New and Best-Selling Titles

• Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue Teich, Nicholas M. Transgender 101: A Simple Guide to a Complex Issue
  Abstract:

  Written by a social worker, popular educator, and member of the transgender community, this well-rounded resource combines an accessible portrait of transgenderism with a rich history of transgender life and its unique experiences of discrimination. Chapters introduce transgenderism and its psychological, physical, and social processes. They describe the coming out process and its effect on family and friends, the relationship between sexual orientation, and gender and the differences between transsexualism and lesser-known types of transgenderism. The volume covers the characteristics of Gender Identity Disorder/Gender Dysphoria and the development of the transgender movement. Each chapter explains how transgender individuals handle their gender identity, how others view it within the context of non-transgender society, and how the transitioning of genders is made possible. Featuring men who become women, women who become men, and those who live in between and beyond traditional classifications, this book is written for students, professionals, friends, and family members.

  Authors: Teich, Nicholas M.
• Psychosocial Capacity Building in Response to Disasters Miller, Joshua Psychosocial Capacity Building in Response to Disasters
  Abstract:

  Disaster responders treat more than just the immediate emotional and psychological trauma of victims: they empower individuals and families to heal themselves long into a disaster’s aftermath. This requires helping survivors to rebuild their ability to meet their emotional and psychological needs, not only for themselves but also for others, which necessitates a careful consideration of survivors’ social, economic, and political realities as their communities heal and recover.
   

  This comprehensive book integrates Western mental health approaches and international models of psychosocial capacity building within a social ecology framework, providing practitioners and volunteers with a blueprint for individual, family, group, and community interventions. Joshua L. Miller focuses on a range of disasters at local, regional, national, and international levels. Global case studies explore the social, psychological, economic, political, and cultural issues affecting various reactions to disaster and illustrate the importance of drawing on local cultural practices to promote empowerment and resiliency. Miller encourages developing people’s capacity to direct their own recovery, using a social ecology framework to conceptualize disasters and their consequences. He also considers sources of vulnerability and how to support individual, family, and community resiliency; adapt and implement traditional disaster mental health interventions in different contexts; use groups and activities to facilitate recovery as part of a larger strategy of psychosocial capacity building; and foster collective grieving and memorializing. Miller’s text examines the unique dynamics of intergroup conflict and the relationship between psychosocial healing, social justice, and peace and reconciliation. Each chapter ends with a mindfulness exercise, and a section reviews practitioner self-care.

  Authors: Miller, Joshua
  Keywords: Joshua Miller, Psychosocial Capacity Buidling, Disaster Response, Social Work, Disaster Responders, Trauma
• Social Work Practice Research for the Twenty-first Century Fortune, Anne E., ed.; Briar-Lawson, Katharine, ed.; McCallion, Philip, ed. Social Work Practice Research for the Twenty-first Century
  Abstract:

  Social work professionals must demonstrate their effectiveness to legislators and governments, not to mention clients and incoming practitioners. A thorough evaluation of the activities, ethics, and outcomes of social work practice is critical to maintaining investment and interest in the profession and improving the lives of underserved populations.

  Incorporating the concerns of a new century into a consideration of models for practice research, this volume builds on the visionary work of William J. Reid (1928-2003) who transformed social work research through empirically based and task-centered approaches-and, more recently, synthesized intervention knowledge for framing future study. This collection reviews the task-centered model and other contemporary Evidence-Based Practice models for working with individuals, families, groups, communities, and organizations. Essays demonstrate the value of these pragmatic approaches in the United States and international settings. Contributors summarize state-of-the-art methods in several key fields of service, including children and families, aging, substance abuse, and mental health. They also evaluate the research movement itself, outlining an agenda for today's sociopolitical landscape and the profession. This volume inspires practice research to prioritize evidence as a base for the profession.

  For the month of January, we will be offering chapter 2, "Empirical Practice in Social Work," by Anne E. Fortune for free as part of our free chapter of the month offer.

  Authors: Fortune, Anne E., ed.; McCallion, Philip, ed.; Briar-Lawson, Katharine, ed.
• The Lives of Transgender People Rankin, Susan; Beemyn, Genny The Lives of Transgender People
  Abstract:

  Responding to a critical need for greater perspectives on transgender life in the United States, Genny Beemyn and Susan (Sue) Rankin apply their extensive expertise to a groundbreaking survey—one of the largest ever conducted in the U.S.—on gender development and identity-making among transsexual women, transsexual men, crossdressers, and genderqueer individuals. With nearly 3,500 participants, the survey is remarkably diverse, and with more than 400 follow-up interviews, the data offers limitless opportunities for research and interpretation.

  Beemyn and Rankin track the formation of gender identity across individuals and groups, beginning in childhood and marking the "touchstones" that led participants to identify as transgender. They explore when and how participants noted a feeling of difference because of their gender, the issues that caused them to feel uncertain about their gender identities, the factors that encouraged them to embrace a transgender identity, and the steps they have taken to meet other transgender individuals. Beemyn and Rankin's findings expose the kinds of discrimination and harassment experienced by participants in the U.S. and the psychological toll of living in secrecy and fear. They discover that despite increasing recognition by the public of transgender individuals and a growing rights movement, these populations continue to face bias, violence, and social and economic disenfranchisement. Grounded in empirical data yet rich with human testimony, The Lives of Transgender People adds uncommon depth to the literature on this subject and introduces fresh pathways for future research.

  Genny Beemyn, the director of the Stonewall Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, is a leading expert on the experiences of transgender people in the United States and on the development of transgender-inclusive college policies and practices. A gender nonconforming individual, Dr. Beemyn has published and spoken extensively on the needs of transgender students, and hir publications include Creating a Place for Ourselves: Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Community Histories and Queer Studies: A Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Anthology.

  Susan (Sue) Rankin is an associate professor at The Pennsylvania State University and a senior research associate at the Center for the Study of Higher Education. She has presented and published widely on the impact of sexism, racism, genderism, and heterosexism in the academy and intercollegiate athletics. Her recent publications include the 2010 State of Higher Education for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People and Our Place on Campus: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Services and Programs in Higher Education.

  Authors: Beemyn, Genny; Rankin, Susan
• Falling Through the Cracks: Psychodynamic Practice with Vulnerable and Oppressed Populations Berzoff, Joan, ed. Falling Through the Cracks: Psychodynamic Practice with Vulnerable and Oppressed Populations
  Abstract:

  Psychodynamic theory and practice are often misunderstood as appropriate only for the worried well or for those whose problems are minimal or routine. Nothing could be further from the truth. This book shows how psychodynamically informed, clinically based social care is essential to working with individuals whose problems are both psychological and social.

  Each chapter addresses populations struggling with structural inequities, such as racism, classism, and discrimination based on immigrant status, language differences, disability, and sexual orientation. The authors explain how to provide psychodynamically informed assessment and practice when working with those suffering from mental illness, addiction, homelessness, and cognitive, visual, or auditory impairments, as well as people in prisons, in orphanages, and on child welfare. The volume supports the idea that becoming aware of ourselves helps us understand ourselves: a key approach for helping clients contain and name their feelings, deal with desire and conflict, achieve self-regulation and self-esteem, and alter attachment styles toward greater agency and empowerment. Yet autonomy and empowerment are not birthrights; they are capacities that must be fostered under optimal clinical conditions.

  This collection uses concepts derived from drive theory, ego psychology, object relations, trauma theory, attachment theory, self psychology, relational theories, and intersubjectivity in clinical work with vulnerable and oppressed populations. Contributors are experienced practitioners whose work with vulnerable populations has enabled them to elicit and find common humanity with their clients. The authors consistently convey respect for the considerable strength and resilience of the populations with whom they work. Emphasizing both the inner and social structural lives of client and clinician and their interacting social identities, this anthology uniquely realizes the complexity of clinical practice with diverse populations.

  Joan Berzoff is a full professor at the Smith College School for Social Work, where she has twice served as chair of the Human Behavior in the Social Environment Sequence. She has also been codirector of the doctoral program and directs the End of Life Certificate Program. She is the coauthor of three books: Dissociative Identity Disorders: The Controversy and Treatment; Inside Out and Outside In: Psychodynamic Theories and Practice in Multicultural Settings (Editions I, II, and III); and Living with Dying: A Handbook for End of Life Care Practitioners. The author of more than twenty-five articles on psychodynamic theory and practice, women's issues, grief, bereavement and dying, social work education, postmodernism, intersubjectivity, compassion fatigue, and women's friendships, Dr. Berzoff lectures nationally and internationally and has been in private practice for thirty-five years.

  Authors: Berzoff, Joan, ed.
• Moments of Uncertainty in Therapeutic Practice: Interpreting Within the Matrix of Projective Identification, Countertransference, and Enactment Waska, Robert Moments of Uncertainty in Therapeutic Practice: Interpreting Within the Matrix of Projective Identification, Countertransference, and Enactment
  Abstract:

  One of therapy’s greatest challenges is the moment of transference, when a patient unconsciously transfers emotion or desire to a new and present object--in some cases the therapist. During the course of treatment, a patient’s projections and the analyst’s struggle to divert them can stress, distort, or contaminate the therapeutic relationship. It may lead to various forms of enactment, in which the therapist unconsciously colludes with the client in interpretation and treatment, or it can lead to projective identification, in which the client imposes negative feelings and behaviors onto the therapist, further interfering with analysis and intervention.

  Drawing on decades of clinical case experience, Robert Waska leads practitioners through the steps of phantasy and transference mechanisms and their ability to increase, oppose, embrace, or neutralize analytic contact. Operating from a psychoanalytic perspective, he explains how to cope professionally with moments of transference and maintain an objective interpretive stance within the ongoing matrix of projective identification, countertransference, and enactment. Each chapter discusses a wide spectrum of cases and clinical situations, describing in detail the processes that invite a playing out of the patient’s phantasies and the work required to reestablish balance. Refreshingly candid, Waska recognizes the imperfections of analysis yet reaffirms its potential for greater psychological integration and stability for the patient. He acknowledges the limits and frequent roadblocks of working with difficult patients, such as those who suffer from psychic retreat, paranoid phantasies, and depressive anxieties, yet he indicates an effective path for resetting the clinical moment and redirecting the course for treatment.

  Robert Waska conducts a full-time private psychoanalytic practice for individuals and couples in San Francisco and Marin County, California. In addition, he has taught classes and supervised therapists in the Bay Area and has presented papers in the United States and internationally. Dr. Waska is the author of ten textbooks on psychoanalytic theory and technique and is a contributing author for two psychology texts. He has also published more than ninety articles in professional journals and serves on the review committee for several journal and book publishers. Dr. Waska’s work focuses on contemporary psychoanalytic topics, including projective identification, loss, borderline and psychotic states, the practical realities of psychoanalytic practice in the modern world, and the establishment of analytic contact with difficult and hard-to-reach patients. He emphasizes the moment-to-moment understanding of transference and phantasy as the vehicle for gradual integration and mastery of unconscious conflict between the self and the other.

  Authors: Waska, Robert
• Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees and Their Stories of Exile Brotherton, David C.; Barrios, Luis Banished to the Homeland: Dominican Deportees and Their Stories of Exile
  Abstract:

  The 1996 U.S. Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act has led to the forcible deportation of more than thirty thousand Dominicans from the United States, with little protest or even notice from the public. Since these deportees return to the country of their origin, many Americans assume repatriation will be easy and the emotional and financial hardships will be few, but in fact the opposite is true. Deportees suffer greatly when they are torn from their American families and social networks, and they are further demeaned as they resettle former homelands, blamed for crime waves, cultural and economic decline, and other troubles largely beyond their control.

  Following thousands of Dominican deportees over a seven-year period, David C. Brotherton and Luis Barrios capture the experience of emigration, imprisonment, banishment, and repatriation on this vulnerable population. Through a unique combination of sociological and criminological reasoning, they isolate the forces that motivate immigrants to leave their homeland and then commit crimes that violate the very terms of their stay. Housed in urban landscapes rife with gangs, drugs, and tenuous working conditions, these individuals, the authors find, repeatedly play out a tragic scenario, influenced by long-standing historical injustices, punitive politics, and increasingly conservative attitudes undermining basic human rights and freedoms. Brotherton and Barrios conclude that a simultaneous process of cultural inclusion and socioeconomic exclusion best explains the trajectory of emigration, settlement, and rejection, and they mark in the behavior of deportees the contradictory effects of dependency and colonialism: the seductive draw of capitalism typified by the American dream versus the material needs of immigrant life; the interests of an elite security state versus the desires of immigrant workers and families to succeed; and the ambitions of the Latino community versus the political realities of those designing crime and immigration laws, which always disadvantage these poor and vulnerable populations. Filled with riveting life stories and uncommon ethnographic research, Banished to the Homeland relates the modern deportee's journey to broader theoretical studies of transnationalism, assimilation, and social control, exposing the dangerous new reality created by today's draconian immigration policies.

  David C. Brotherton is professor and chair of sociology at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and at the Graduate Center, the City University of New York. His research focuses on social exclusion and resistance, and his most recent book is Keeping Out the Other: A Critical Introduction to Immigration Enforcement Today.

  Luis Barrios is a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a member of the Ph.D. faculties in social/personality psychology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York. His research focuses on border studies, psychosocial exclusion, and resistance. Brotherton and Barrios are also coauthors of The Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation: Street Politics and the Transformation of a New York City Gang and coeditors of Gangs and Society: Alternative Perspectives.

  Authors: Brotherton, David C.; Barrios, Luis
• Social Work and Human Rights:A Foundation for Policy and Practice, Second Edition Reichert, Elisabeth Social Work and Human Rights:A Foundation for Policy and Practice, Second Edition
  Abstract:

  Social Work and Human Rights has become a standard text highlighting the role of social work in protecting the rights of vulnerable populations. Through rigorous analysis, classroom exercises, and a frank discussion of the implications for practice both within and outside of the United States, the volume effectively acquaints readers with the political, economic, and social dimensions of rights issues and the documents that guarantee them. New material covers international events, such as the United Nations’ Millennium Declaration (2000) and its effort to reduce the poverty and suffering of billions worldwide. The volume now emphasizes cultural rights and includes a probing lesson in cultural relativism. It turns a critical eye toward the failure in the United States to address social welfare issues and its reluctance to rectify policies favoring one group over another.

  Elisabeth Reichert is a professor at the Southern Illinois University of Carbondale School of Social Work and author of Challenges in Human Rights: A Social Work Perspective and Understanding Human Rights: An Exercise Book.

  Authors: Reichert, Elisabeth
• The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor Marks, Howard The Most Important Thing: Uncommon Sense for the Thoughtful Investor
  Abstract:

  “This is that rarity, a useful book.”--Warren Buffett

  Howard Marks, the chairman and cofounder of Oaktree Capital Management, is renowned for his insightful assessments of market opportunity and risk. After four decades spent ascending to the top of the investment management profession, he is today sought out by the world's leading value investors, and his client memos brim with insightful commentary and a time-tested, fundamental philosophy. Now for the first time, all readers can benefit from Marks's wisdom, concentrated into a single volume that speaks to both the amateur and seasoned investor.

  Informed by a lifetime of experience and study, The Most Important Thing explains the keys to successful investment and the pitfalls that can destroy capital or ruin a career. Utilizing passages from his memos to illustrate his ideas, Marks teaches by example, detailing the development of an investment philosophy that fully acknowledges the complexities of investing and the perils of the financial world. Brilliantly applying insight to today's volatile markets, Marks offers a volume that is part memoir, part creed, with a number of broad takeaways.

  Marks expounds on such concepts as "second-level thinking," the price/value relationship, patient opportunism, and defensive investing. Frankly and honestly assessing his own decisions—and occasional missteps—he provides valuable lessons for critical thinking, risk assessment, and investment strategy. Encouraging investors to be "contrarian," Marks wisely judges market cycles and achieves returns through aggressive yet measured action. Which element is the most essential? Successful investing requires thoughtful attention to many separate aspects, and each of Marks's subjects proves to be the most important thing.

  Authors: Marks, Howard
  Keywords: Business; Economics; cbsp
• From Financial Crisis to Global Recovery Desai, Padma From Financial Crisis to Global Recovery
  Abstract:

  Using the same presentation and detail that has earned her such wide-ranging acclaim for her previous books, Padma Desai explains in a course-friendly way the complexities of economic policy and financial reform. She merges a compelling narrative with scholarly research to teach and to engage the reader. Paul Krugman described Desai's 2003 volume, Financial Crisis, Contagion, and Containment: From Asia to Argentina, as the "best book yet on financial crises." Her most recent work on Russian reform was a "pick of 2006" by the Financial Times.

  Desai begins with a systematic breakdown of the factors leading to America's recent recession, describing the monetary policy, tax practices, subprime mortgage scandals, and lax regulation that contributed to crisis. She discusses the Treasury-Fed rescue deals that saved several financial institutions and the involvement of Congress in passing restorative policies. The distinguished scholar follows with an analysis of stress tests and other economic measures and investigates whether the U.S. economy is truly on the mend. Widening her view, she considers the prospects for recovery in North America as a whole, as well as Europe, Asia, and South America, and the extent and value of U.S. and E.U. regulatory proposals. Refocusing on American financial practices, Desai evaluates hedge funds and derivatives, credit default swaps, and rating agencies and discusses whether the dollar can remain a reserve currency. She concludes with a historical comparison of the Great Depression and the Great Recession and a look at the effect of the economic collapse on future American capitalism.

  Authors: Desai, Padma