Books
Dr. Kelly Mahler joined us for Part 2 Interoception, the Eighth Sense: A Focus on Understanding and Regulating Body Signals. In this course she shared the following resources:
By: Naoki Higashida
The thirteen-year-old author of this book invites you, his reader, to imagine a daily life in which your faculty of speech is taken away. Explaining that you’re hungry, or tired, or in pain, is now as beyond your powers as a chat with a friend. I’d like to push the thought-experiment a little further. Now imagine that after you lose your ability to communicate, the editor-in-residence who orders your thoughts walks out without notice. The chances are that you never knew this mind-editor existed, but now that he or she has gone, you realize too late how the editor allowed your mind to function for all these years. A dam-burst of ideas, memories, impulses and thoughts is cascading over you, unstoppably. Your editor controlled this flow, diverting the vast majority away, and recommending just a tiny number for your conscious consideration. But now you’re on your own.
By: Kelly Mahler
Interoception is the ability to notice and connect bodily sensations with emotions. Research states that interoception is an important factor to the development of effective self-regulation skills within children, teens, and adults.
Many people who experience challenges with self-regulation have underlying interoception challenges. These interoceptive differences are very common in a variety of individuals including those with autism, trauma disorders, sensory processing disorder, anxiety, depression and behavioral challenges. Some clients may experience interoceptive signals that are so strong, they are immediately overwhelmed and confused. Others experience dulled or muted interoception signals, that leave them unable to respond to emotions until they reach a fever pitch. This can lead to significant difficulties with emotional regulation and managing challenging behavior.
While traditional self-regulation approaches focus on teaching clients what to do to regulate feelings of anxiety, frustration, overwhelm, etc., these approaches are often ineffective for people with impaired interoception, such as someone diagnosed with autism, ADHD, anxiety disorder or that has a history of trauma. How can you be taught to regulate or control something you are not aware of or do not understand?
The good news is that interoceptive and emotional awareness within children, teens, and adults
can be improved over time, with the right instruction and supports. In The Interoception Curriculum, Kelly Mahler outlines a systematic, guided process that professionals can use to develop and build interoceptive awareness in their clients using evidenced-based principals.
By: Kelly Mahler
Play your way to enhanced interoceptive awareness! The Big Book of Interoception Games includes 53 fun activities that invite practice noticing, connecting and/or regulating body signals. Each game provides several variations–making for 100s of playful interoception learning ideas. If you are looking for fun interoception activities to use with learners young and old, this book is for you!
2023 Summer Reading List
Non-Fiction:
By: Jamie Chaves & Ashley Taylor
Creating Sensory Smart Classrooms introduces educators to the foundations of sensory processing and offers tools to meet the wide variety of sensory needs in each classroom. This comprehensive handbook helps readers understand the neurobiology behind sensory processing and regulation issues, recognize when a student is over- or under-stimulated, and integrate different sensory inputs into the school environment. Practical and accessible chapters foster an understanding of how sensory processing influences behaviors in the classroom and how protective relationships, combined with sensory strategies, positively influence students' regulation for improved learning outcomes. Packed with useful examples, this is essential reading for teachers looking to develop the knowledge and skills they need to design sensory smart environments that support ALL learners.
By: Deb Dana
*Recommended by speaker, Kelly Beins, in her Polyvagal Theory & Sensory Processing course
This book offers therapists an integrated approach to adding a polyvagal foundation to their work with clients. With clear explanations of the organizing principles of Polyvagal Theory, this complex theory is translated into clinician and client-friendly language. Using a unique autonomic mapping process along with worksheets designed to effectively track autonomic response patterns, this book presents practical ways to work with clients' experiences of connection. Through exercises that have been specifically created to engage the regulating capacities of the ventral vagal system, therapists are given tools to help clients reshape their autonomic nervous systems.
Adding a polyvagal perspective to clinical practice draws the autonomic nervous system directly into the work of therapy, helping clients re-pattern their nervous systems, build capacities for regulation, and create autonomic pathways of safety and connection. With chapters that build confidence in understanding Polyvagal Theory, chapters that introduce worksheets for mapping, tracking, and practices for re-patterning, as well as a series of autonomic meditations, this book offers therapists a guide to practicing polyvagal-informed therapy.
The Polyvagal Theory in Therapy is essential reading for therapists who work with trauma and those who seek an easy and accessible way of understanding the significance that Polyvagal Theory has to clinical work.
By: Dr. Kristin Neff
Self-Compassion: Stop Beating Yourself Up and Leave Insecurity Behind offers expert advice on how to limit self-criticism and offset its negative effects, enabling you to achieve your highest potential and a more contented, fulfilled life.
More and more, psychologists are turning away from an emphasis on self-esteem and moving toward self-compassion in the treatment of their patients—and Dr. Neff’s extraordinary book offers exercises and action plans for dealing with every emotionally debilitating struggle, be it parenting, weight loss, or any of the numerous trials of everyday living.
By: Lisa Feldman Barrett
*Recommended by speaker, Kim Barthel, who said this book changed the way she thought about the brain.
From the author of How Emotions Are Made, a myth-busting primer on the brain in the tradition of Seven Brief Lessons on Physics and Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
Have you ever wondered why you have a brain? Let renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett demystify that big gray blob between your ears. In seven short essays (plus a bite-size story about how brains evolved), this slim, entertaining, and accessible collection reveals mind-expanding lessons from the front lines of neuroscience research. You’ll learn where brains came from, how they’re structured (and why it matters), and how yours works in tandem with other brains to create everything you experience. Along the way, you’ll also learn to dismiss popular myths such as the idea of a “lizard brain” and the alleged battle between thoughts and emotions—or between nature and nurture—to determine your behavior.
Sure to intrigue casual readers and scientific veterans alike, Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain is full of surprises, humor, and important implications for human nature—a gift of a book that you will want to savor again and again.
By: Devon Price
A deep dive into the spectrum of Autistic experience and the phenomenon of masked Autism, giving individuals the tools to safely uncover their true selves while broadening society’s narrow understanding of neurodiversity
For every visibly Autistic person you meet, there are countless “masked” Autistic people who pass as neurotypical. Masking is a common coping mechanism in which Autistic people hide their identifiably Autistic traits in order to fit in with societal norms, adopting a superficial personality at the expense of their mental health. This can include suppressing harmless stims, papering over communication challenges by presenting as unassuming and mild-mannered, and forcing themselves into situations that cause severe anxiety, all so they aren’t seen as needy or “odd.”
In Unmasking Autism, Dr. Devon Price shares his personal experience with masking and blends history, social science research, prescriptions, and personal profiles to tell a story of neurodivergence that has thus far been dominated by those on the outside looking in. For Dr. Price and many others, Autism is a deep source of uniqueness and beauty. Unfortunately, living in a neurotypical world means it can also be a source of incredible alienation and pain. Most masked Autistic individuals struggle for decades before discovering who they truly are. They are also more likely to be marginalized in terms of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, and other factors, which contributes to their suffering and invisibility. Dr. Price lays the groundwork for unmasking and offers exercises that encourage self-expression, including: Celebrating special interests, Cultivating Autistic relationships, Reframing Autistic stereotypes and And rediscovering your values
By: Joe Navarro
*A fascinating read recommended by speaker, Kim Barthel, to improve your ability to read and understand non-verbal communication.
Read this book and send your nonverbal intelligence soaring. Joe Navarro, a former FBI counterintelligence officer and a recognized expert on nonverbal behavior, explains how to "speed-read" people: decode sentiments and behaviors, avoid hidden pitfalls, and look for deceptive behaviors. You'll also learn how your body language can influence what your boss, family, friends, and strangers think of you. You will discover:
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The ancient survival instincts that drive body language
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Why the face is the least likely place to gauge a person's true feelings
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What thumbs, feet, and eyelids reveal about moods and motives
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The most powerful behaviors that reveal our confidence and true sentiments
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Simple nonverbals that instantly establish trust
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Simple nonverbals that instantly communicate authority
Filled with examples from Navarro's professional experience, this definitive book offers a powerful new way to navigate your world...
He says that's his best offer. Is it? She says she agrees. Does she? The interview went great—or did it? He said he'd never do it again. But he did.
Fiction:
By: Bonnie Garmus
Chemist Elizabeth Zott is not your average woman. In fact, Elizabeth Zott would be the first to point out that there is no such thing as an average woman. But it’s the early 1960s and her all-male team at Hastings Research Institute takes a very unscientific view of equality. Except for one: Calvin Evans; the lonely, brilliant, Nobel–prize nominated grudge-holder who falls in love with—of all things—her mind. True chemistry results.
But like science, life is unpredictable. Which is why a few years later Elizabeth Zott finds herself not only a single mother, but the reluctant star of America’s most beloved cooking show Supper at Six. Elizabeth’s unusual approach to cooking (“combine one tablespoon acetic acid with a pinch of sodium chloride”) proves revolutionary. But as her following grows, not everyone is happy. Because as it turns out, Elizabeth Zott isn’t just teaching women to cook. She’s daring them to change the status quo.
Laugh-out-loud funny, shrewdly observant, and studded with a dazzling cast of supporting characters, Lessons in Chemistry is as original and vibrant as its protagonist.
By: Gabrielle Zevin
From the best-selling author of The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry: On a bitter-cold day, in the December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees, amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform, Sadie Green. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
These friends, intimates since childhood, borrow money, beg favors, and, before even graduating college, they have created their first blockbuster, Ichigo. Overnight, the world is theirs. Not even twenty-five years old, Sam and Sadie are brilliant, successful, and rich, but these qualities won’t protect them from their own creative ambitions or the betrayals of their hearts.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow examines the multifarious nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our need to connect: to be loved and to love.
By: Gordon Korman
The Unteachables are a notorious class of misfits, delinquents, and academic train wrecks. Like Aldo, with anger management issues; Parker, who can’t read; Kiana, who doesn’t even belong in the class—or any class; and Elaine (rhymes with pain). The Unteachables have been removed from the student body and isolated in room 117.
Their teacher is Mr. Zachary Kermit, the most burned-out teacher in all of Greenwich. He was once a rising star, but his career was shattered by a cheating scandal that still haunts him. After years of phoning it in, he is finally one year away from early retirement. But the superintendent has his own plans to torpedo that idea—and it involves assigning Mr. Kermit to the Unteachables.
The Unteachables never thought they’d find a teacher who had a worse attitude than they did. And Mr. Kermit never thought he would actually care about teaching again. Over the course of a school year, though, room 117 will experience mayhem, destruction—and maybe even a shot at redemption.
