Recommendations based on "The Bluffer's Guide to Sex"

An essay on the importance of touch to children's growth and development and to the physical and mental well-being of people of all ages. The first sensory input in life comes from the sense of touch while a baby is still in the womb, and touch continues to be the primary means of learning about the world throughout infancy, well into childhood. Touch is critical for children's growth, development, and health, as well as for adults' physical and mental well-being. Yet American society, claims Tiffany Field, is dangerously touch-deprived. Field, a leading authority on touch and touch therapy, begins this accessible book with an overview of the sociology and anthropology of touching and the basic psychophysical properties of touch. She then reports recent research results on the value of touch therapies, such as massage therapy, for various conditions, including asthma, cancer, autism, and eating disorders. She emphasizes the need for a change in societal attitudes toward touching, particularly among those who work with children.

Challenging accepted theories about what makes for terrific sex, The Erotic Mind is a breakthrough exploration of the least understood dimensions of human sexuality—the psychology of desire, arousal, and fulfillment. Nationally known sex therapist Dr. Jack Morin offers a bold new perspective that celebrates the joys of Eros without denying its risks. Based on an in-depth analysis of over 1,000 provocative stories of peak sexual experiences, The Erotic Mind offers clear, accessible guidance on how anyone can utilize his or her own peak encounters and fantasies as powerful tools of self-discovery. The Erotic Mind explains the many paradoxes of erotic life, such as: why we're most excited when we must overcome obstacles; how anxiety, guilt, and anger—generally thought to have a negative impact on sexual arousal—often turn out to be aphrodisiacs; how we use unresolved issues from our early lives to intensify passion; and why the best sex is dynamic and unpredictable, rather than static and safe. These and other insights, combined with concrete suggestions for increasing our enjoyment, overcoming our problems, and revitalizing our relationships, will change forever the way we think about our eroticism.

A practical, heartfelt guide to the art of truly knowing another person in order to foster deeper connections at home, at work, and throughout our lives-from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Road to Character and The Second Mountain If you are going to care for someone, you must first understand them. If you're going to hire, marry, or befriend someone, you have to be able to see them. If you are going to work closely with someone, you have to be able to make them feel recognized and valued. As David Brooks observes, "The older I get, the more I come to the certainty that there is one skill at the center of any healthy family, company, classroom, community or nation: the ability to see each other, to know other people, to make them feel valued, heard and understood." And yet we humans don't do this well. All around us are people who feel invisible, unseen, misunderstood. In How to Know a Person, Brooks sets out to help us to do better, posing questions that are essential for all of us. If you want to know a person, what kind of attention should you cast on them? What kind of conversations should you have? What parts of a person's story should you pay attention to? Driven by his trademark sense of curiosity, Brooks draws from the fields of psychology and neuroscience, and from the worlds of theatre, history, and education, to present a welcoming, hopeful, integrated approach to human connection. How to Know a Person helps readers become more understanding and considerate towards others; it helps readers find the joy that comes from being seen. Along the way it offers a possible remedy for a society that is riven by fragmentation, hostility, and misperception. The act of seeing another person, Brooks argues, is a profoundly creative act: How can we look somebody in the eye and see something large in them, and in turn, see something larger in ourselves? How to Know a Person is for anyone searching for connection, seeking to understand and yearning to be understood.

A practical guide to better communication that will break the blackmail cycle for good, by one of the nation's leading therapists, Susan Forward.“Breathe a sigh of relief! Susan Forward helps you identify and correct an intensely destructive and confusing pattern of relating with those you love. I highly recommend this important book!"—Susan Jeffers, Ph.D., author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway"If you really loved me...""After all I've done for you...""How can you be so selfish..."Do any of the above sound familiar? They're all examples of emotional blackmail, a powerful form of manipulation in which people close to us threaten to punish us for not doing what they want. Emotional blackmailers know how much we value our relationships with them. They know our vulnerabilities and our deepest secrets. They are our mothers, our partners, our bosses and coworkers, our friends and our lovers. And no matter how much they care about us, they use this intimate knowledge to give themselves the payoff they want: our compliance.Susan Forward knows what pushes our hot buttons. Just as John Gray illuminates the communications gap between the sexes in Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and Harriet Lerner describes an intricate dynamic in The Dance of Anger, so Susan Forward presents the anatomy of a relationship damaged by manipulation, and gives readers an arsenal of tools to fight back.

Piercing pioneer Elayne Angel has performed over 40,000 piercings since the 1980s and has brought many practices, such as tongue-piercing, into the mainstream. She brings her exhaustive knowledge to this groundbreaking manual that covers everything you need to know about the process, including: • The best piercings and placements for various body parts and body types • Terminology, tools, and techniques of the trade • Vital sterility, sanitation, and hygiene information • Jewelry designs, shapes, and materials • Advice for people with stretch marks, plastic surgery, and unique anatomy • Healing, aftercare, and troubleshooting for problem-free piercing "As a piercer, nurse, and educator, I can say without a doubt that this is the most complete book ever written for all people in our industry." --DAVID A. VIDRA, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT OF HEALTH EDUCATORS, INC. "No one is more qualified to write this book than Elayne Angel. With more than three decades of personal experience to her credit, no one knows the subject better." --JIM WARD, FOUNDER OF GAUNTLET, THE WORLD'S FIRST BODY PIERCING STUDIO "This is an exciting book for a field that has exploded in the last two decades. National industry standards are needed, and Elayne provides important data." --MYRNA L. ARMSTRONG, RN, EdD

Bumble BFF's resident friend expert identifies the 9 most common conflict types in women's platonic relationships, sharing practical strategies to resolve issues and strengthen ties. Fighting for Our Friendships is the Queen Bees for adult women, teaching readers how to identifying the problems in their relationships with other women (often fostered by societal pressure to compete) and, of even greater importance, how to cultivate, strengthen, and sustain them. This book will be the handbook that readers wish they had sooner. Using a combination of psychology, science, narrative, and a few of author Danielle Bayard Jackson's signature scripts and out-of-the-box exercises, readers will learn: - The 9 types of friendship conflicts (The Gossip, The Needy Friend, The Jealous Friend, and more) - The whys behind some of our most common friendship problems - What to say in those "wtf" moments when your friend tries you with a crazy remark - How to better understand a friend who seems jealous, clingy, angry, passive, or insecure - How to ask the right questions in the moment to avoid a misunderstanding - New ways of approaching tough issues with friends so that the conflict actually *gasp* brings you closer In a time when there's no shortage of talk about cutting friends off, it's time to look at how we can keep our friendships going. In a world pushing us to opt out at any sign of friction, Bayard Jackson is here to show us how to opt in.

The classic guide to finding love and creating life-altering miracles of happiness and fulfillment, now revised and updated with new insights, stories, teaching points, and transformational exercises.Are you frustrated by stymied relationships, missed connections, and the loneliness of the search for someone to spend the rest of your life with? In this classic, updated guide to finding deep happiness in love, licensed marriage and family therapist Katherine Woodward Thomas bridges the gap between wanting to find true love and being truly available to create a fulfilling relationship. Love-seekers today have to deal with a precarious terrain of dating and partnering that seems to encourage a lack of commitment and clarity. Calling in “The One” will empower you to have a radically different experience by shifting your painful patterns in love from the inside out, graduating you from unsatisfying relationships and unleashing your power to manifest the happy, healthy love you desire. Based on the Law of Attraction, which is the concept that we attract what we’re ready to receive, the provocative yet simple forty-nine-day program includes a daily lesson, a corresponding practice, and instructions for putting that lession into action in your life. Manifesting meditations, powerful visualizations, and clarifying journal exercises will lead you to recognize and release your hidden inner obstacles to love and help you grow beyond them. At the end of the course, you will be in the ideal state of mind to go out into the world and find your "One."An inspirational approach that offers a life-affirming philosophy on relationships, Calling in “The One” is your guide to finding and keeping the love you seek.

“Why are so many of us at times completely baffled by a relationship? How can we think we know someone so well and admit in the end that we hardly knew that person at all? Why do many people who work diligently and strenuously to gain wholeness and balance still feel so frustrated about having a fulfilling relationship?Why have so many people given up on love?”—from the PrologueJohn Bradshaw’s bestselling books and compelling PBS series have touched and changed millions of lives. Now, in Creating Love, he offers us a new way to understand our most crucial relationships—with our romantic partners and spouses, with our parents and children, with friends and co-workers, with ourselves, and with God.Bradshaw’s compassionate approach shows that many of us have been literally “entranced” by past experiences of counterfeit love, so we unknowingly re-create patterns that can never fulfill us. Here he provides both the insights and the precise tools we need to keep those destructive patterns from repeating in the present. And then he shows how we can open ourselves to the soul-building work of real love—and create healthy, loving relationships where we can be fully ourselves in every part of our lives.

The groundbreaking, provocative book that uses evolutionary psychology to explain human mating and the mysteries of love.If we all want love, why is there so much conflict in our most cherished relationships? To answer this question we must look into our evolutionary past, argues prominent psychologist David M. Buss. Based one of the largest studies of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide, The Evolution of Desire is the first work to present a unified theory of human mating behavior. Drawing on a wide range of examples of mating behavior -- from lovebugs to elephant seals, from the Yanomamö tribe of Venezuela to online dating apps -- Buss reveals what women want, what men want, and why their desires radically differ. Love has a central place in human sexual psychology, but conflict, competition, and manipulation also pervade human mating -- something we must confront in order to control our own mating destiny.Updated to reflect the very latest scientific research on human mating, this definitive edition of this classic work of evolutionary psychology explains the powerful forces that shape our most intimate desires.

Draw the line . . . Used with its companion book, Boundaries, this workbook will provide practical, non-theoretical exercises that will help you set healthy boundaries with parents, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, and even yourself . . . by drawing on God's wisdom. Being a loving and unselfish Christian does not mean never telling anyone no. This workbook helps you discover what boundaries you need and how to avoid feeling guilty about setting them. It will give you biblically based answers to questions you have about boundaries.