Resources

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A self-help classic! This is the absolute best book on the market when it comes to teaching readers how to create healthy boundaries across all kinds of relationships, both personal and professional. If you’re interested in creating and maintaining healthy relationships this is definitely the book for you. We highly recommend it!

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An incredible book that teaches how different personality types interact and effect each other within relationships. Prepare to learn about lions, beavers, otters and golden retrievers and how they can have fantastic relationships when they learn to appreciate one another’s differences! So Good!

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Another great resource from the “Boundaries” series that teaches healthy guidelines for dating. This book helps individuals to create solid boundaries and clear parameters for how they can explore what they are looking for in potential marriage partners. A must read for anyone looking to start a new relationship or assess the health of their current dating life!

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A fantastic little book with a big message! Also an excellent companion to go with the “Boundaries in Dating” book if you think you’re ready or contemplating getting married. Literally, it will ask you 101 powerful questions that you need to talk about with your beloved before “the big day”. Highly recommended!

MARRIAGE

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An excellent resource for learning how to express and receive love within relationships, especially marriage. A definite must read for couples and families. Also, if you’re looking for a good place to begin in strengthening your marriage, we often recommend you start here and then work your way into some of our other suggested marital resources. You definitely need to have a copy on your bookshelf!

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As you can probably tell by now, we are big Henry Cloud fans around here. This is another great book from the “Boundaries” series where the author provides practical insights into how couples can apply healthy boundaries within their marriage. We often find reading this after “The 5 Love Languages” to be quite effective and it will help to prepare you for deeper dives into other resources as well if that is something you are interested in.

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Gary Smalley is one of the greatest marriage therapists of our generation, particularly in helping couples to see how to love each other better. If you’re looking to go deeper in your understanding as to why and how we are all wired for relationships then this is a great read for you. A valuable resource to have in anyone’s marital toolbox!

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John Gottman is hands down the greatest relational researcher of our generation. His studies have spanned over 40 years observing over 3,000 couples and his work has given us a wealth of insight into what truly makes marriage work. If you’re looking for a super deep dive into gaining a better understanding of what it takes to build and sustain a satisfying marriage you will want to pick up a copy of this book at some point. We promise, the insights are incredible and the data will not disappoint!

TRUST

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Yet another powerful resource by Henry Cloud! Trust is a must in all relationships. Some would even say this is the life’s blood at the heart of every healthy relationship. However, it can be hard to trust others when your heart’s been wounded. Or perhaps you are the one who broke the trust in the relationship. Either way, you will remain stuck emotionally until this has been repaired. If you want to learn how to heal these wounds, repair what you have broken and learn how to become a more dependable and reliable friend, spouse, parent or coworker, then this may be the book for you.

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It’s hard enough to trust when trust has been broken. And it is just about impossible to trust in the absence of an apology. In this powerful resource, Gary Chapman lends us his expertise yet again in identifying different communication patterns in relationships where he preposes that there may be different ways in which we give and receive apologies. You may be surprised to learn that your spouse or best friend, or mom or dad has been trying to apologize to you all along and they may have been doing so in a language that while common to them, was uncommon to you. If you are currently experiencing wedges in your relationships, due to a lack of trust, this book may be the very thing that helps to bridge the gap and provide the breakthrough you’ve been looking for.

PARENTING

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Something we love about Dr. Henry Cloud and his co-author and friend Dr. John Townsend, is their shared commitment to taking the principles of their bestselling “Boundaries” series and teaching their readers how to apply these truths across all types of relationships. In this followup to their original bestselling “Boundaries” book, the two authors do an excellent job in communicating to parents how they can apply healthy relational boundaries to parenting their children. If you’re looking for an easily understandable and highly effective parenting resource, we highly recommend this book!

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Parents sometimes ask which is the more effective series when working with children: “Boundaries” or “The 5 Love Languages”. Our response is always the same. Why choose one when you can combine the best of both worlds? If you want to have a well-rounded approach to parenting we recommend you incorporate the principles of both of these excellent series. In our experience, you simply can’t go wrong when you look for ways to integrate each of these approaches into your parenting style.

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Following in the footsteps of the same spirit of “Boundaries with kids”, John Townsend takes it upon himself to fly solo this time in his own adaptation of the “Boundaries” principles in helping to show parents how they can effectively communicate with their teenagers. Another great resource that we highly recommend you incorporate into your library if you are the parents of teenage children!

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Another great example of adapting the same powerful principles that work with children and then showing how they are applicable to the parenting of teenagers as well. Much like Dr. Townsend’s approach in his “Boundaries with Teens” book, Gary Chapman does an excellent job of teaching his “5 Love Languages” method to parents in ways to more effectively reach their teenage children as they leave adolescence and enter into the next stage of preparing for young adulthood. A must-read to help with effectively parenting teens!

Hardcover

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A masterpiece of children’s literature! Gary Smalley and John Trent team up with their wives Norma and Cindy to write one of the greatest therapeutic children’s books of all time. Borrowing from the imagery of their fantastic book about personality types, “The Two Sides of Love”, “The Treasure Tree” is an illustrated story classic about four best friends: Lance the lion, Giggles the otter, Chewy the beaver and Honey the golden retriever, who receive a treasure map at a birthday party and decide to go on an adventure together. Along the way, they encounter different challenges where each must learn to respect and appreciate each other’s different ways of problem solving if they are ever going to make it to the treasure tree and discover the treasure together. This is a must read with young children in helping them to discover the secret to learning how to value personality differences!

ANGER

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Anger is a natural emotion we all experience that can be expressed in many different ways. “The Anger Workbook”, created by Dr.’s Carter and Minirth, is a fantastic resource that helps the reader to identify the origins of their anger and to express and manage this powerful emotion in more healthy and productive ways. This 13-step resource is an excellent guide for anyone struggling with anger management and impulse control issues!

FORGIVENESS

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In the followup to their popular “Anger Workbook”, Carter and Minirth take a deep dive into the concept of forgiveness. Forgiveness is an essential part of healthy living. And yet, it can be one of the most difficult decisions to make. Especially when there are deep wounds involved. This is an excellent resource to have if you are struggling with hurts of the past and unsure how to break free from patterns of unforgiveness.

CAREER

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If you’ve ever dreamed about turning your day job into your dream job, then this is a great resource to help get you started! Ken Coleman is a nationally syndicated radio host and experienced career coach and his insights are incredible. This book is definitely worth checking out if you’re seeking direction in finding meaning and purpose in the work you do.

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Arguably one of the greatest career coaches of his generation, Dan Miller was a master at challenging people to think outside of the box in ways to help them with furthering their careers through finding work that they love and believe in. A great combo to go along with Ken Coleman and his many resources. We highly recommend you read them both together!

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Hands down one of the greatest books of the 20th Century and a classic resource worthy of anyone’s personal library! Dale Carnegie was the seminal professional whose practical and sage advice has been a leader in all areas of life for over a generation. His timeless principles and guidelines are applicable in all situations, industries and callings. His most famous teaching was attributed to his belief that it was possible to change other people's behavior by changing one's behavior towards them. A great model for all of us to aspire to!

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John Maxwell’s books on leadership are second to none! Similar to Dale Carnegie’s approach, Maxwell’s practical suggestions and deep insights serve to inspire his readers to become the best leaders possible no matter the roles they may play within their respective organizations. A must read for all those who long to lead by example through serving and practicing what they preach!

FINANCE

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Whether you like him or not, Dave Ramsey is arguably the greatest financial coach of our generation. With his unique catch phrases, wit and dynamic personality, he’s bound to have you cutting up credit cards and getting out of debt before you know it! This is a great resource if you’re looking for a place to start learning how to better manage your finances. Or perhaps you’ve hit rock bottom and realize you need a proven plan to help you and your family become more financially secure, then Dave may be able to help you as he’s helped millions of families over his 30 plus years of financial mentoring, coaching and counseling.

MEANING & PURPOSE

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In 1942, Viktor Frankl literally entered hell on earth. Forced to leave a thriving practice as a brilliant neurologist and gifted psychiatrist, he was sent to live under constant threat of death in the German concentration camps of WWII. But these tortures would only serve to create a psychotherapeutic juggernaut. “Man’s Search for Meaning” is Frankl’s firsthand account of his experiences, whereby he shows his readers how they too can find meaning and purpose in the most difficult times of their lives and that healing is possible no matter what they’ve been through. It’s a heavy read, but well worth the investment of your time.

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This is a powerful abridged version of Frankl’s original work, geared more towards the teenage and young adult reader. It is about two-thirds the size of the original work with less material and it is written in a way that doesn’t overwhelm younger minds with the grizzly accounts of the atrocities Frankl and his fellow counterparts lived to tell about. We highly recommend this resource for teens and college aged students, especially those who are struggling with nihilistic tendencies and experiencing existential crises.

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C.S. Lewis is most well-known for his famous fictional endeavors, such as The Chronicles of Narnia, The Screwtape Letters or his fantastical Ransom Space Trilogy. But his Christian philosophy books are just as good, if not better. In “The Problem of Pain”, the author attempts to address the deeper questions we all have regarding the purpose of pain in our lives and why God would allow something so difficult to be an active presence in shaping who we become. The author is very open about his own struggles as well as how he works to arrive at the inevitable conclusion that God loves us even though he allows us to experience pain. This book is a fresh and honest exploration of the deeper questions about meaning, purpose and existence. Definitely worthy of your time.

GOD’S LOVE

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If you’ve ever wondered how to draw close to God, read this book. Brennan Manning does a superb job of tapping into a powerful image of God as our father. Or more accurately, our “Daddy”. If you don’t cry after reading this book then you may have to read it a second time. Or a third time, or a fourth … well, you get the picture. Manning delivers a masterpiece of sincerity and truth as he works to show you how much your creator loves you and will never give up on you no matter the cost!

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“The Last Heart” is the the debut therapy novel of Rich Lewis, the owner and operator of Pathways Counseling Clinic. Inspired by a 10 year research study into the history and teachings of the doctrine of hell, and coupled with over 20 years of clinical experience in working with clients trapped in the prison of their past traumas, this fictional story explores what a supernatural therapy session with God in hell might look like as it imagines all of the things God might do in order to reach and heal a person in the darkest night of their soul.

THERAPIST RESOURCES