how they impact the mind and behavior of individuals.

Drs. Advokat and Comaty bring their many contributions in the field of psychology and psychopharmacology research to this publication, and provide the second chairs in this indispensable text of biological psychology and neuroscience.

Worth Publishers note that, “With over 40% new research citations, there is no clearer, more current presentation available on the mechanisms of drug action, etiologies of major psychological disorders, rationales for drug treatment, and the uses of psychopharmacology in patient care.” The publisher’s website includes a workbook section where instructors and students can log on to review key concepts, take quizzes, and support the educational experience with a variety of tools

“Once any of it is written,” Claire said, “It goes to Joe or Julien and then back. There are layers and layers in the writing.” Between Claire and Joe, the writing process is “surprisingly smooth.” She said that Joe is a great resource for the work. “I focus on the neuroscience. Bob’s a PhD and MD, but not a psychiatrist or psychologist. Joe’s the clinician, and it’s great to have a spouse so knowledgeable.” Bob Julien has recently asked Claire and Joe if they would complete about 50 percent of the 2011 edition, and they have agreed.

Claire Advokat received her Ph.D. in Physiological Psychology from Rutgers and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of Neurobiology and Behavior, College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. She came to LSU from the Department of Pharmacology at the U. of Illinois, and here focuses on her primary research interest, Psychopharmacology. “My primary interest is in understanding the clinical effectiveness and the mechanism of action of drugs used in the treatment of mental illness…”

Joseph Comaty is Chief Psychologist/Medical Psychologist, HIPAA Privacy Officer, and Director of the Division of Policy, Standards, and Quality Assurance of the Louisiana State Office of Mental Health. He holds an adjunct faculty appointment at LSU where he collaborates with Claire in research that helps to address why some medications are less effective in practical applications than indicated from results from controlled clinical trials. His primary area of research is clinical psychopharmacology.

A Primer of Drug Action can be purchased at the publishers’ web site: www.worthpublishers.com or at your online bookseller.

“I love to write,” Dr. Lynn Schechter said, explaining that she comes from a long line of literary people, including a grandmother who was one of the first graduates of Wellesley College, English teacher and Dean of a high school. “I’ve always written, whether it was poetry or journaling. I’m a creative person, and I just love to write.”

When her practice in New York and then in Louisiana led her to work with many overweight children, she began to have a growing concern for the struggles of these youngsters. “I saw how they were bullied and teased,” she said, “and how often they were eating out of emotional reasons, turning to food much as adults can.”

She stated that obesity was a multi-factorial problem, and often there are medical issues involved. But her collaborations with pediatricians alerted her to the need for behavioral approaches for these children. And she said, “I saw how often they were eating out of emotional reasons. Many had histories of trauma, anxiety and depression.” Lynn said, “I was motivated by care and a great concern for how these kids are suffering from being overweight.”

But when looking for a children’s book for them, she found “absolutely nothing. There were books for adults about emotional eating. But not one book for children.”

Lynn wrote her book in about an hour and a half, in a flurry of activity. But getting published was a bit different. “It was a journey, a fortuitous and challenging journey,” she said. First, she sent out thirty inquiries and received thirty rejections. Then her book sat for a year until she decided to self-publish. It took another year to find an illustrator, publish, and create sales via a website. But as her work began to be acknowledged and praised, and sales increased, a trip back to APA’s children’s books division, Magination Press, yielded an enthusiastic request from an editor to republish her work.

My Big Fat Secret: How Jenna Takes Control of Her Emotions and Eating is a publication of the American Psychological Association’s children’s book division, Magination Press. It is the featured selection this month and can be purchased at www.maginationpress.com

Dr. Schechter currently works in private practice in Baton Rouge, specializing in psychoeducational assessment and treatment of learning disabilities, attention disorders, developmental and emotional and behavioral problems, emphasizing a culturallysensitive family approach. Her degrees are from Cornell and Columbia University, and she has worked in schools, public clinics, hospitals, and private practice.

In 2007 she presented a paper about experiences as a helper in post 911, post Katrina and Gustav, at APA. It was published in the journal, Traumatology, a Sage Publication.

Dr. Joseph Tramontana has been a Licensed Clinical Psychologist in Louisiana and Mississippi for 38 yrs. He completed a BS degree at the University of New Orleans (then UNO), MA and Ph.D. degrees in clinical psychology from the University of Mississippi, and a clinical internship at the University of Tennessee Medical School in Memphis. He received Certification in Clinical Hypnosis from the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis, and is a certified counselor through the National Institute of Sports Professionals. Joe also is a longstanding member of the American, Mississippi, and Louisiana Psychological Associations.

While a mental health administrator, Joe authored and secured a number of federal grants for alcohol and drug abuse treatment. He has been in private practice for the past 31 years; after Hurricane Katrina he moved his office to Baton Rouge. Joe belongs to the Southern Pain Society and the Mississippi Pain Society. One day a week he works at a Pain Management Clinic in the New Orleans area. In addition, once a month he travels to the Mississippi Gulf Coast to see his long-standing, chronic pre-Katrina patients.

Joe has written a comprehensive book for clinicians entitled Hypnotically Enhanced Treatment of Addictions: Alcohol Abuse, Drug Abuse, Gambling, Weight Control, and Smoking Cessation, recently released by Crown House Publishing, Ltd.

The book offers treatment strategies, techniques, and scripts, and also reviews traditional methods of treating addictions in an outpatient population.

According to Bruce Eimer, author of Hypnotize Yourself out of Pain, stated: “This is the book I’ve been waiting for……It is a must read for every conscientious therapist.” Kris Kumar, a faculty member of the American Society for Clinical Hypnosis, described it as “a truly practitioner-oriented book . . . user friendly with plenty of metaphors, stories, scripts, and techniques.” Dabney Ewin, M.D., former President of the American Society of Clinical Hypnosis and a highly regarded expert in the hypnosis field, stated ”It is surprising that so little has been written about hypnosis for treating addictions, since it has been so successful in treating other refractory medical and mental disorders. Dr. Tramontana uses it skillfully, and his strategy and scripts are easy to follow.”

Joe is well into writing his next book, Enhancing Peak Performance through Sports Hypnosis.

Dr. Linda Brannon is a Professor of Psychology at McNeese State University, where she teaches a variety of courses in the undergraduate and graduate curricula. Dr. Brannon has been part of the McNeese faculty since she received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She also is a licensed psychologist in the state of Louisiana and the 1998 recipient of the MSU Alumni Association’s Distinguished Professor Award.

Dr. Brannon recently completed the 7th edition of Health Psychology: An Introduction to Behavior and Health, co-authored with Jess Feist. This book, a mainstay in the field of health psychology since the first edition in the 1980s, is known for its scholarship, strong research base, and balanced coverage of cognitive, behavioral, and biological approaches to health psychology. Topics include stress, pain, coping, behavior and chronic disease, and injuries and disease prevention through behavioral modification. Chapters include tips in how to check health risks and how to become healthier. Translations are available in Chinese, Korean, and Spanish.