Books that change lives
Subjects include self-help, personal development, diet, exercise, sleep science, couple relationships; anger, anxiety, depression; conflict resolution; self-knowledge; writing therapy, how to do it; processing traumatic experiences; and books for counsellors on theory and practice; plus critiques of REBT/CBT… And some interesting stories…
On this page you will find a brief introduction to more than twenty of our current books in print. The main information about those books has been moved to our dedicated books website.***
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Books by the Institute for E-CENT; Distributed by ABC Bookstore Online
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Our 25th book is now available for sale on Amazon. Here’s a quick intro:
Transforming Traumatic Dragons:
How to recover from a history of trauma – using a whole body-brain-mind approach
By Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
Foreword
By Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling, September 2021
I created this revised and updated book – (with Renata Taylor-Byrne) – to help individuals – (who had traumatic experiences earlier in life) – to be able to digest their traumatic memories, and resolve any negative symptoms of having been traumatized.
This book is designed to help you
– to understand what trauma is;
– the various forms of post-traumatic stress;
– including the nature of complex childhood development trauma;
– and also, most importantly, to help you to recover from your traumatic past.
Our major aim is to teach you how to slowly and cautiously process, or digest, old emotional traumas, so they can be healed.
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To see this book online, at an Amazon outlet near you, please click one of the following links
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For more information about this featured book, please click this link: Childhood developmental trauma: Facing and defeating dragons.***
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Relax Your Way to a Better Life:
Using Dr Jacobson’s Progressive Muscle Relaxation technique for physical and mental health
By Renata Taylor-Byrne, Lifestyle Coach-Counsellor
Scientific relaxation is not the same as ‘lying around’, ‘sitting around’, getting high or merry, or escaping to a warm holiday resort. None of those activities is truly relaxing, when compared with this technique.
Physical tension is implicated in much bodily illness and emotional misery. But what can you do about it? Life is stressful, and people tense their bodies under pressure!
However, there is a system of physical de-tensing – relaxing – which can reduce your tension to levels which will eliminate pain, emotional misery and physical disease.
This book describes a non-medical process for improving your physical health and emotional well-being. It is a tried and tested technique which was developed over a period of decades It is well-researched, and the results have been written up in the scientific literature. We will guide you through the process of relaxing your body and mind, and restoring your health and happiness.
If you want to have a happier, healthier, more contented life, then please click this link: https://abc-bookstore.com/jacobsons-progressive-muscle-relaxation-book/
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Cutting through the Worry Knot!
How to Reduce and Control Your Anxiety Level: Using a whole body-brain-mind approach
And without using drugs, alcohol or escapism!
By Dr Jim Byrne and Renata Taylor-Byrne
Anxiety is not a disease; not a mental illness. Anxiety is part of our normal, innate, mental signalling system which tells us what is happening to us, and what to do about it. That is to say, it is part of our emotional wiring. Our emotional intelligence.
Trying to get rid of anxiety with drugs is like hanging two overcoats and a duvet over your burglar alarm when it goes off. The burglar alarm is designed to give you helpful information, which you can then use to guide your action. Should you check to see if a burglar has got into your house? Or call the police? Or realize that you’d mismanaged your alarm system, and that you should therefore switch it off?
Once you understand anxiety correctly, it becomes as useful as a burglar alarm; and you can learn how to manage it correctly.
When you buy a burglar alarm, it comes with a little Instruction Book about how to set it; calibrate it; monitor it; reset it; and switch it on and off.
You should have got just such an Instruction Book about your anxiety alarm, from your parents, when you were very young – and some people did. But if your alarm goes off at all times of day and night, in unhelpful ways, then I guess you were one of the unlucky ones who did not get your Instruction Book. This book contains your Instruction Book, plus lots of other backup information, which will help to make you the master of your anxiety, instead of its quaking slave.
Don’t let your anxiety “burglar alarm” reduce your life to misery. Learn how to use it properly!
For more information about this book on anxiety:
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Get your paperback copy today, from one of the following Amazon outlets:
| Amazon US and worldwide | Amazon UK and Ireland |
| Amazon Canada | Amazon France |
| Amazon Germany | Amazon Italy |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Japan |
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Or you can buy a Kindle eBook version of this book from one of the following Amazon outlets:
| Amazon.com, US+ | Amazon UK + Ireland | Amazon Germany |
| Amazon Spain | Amazon Italy | Amazon Nether-lands |
| Amazon Japan | Amazon Brazil | Amazon Canada |
| Amazon Mexico | Amazon Australia | Amazon India |
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The Bamboo Paradox: The limits of human flexibility in a cruel world – and how to protect, defend and strengthen yourself
Finding the Golden Mean that leads to strength and viable flexibility, in order to be happy, healthy and realistically successful
By Dr Jim Byrne.
With contributed chapters by Renata Taylor-Byrne
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The Institute for E-CENT Publications: 2020
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Are human beings like bamboo? Are we designed to withstand unlimited pressure, stress and strain? Is our destiny to be sacrificed on the altar of other-directed ‘flexible working arrangements’?
We live in a world in which there are dark forces that wish us to forget that we are fleshy bodies, with physical and mental needs; and physical and mental limitations; and to be willing to function like mere cogs in the wheels of somebody else’s financial or technological empire.
Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) has played into this narrative, and given it philosophical support, by promoting a form of Extreme Stoicism in the name of therapy and wisdom, which it patently is not. (General Cognitive Behaviour Therapy [CBT] also supports this agenda, but to a lesser degree, or in a less obvious way! And some forms of Extreme Buddhism also advocate ‘detachment’ from material concerns, such as the need for a balanced life!)
In this book, I review the research that we have done on the limits of human endurance, and the determinants of that endurance – as well as identifying a viable philosophy of life – which will help you to optimize your strength and flexibility, while at the same time taking care of your health and happiness.
If you want to take good care of yourself in the modern mad-market, you could benefit from studying this book. It will provide you with both a compass and a suit of armour which will support you with the challenges and battles you will inevitably face.
Click for more information.***
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Newly released on 15th November 2022
The Disconnected Heart of Daniel O:
The fictionalized autobiography of a seeker after love
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“How I healed my (mother-inflicted) childhood emotional wounds, and how you can heal yours!”
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A fictionalized-factual life story, combined with a subjective psychological self-analysis of developmental trauma disorder
By Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling – (and his alter ego, Daniel O’Beeve)
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This book is about one man’s journey away from his homeland and his emotionally barren family and priest-dominated culture, to a place where he might find love, acceptance and personal liberation.
Daniel’s heart-wrenching journey to freedom is like a detective novel, a psychological thriller, and a science fiction adventure, all rolled into one. He shows the reader how to heal their own psychological wounds from childhood, and especially from their relationship with an unskillful or damaged mother.
…For more information, and a substantial extract from the book, please click this link…
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How to Quickly Fix your Couple Relationship:
A brief DIY handbook for serious lovers
By Dr Jim Byrne
This book has been specially designed to provide some quick relief up front. That means that, right at the start of the book, I share with you some of the most powerful insights into how to have a happy relationships. I then help you to complete a couple of exercises that take five minutes per day, and which will begin to change your relationship situation almost at once.
Kindle: £5.02
Paperback: £12.10
Available in paperback and Kindle eBook formats.
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How to Write a New Life for Yourself:
Narrative therapy and the writing solution.
By Dr Jim Byrne, with Renata Taylor-Byrne
Prices: from £4.22 GBP (Kindle) to £13.27 (paperback)
This book contains more than twenty exercises to help you to get more of what you want from your life.
Journal writing, and various forms of writing therapy, and reflective writing are included, with specific exercises for specific purposes.
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How to Have a Wonderful, Loving Relationship:
Helpful insights for couples and lovers
By Jim Byrne (with Renata Taylor-Byrne)
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Originally published with the title, Top secrets for Building a Successful Relationship, in 2018. Reissued with a new title and minor changes in November 2019.
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Do you sometimes feel that you are just reliving your parents’ relationship? The unworkable, misery-inducing pattern that you witnessed in childhood? If so, you are probably right. That is most often how relationships turn out, unless you wake up and begin to change your unconscious pattern of relating.
Most human beings long to be engaged in a loving relationship with another person who they like and admire, and who likes, admires, loves and respects them in turn.
But most people have no idea how to bring this about.
A few lucky people will automatically ‘know’ what to do, non-consciously, because they had parents who openly demonstrated their love for each other.
If your parents did not love, like, respect and/or care for each other; or they failed to demonstrate active love for you; then you are going to have to learn from scratch. But do not despair. The answers to your problem can be found in this book…
Find out how to reprogram yourself for a loving, joyful, peaceful relationship that enriches your life, instead of making you miserable and disappointed. To find out some more about this process, please click this link.***
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How to Control Your Anger, Anxiety and Depression:
Using nutrition and physical activity.
By Renata Taylor-Byrne, and Jim Byrne
Changing your philosophy of life will not control your emotions, unless you also attend to your diet and exercise needs.
It is now increasingly being argued, by cutting edge scientists, that the root cause of physical and mental health problems is inflammation in the body, especially in the guts. The concept of leaky gut giving rise to leaky brain is increasingly being verified; and very often the causes of anxiety, depression and anger are to be found in the client’s diet; or their lack of physical exercise.
By Renata Taylor-Byrne and Jim Byrne
Prices: from £3.10 (Kindle) to £9.93 GBP (paperback)
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Lifestyle Counselling and Coaching for the Whole Person (2):
Or how to integrate nutritional insights, exercise and sleep coaching into talk therapy.
By Dr Jim Byrne, with Renata Taylor-Byrne
Because diet, exercise and sleep are increasingly seen to be important determinants of mental health and emotional well-being, it is now necessary to rethink our models of counselling and therapy. This book will show counsellors how to incorporate lifestyle coaching and counselling into their system of talk therapy. It will also help self-help enthusiasts to take better care of their own mental and physical health, and emotional well-being.
This second edition contains a detailed Lifestyle Factors Questionnaire to collect relevant information about an individuals current practices in the areas of diet, exercise and sleep.
Prices: from £4.26 GBP (Kindle) to £12.64 (paperback)
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Holistic Counselling in Practice:
An introduction to the theory and practice of Emotive-Cognitive Embodied-Narrative Therapy
By Jim Byrne DCoun FISPC
With Renata Taylor-Byrne BSc (Hons) Psychol
This book was the original introduction to Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (E-CENT), which was created by Dr Jim Byrne in the period 2009-2014, building upon earlier work from 2003. It is of historic importance, but it has been superseded by Lifestyle Counselling and Coaching for the Whole Persson, above.
Prices from: £5.83p GBP (Kindle) and £15.18p (Paperback)
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A counsellor reflects upon models of mind
Integrating the psychological models of Plato, Freud, Berne and Ellis
By Dr Jim Byrne
Prices from: £5.99 (Kindle) and £14.99 GBP (Paperback)
Every counsellor needs to think long and hard about their perceptions of their clients. Are they based on ‘common sense’, or have they been subjected to the discipline of considering the theories of great minds that preceded us, like Plato, Freud, Berne and Ellis. (Ellis, of course, oversimplified the SOR model of mind into the simple ABC model, but he is still important because of his impact on the whole CBT theory, which currently dominates the field of counselling and therapy in the US, UK and elsewhere).
Paperback and eBook versions available
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Processing Client Stories in Counselling and Psychotherapy:
How to think about and analyze client narratives
Dr Jim Byrne, Doctor of Counselling
The Institute for E-CENT Publications – 2019
Copyright © Jim Byrne, 2019. All rights reserved.
Of all the systems of counselling and therapy, the main ones that pay attention to the body of the client include Gestalt Therapy, and my own system of Emotive-Cognitive Embodied Narrative Therapy (or E-CENT for short).
In E-CENT counselling, when a client arrives to see us, we see a body-brain-mind-environment-whole enter our room. We agree that this person will begin by telling us a story about their current difficulties; but we recognize that this story is affected, for better or worse, by the quality and duration of their recent sleep patterns; their diet (including caffeine, alcohol, sugary foods, and trans-fats in junk food); and whether or not they do regular physical exercise; and other bodily factors.
However, in this book, we will mainly focus upon the client’s story or narrative; and perhaps remind ourselves occasionally that this story is being told by a physical body-brain-mind which is dependent for optimal functioning upon such factors as diet, exercise, sleep, and so on. We will focus upon the question of the status of autobiographical narratives; and how to analyze the stories our clients tell us.
Available as an eBook only.***
Learn more about this book.***
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A Major Critique of REBT:
Revealing the many errors in the foundations of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy
By Dr Jim Byrne
There was a need to clarify the bottom line of Dr Byrne’s critique of REBT, and that has been done in a 22 page Preface to the reissued, 2019 edition.
Also, we have added a reference to the research which shows that emotional pain and physical pain are both mediated and processed through significantly overlapping neural networks, which contradicts Dr Ellis’s claim that nobody could hurt you, except with a baseball bat.
This is a comprehensive and devastating critique of the foundations of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy, as developed by Dr Albert Ellis.
Price: £23.58 GBP
Available in paperback only, at the moment.
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If you want to know the essence of our critique of REBT, but you don’t want to have to read 500+ pages, then this 150 page summary should appeal to you:
Discounting Our Bodies:
A brief, critical review of REBT’s flaws
By Dr Jim Byrne
This book is a brief, summary critique of the main errors contained in the foundations of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT) theory. And especially the invalidity of the ABC model, which asserts that nothing other than beliefs intervenes between a negative experience and an emotional-behavioural reaction. (The body is ignored!)
Paperback only (at the moment). Price £9.50 GBP
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The Amoralism of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy (REBT):
The mishandling of self-acceptance and unfairness issues by Albert Ellis
By Dr Jim Byrne
This book is an extensive, detailed critique of two of the central ideas of REBT:
(1) The concept of ‘unconditional self-acceptance’; and
(2) The idea that life is fundamentally unfair, and that it should be accepted as such, and never complained about.
In the process we also deal with Albert Ellis’s idea that people should never be blamed for anything; that praise and blame are bad; that guilt and shame are to be eliminated, and never taken to be indicators that we’ve done something wrong. Along the way we have a debate with Dr Michael Edelstein about the role of fairness in couple relationships.
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Albert Ellis and the Unhappy Golfer:
A critique of the simplistic ABC model of REBT
By Dr Jim Byrne
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The unhappy golfer is in Dr Albert Ellis’s office, in New York City, somewhere around the end of the 1950’s. He tells Dr Ellis that he feels terribly unhappy about being rejected by his golfing peers, and Dr Ellis tells him: This is something you are doing to yourself!
Ellis uses the unhappy golfer to introduce his readers to his simple ABC model of REBT, which claims that a person cannot be upset emotionally in any way other than by their own beliefs!
This book sets out to refute this simplistic idea.
Albert Ellis and the Unhappy Golfer.***
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The Relentless Flow of Fate
By Kurt Llama Byron
An Inspector Glasheen Mystery
This novel introduces the enigmatic Inspector Glasheen in his forty-eighth year of life, and his twenty-first year as a detective in the Gardai, in Dublin. A series of murders awaits him at his new posting. And one in particular, the death of a sixteen year old youth, in his bed, at home, is destined to bring up Glasheen’s own demons, from a very disturbed childhood.
Paperback only at the moment, for £11.95 GBP
Fiction is a great vehicle for teaching and learning about social relationships, psychological problems, and the law of karma.
The Relentless Flow of Fate.***
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The Bamboo Paradox:
Flexible body, resilient mind and wisdom in action.
By Dr Jim Byrne; With Renata Taylor-Byrne
At the age of thirty-four years, I woke up. Woke up for the first time. Became conscious of the fact that I was living a life that did not really work for me – which had never really worked in a fully satisfactory way. At that point, I began to seek wisdom – to examine my life – and to explore better ways of living a fuller, more satisfying life.
In this book, I want to share some of the fruits of my journey towards wisdom, happiness and health.
This is a book about how to take care of yourself in a difficult world; so you can be happy and healthy, successful and wealthy. Your physical height, weight, muscle bulk and so on, are not the most important determinants of your ability to be strong in the face of life’s difficult challenges.
Click this link for more information about this forthcoming book.***
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A complete range of informational pages about these books can be found at https://abc-bookstore.com/
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ABC Counselling and Psychotherapy, Hebden Bridge 
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