* Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. By reading this summary, you will learn how to become the instigator of your own misfortune. You will also learn: to tame your misfortune; to reconcile yourself with your most banal neuroses; to reasonably face your problems, from the simplest to the most complex; to relativize the notion of happiness. By nature, man is not destined to be satisfied with mere bliss. It is therefore time to re-establish the truth: the pursuit of happiness does not necessarily lead to happiness. Moreover, it is impossible to attach a definition to this notion. However, one thing is certain: everyone aspires to be happy, although you would not be much without your unhappiness. World literature is enough to confirm this postulate: disaster, tragedy, catastrophe... All memorable works are composed of these secret ingredients. Constructed as a personal development guide, "Make your own misfortune" ironically explores everything that can make you unhappy in your daily life. Are you ready to understand the workings and mechanisms responsible for your unhappiness? *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!

This is a tongue-in-cheek look at the ways in which we turn ourselves into our own worst enemies. Using metaphors, vignettes, jokes, innuendoes and other "right-hemispheric" language games, Dr. Watzlawick shows how we can make everyday life miserable and inflate trivialities beyond recognition. Those who believe that the search for happiness eventually leads to happiness should consult the chapter "Beware of Arriving."--Publisher description.

Becoming Miracle Workers provides a detailed exploration of brief therapy, a postmodern treatment mode that treats client's problems as social constructions, while encouraging those seeking treatment to replace personal troubles (negative stories) with new problem-solving skills (positive stories). Based on twelve years of research and observation, Miller's book describes in practicable detail how this method is employed in one of the most innovative and important centers of brief therapy in the world.

The New Covenant as a Paradigm for Optimal Relations regards the New Covenant primarily as a gracious and merciful redemptive deal, springing from God's unilateral, unconditional, and proactive initiative. The New Covenant is adopted as representing both a salvific and an exemplary paradigm that displays God's gracious and merciful ways toward his children. Ten discrete, yet interwoven principles are extracted from, interpreted, and abstracted from Scriptures pertaining to the promised New Covenant. These principles apply to those who, as dearly beloved children, are invited to imitate God's loving ways. God's manner of love defines the foundational basis from which the author derives and elaborates the propositions that guide the considerations pertaining to thoughts, feelings, motivations, and behaviors that enter into play in relational transactions. In terms of style, an architectural design permeates the content of this book, offering and encompassing a metacognitive view of God's covenantal ways: a top-down perspective that applies to bottom-up endeavors of relational nature. The challenges posed by our cultural, postmodern trends--devoid of absolute principles and lacking a moral compass--are countered and addressed by the author in insightful fashion, offering theologically-based guidelines integrated to sound psychological principles, applicable to psychotherapeutic and counseling endeavors as well as to pastoral care.

Essays discuss the structure of human relationships, depression following stroke, hypnotherapy, schizophrenia, imaginary communication, self-reference, and ideological reality

This classic book, available in paperback for the very first time, explores why some people can successfully change their lives and others cannot. Here famed psychologist Paul Watzlawick presents what is still often perceived as a radical idea: that the solutions to our problems are inherently embedded in the problems themselves. Tackling the age-old questions surrounding persistence and change, the book asks why problems arise and are perpetuated in some instances but easily resolved in others. Incorporating ideas about human communication, marital and family therapy, the therapeutic effects of paradoxes and of action-oriented techniques of problem resolution, Change draws much from the field of psychotherapy.

In Living Stories Donald Capps makes a forceful case for the importance of pastoral counseling in the life of a congregation. Arguing convincingly for a "paradigmatic revolution," Capps offers a radically new model that gives systematic and constructive attention to the way people actually "story" their lives - inspirationally, paradoxically, or miraculously. Through such engagement, pastors can help people discover their own stories, discern the shape and direction of those stories, and move constructively to find new understandings or more hopeful possibilities in their life situations.

In this classic text, Burnham introduces a wide range of concepts, skills and applications from a systemic approach to the growing field of family therapy.

How design students learn sustainably How do I teach design? Why is listening so important? What can we learn from other disciplines and cultures and from each other? Answers to these and other questions are offered by Sven Ingmar Thies and his 24 interviewees, who are all united by a single wish: that their students should experiment, experience, and grow as designers. This book allows teachers of graphic design, design theory, game development, industrial design, and behavioral research from China, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Austria, and the USA to each have their say. The in-depth conversations are complemented by a comprehensive reflection and sample assignments. This is a book for teachers and students alike that offers insights into the experiences of others, as well as inspiration for teaching, learning, and professional practice. New teaching methods & practical suggestions A comparison of the experiences of 24 design teachers from six countries Fritz Frenkler, Gesche Joost, Rathna Ramanathan, Stefan Sagmeister, Kashiwa Sato, Erik Spiekermann, and others in conversation

Beyond the Walls of Separation is an essential and easy-to-read guidebook for chaplains and volunteers working in the context of prison, and for all those who are professionally or through family links related to those in prison. The book tells the story of what life behind bars is, and how inmates experience transformation through Christian faith: People at the crisis points of their life, where they are shattered, and where little is left of what made them, may experience life as fragile and as a transparent filter for the mysterious. Yet they also may experience God's life-giving presence. Love, expressed in forgiveness--against all odds, against all merits and previous experiences--lies at the root of many stories of transformation that emerge from prison. The book guides visitors to approach inmates without condescension, with an awareness of the social dimension of power and inequality, and with sensitivity to the suffering and alienation that individual prisoners experience. The many years of prison ministry in different cultural contexts and with inmates from all nations have taught the author that Christ does not need to be brought to prison through visitors, through evangelistic events, or through Christian outreach. He is already powerfully present in prison.