Imagen del autor

Gregory L. Jantz

Autor de Healing the Scars of Emotional Abuse

57 Obras 886 Miembros 9 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Gregory L. Jantz, Phd is a bestselling author of more than 35 hooks. He is a go-to media source for a range of behavioral-based afflictions, including drug and alcohol addictions. Dr. Jantz has appeared on CBS, ABC, FOX, and CNN and has been interviewed for the New York Post, Associated Press, mostrar más Forbes, Family Cirde, and Woman's Day. He is a regular contributor to the Thrive Global and Psychology Today blogs. Visit him online at aplaceofhope.com and drgregoryjantz.com. mostrar menos
Créditos de la imagen: Used by permission of Baker Publishing Group, copyright © 2008. All rights to this material are reserved. Materials are not to be distributed to other web locations for retrieval, published(see © info.)

Obras de Gregory L. Jantz

How to De-Stress Your Life (2008) 52 copias
The Stranger in Your House (2011) 47 copias
MOVING BEYOND DEPRESSION (2003) 42 copias
Too Close to the Flame (1999) 28 copias
Losing Weight Permanently (2000) 15 copias
Thin Over 40 (2004) 12 copias
God Can Help You Heal (2006) 4 copias
21 Days to Eating Better (1998) 3 copias
Living Beyond Food (1991) 2 copias

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Nombre canónico
Jantz, Gregory L.
Fecha de nacimiento
1959-07-13
Género
male
País (para mapa)
USA
Lugares de residencia
Edmonds, Washington, USA
Organizaciones
American Psychotherapy Association

Miembros

Reseñas

This is a relatively simple, religion-lite Christian psychology book. I’m not sure I’ll have much to say about it. Christian psychology can be profound and even radical at times, but this is just okay and fine in the sense that it talks about the parts of life that really matter, such as relationships, and with a minimum of judgment.

…. Although it’s funny, because it’s a short, simple book, but out of the small rack of religious books at the local pharmacy—all very popular—it was probably the most intellectual, because the majority of them seemed to be pretty gendered, you know: “The Bible As Understood by People With Man Parts”; “Obeying Jesus as a Woman”—you know. It can be pretty bad. I once read a Roma Downey book that was pretty bad, and her TV show “The Bible” was unwatchable, even though even she wasn’t obedient enough to call her book, you know, “The Obedient Woman’s Guide to the Bible”, you know. And then there’s was the Bible itself, which can be quite a useful book to read at times, but the mere fact of there being so many copies of the Bible on such a small rack of books, recalls kinda the naive attitude many people have towards that ancient book. (And I am not suggesting learning Hebrew, Greek, and German, so that we can “really know”, you know.) The complete text of the Bible is the average person’s version of “theology/serious Christian thought”, combined with this thing where like: so many Christians come to Christianity running from something else, and then they do something—write a book, maybe, if they’re a writer—about how wicked that other thing is, and then in two years they condemn THAT version of themselves “for having only just begun to read the Word of God”, and so on ad infinitum, so that they distrust and are suspicious of other people’s Bible commentaries and theologies, because they’re complicated/not “perfect”, even though it’s very naive to think that you can understand the Bible without commentaries or helps, or that misunderstanding it can only come second-hand, so to speak, or it can only happen to other people: so that they prefer to just read the Bible and have their eyes glaze over uncomprehending, but at least it’s the “Word of God” and they didn’t ask for help, vulnerability being the unforgivable sin, basically. The unforgivable sins: being sexual, and being uncool/vulnerable.

So yeah. But this was not that.

…. Kudos for explaining the term “gaslighter”, which I only half-understood; also for the phrase, “Drama Queens and Crisis Kings”. See, ~that~ is why Christians are not always taking the culture and doing nothing but weighing it down, right. Somebody literally needed to invent a new term to highlight that women are not uniquely negative: this time, it happened to be a Christian!

It does kinda adopt some of the rationalistic-negative, classify-badness aspects of most contemporary psychologists, of course, but I obviously do like classifying, and it can be nice sometimes to identify something as a problem rather than just being in the dark about it, you know.

…. Identification; analysis; mitigation. It’s not bad: however I would have put the actual strategies and techniques of protection second, maybe even first—certainly before that “great” matter, The Question Why, you know. It would make a great send-off or conclusion, but it’s not worth delaying the practical for, really. However, to write it like that, you’d almost have to not be a product of these times, you know: people won’t let you go on, until they’ve heard the Reason Why, you know…. We guess at the reasons of gods and angels, little knowing that our role in the school play is to delight, to wonder, to sport…. It is sometimes a vigorous play, and there is beauty and knowing in it: but we are not oft told why, not told much of the why or the who that Began the thing, you see….

…. Paul is a funny guy—the brevity and compactness of his written work and the habits of biblical orthodoxy I think give a probably illusionary impression, ie, “Paul”, one man: probably he went through a number of different phases of patterns of thought, each opposed to the others to some extent or another, and each imperfectly documented—but it is clever that Greg notes the equally important qualification in that famous phrase about being at peace with all others, so far as it relies on you. Many threads of Christianity basically discard that saying (without saying so) without a second thought or regret, and yet as a Tolerant Christian I was kinda naive, (that secondary Christian stereotype), I had to tolerate both all world religions—while very much overestimating the valuable yet very finite outsider’s tolerance I was offering them—and also all Christian thought whatever, no matter how toxic or morally repugnant, right: “so long as Christ is preached….”. Realistically, I’m much more peaceful and much less resentful towards life, now that I acknowledge that I want as little as politely possible to do with much of Christianity, even if that means passing by much popular American thought, and some of the most famous thinkers of history, right…. There’s a lot you can do to deal with toxic people—just continuing your spiritual practice is a great element—but just starting out with realistic expectations is a critical element. I desire to be at peace with all, but not all will be at peace with me—from this will inevitably spring certain practical considerations, which need to be implemented without resentment, right.

…. And yeah, not to go all, Downfall 4: Rage of the Antichrist, right—I actually went back to a church about two, 2 &1/2 weeks after finishing “The Antichrist”, lolz; and while I wasn’t laying money on that timeline, I knew it was a possibility, in much the same way that a woman reading a feminist book knows she might be reconciled to her husband some day, even if it’s a ~really good book~, right; (although who knows if there’ll be “marriage”, that people would recognize, in the future)—but yeah, since this is a Christian book, I feel like I should say something re: conversion, right. Now, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so you’d think that people intent on converting others would be open to being converted in their turn, the way that salesmen don’t threaten telemarketers with death by beating, right. (I mean, telephones are weird: but you understand the principle.) But of course it isn’t so. Basically no one wants to be converted: Christians least of all, even most ‘liberal Christians’. You’d think that even if they couldn’t be converted to ~religion~, right: and yet it is a most universal law. When I first became a vegetarian I was an emotional convert, bent on discreetly distributing vegetarian propaganda—actually, it wasn’t a bad book—and although I didn’t literally set the book in people’s hands, in at least one case I did give it to someone so she could read it and talk about it with me: my old priest, Mother Lisa (TEC-affiliated). And actually, because of me and because her daughter was a vegan, she decided to become a vegetarian too: but she made me regret the whole episode. She had broken the unwritten, unacknowledged folk law to never convert to anything, ~yourself~, and every time we met she reminded me of what I had made her do, I guess….

But yeah: converting people is basically bullshit activity and should be avoided. The experience of two millennia speaks volumes more than any short selection of scripture, curiously interpreted. Religions and things should grow through setting an example, by inspiration, and by “attraction rather than conversion”, as it says in “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions”, conversion basically being a polite term for compulsion, among those for whom personal choice is not merely forbidden, but absolutely taboo, you know…. And if we could ~normalize~ that, right: attraction rather than compulsion, we might have a politics where we don’t assume the worst about people we know nothing about, right—and there are many forms of that, some of them clearly being marked off as worse than the others, but it is kinda the bedrock assumption of our politics, and it wasn’t different in the past, when if you weren’t—well, if you weren’t John Steinbeck, basically: “America ain’t no good, ‘cause it keepin’ down the poor white farmer man”—you know, and say, even if you’re a conservative, you call the hippies or whoever, “white”, basically just because they don’t like it, and not because you’re trying to have an adult, responsible conversation about race—who ever heard of such a thing! My pastor says such people hearin’ grim dooms on Judgment Day!—…. You know…. Like, there’s nothing sound about the way we treat people, you know: we just try to compel them, beat them, “convert” them, right….

And yeah, it’s amazing: you push against life; life pushes back against you: you allow life, she pours jewels in your lap…. And it’s trite, nowadays, to contrast Christ and the Christians, and as a green-eyed Aquarius, I am disallowed from saying trite things, right…. But yeah, even the Buddhists don’t always get it right. Basically no one always gets it right. If they’re on this plane of consciousness, they must have gotten it wrong at some point or another, or they’d have no knowledge of this place, almost…. People get it wrong, and that’s must be ok, right.

…. I mean, I feel like Dr. Hew Len once said that if he ever got through a whole day—ONE WHOLE DAY—without any, with ZERO, negative thoughts, (just negative ones), he would let himself eat cake until he got sick, you know: and apparently it’s never happened for him, right.

But he’s still Dr. Hew Fucking Len, right….

…. I mean, you can question someone’s beliefs if you both feel safe talking about it, and question whether something they think might be illogical or pedantic or whatever; but to assume or demand that they’ll become a clone of you—and become absorbed by a pre-existing stock answer, you know—is just such a non-starter I feel like I shouldn’t have to even address this point, you know.

(shrugs) (sings) C’est la vie; matching T’s…. La La, LA, La La La La….

…. And yeah: any culture can be corrupt. Some people get involved in the new age, and it’s very woo-woo and weird: like their feet never touch the ground, right: others do like positivity that is almost good, but it’s like a TikTok positivity—and I’m sure there’s good TikTok, but you know what I mean…. I mean, banning it is kinda stupid; it’s like, we can do capitalism and do business with China: UNLESS, it’s for the young people, right: having fucking fifty percent of the economy dependent on China or whatever the fuck it is is fine, but if the KIDS are gonna play games invented in Beijing or some Chinese city I’ve not heard of (hint: any other one)…. Man, why does trade have to involve other countries? Capitalism is about AMERICA!…. But yeah, tangent, yeah; anyway, TikTok is kinda part of the superficiality of contemporary life, even if even some YouTube videos from a long time ago or even in the old style can be incredibly reticent and “forgive me for being on the internet”, and pseudo-intellectual, and un-creative…. —but yeah, someone can do TikTok positively and it can be hard to logically separate out where they’re not only-irrational-to-a-materialist and become like…. Leo (actualized.org) had the phrase “Zen devils”, and I think that’s great: like there’s woo woo, kinda harmless unless something actually needs to get done: and then there’s Zen devils, right: like actively wearing the cloak of whatever while trying to scam or at least get something for nothing, at least in terms of clicks and ad money, which is almost the same thing, right…. But yeah: “Zen devils” is like for the classic new age, Eastern/enlightenment/general positivity, right—for Wicca it would kinda just be: “fucking crazy people”, right….

And you know, Christians are also “the Christians”, right. But we live on an Earth plane of fear, pain, sin, and limitation. There are probably some beings here now or in the past who are or were perfect, but I doubt anyone ever here has not known sin and limitation in some past life, even if perhaps for one whole life they’ve known only wise and loving development, right…. I just don’t see how you could end up here, if you didn’t have some affinity for all this, either now or in some (not quite released) past. There is altruism, saviors/bodhisattvas/avatars, etc. angels and gods and all the rest of it, but…. Somewhere there must have been some affinity, which must have been at least partly out of need. You don’t even notice things unless you have need of them. God the Pure can only come to know sinners through the intermediacy of the God who is, in some sense, Impure, limited, in some sense or another…. There are different senses of the word, but where there is no affinity, there is no meeting, right….

Anyway. I doubt most of you care about all that, right. It isn’t always necessary to know a thing, at any rate.

…. But yeah, to come back to it: the numbers about the elements of speech are kinda subjective/arbitrary, although probably it’s an appropriate device for his general contemporary audience, right. But say, even though say this review is theoretically 100% words, and my body language and tone of voice theoretically combine to form 0%, really I would say that at least three-quarters of ~my~ writing is ~my~ style, and that’s has ~nothing~ to do with “me”: it would be exactly the same—three-quarters style, the remainder for the purely logical-literal crap—if my native language were British Imperial Latin, or whatever the hell it is, right?

…. But yeah: sometimes the hero, if you will, sacrifices himself not because he dislikes living, but just as this strange thing that’s all caught up with nothing and no one ever being alone….

And sometimes they even give good advice, and can live and be practical too.

…. And yeah: a lot of people are pretty much average-to-neurotic either way, after it’s all over, and would be that way under another system, too. I believe one day it will be different, but it always was that way before…. At least in historical time, right.

…. Guarding boundaries while not being counter-productive and aggressive is something I’m aware of, but it’s a process, right. He’s right that it would be good to “be grateful”—like maybe I could say, “I would be grateful if you could….” Like to let the other person have a “way out” of your displeasure without simply collapsing on your boundary-walls down upon your head, right…. I mean, ideally, you could actually be ~happy~ with yourself and the other person, even if you don’t allow him to do certain things—certainly not with your blessing, right.
… (más)
 
Denunciada
goosecap | Mar 17, 2024 |
 
Denunciada
rosscharles | May 19, 2021 |
The Anxiety Reset, by Gregory L. Lantz, PhD is a useful tool for someone who is suffering from anxiety and wants to learn as much about the illness as possibly. This book is broken into two parts with the first tells about living with anxiety, the causes of anxiety, the different types of anxiety, how it affects your life and gives information on medication. The second part focuses on things such as with dealing with anxiety, finding strength, managing emotions, managing thoughts and the importance of nutrition, sleep and exercise.

This is an interesting book to read to supplement medical care. The chapters are not very long and end with a personal reset plan that gives simple things to do to put into practice what the chapter taught. I appreciate that the author realizes the importance of working with medical personnel and prayer and faith. I also appreciate the detailed lists of research the author has done to provide this useful tool for the person who want to live a full life without having anxiety rule their life.

I received an arc ebook copy from the publisher through NetGalley. This is my honest review.
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Denunciada
eccl | Mar 4, 2021 |
This was a nice little book to take care of most of your spiritual needs. It includes scripture and quotes for each topic and a few more chapters of just scripture. It would make a nice gift.
 
Denunciada
eliorajoy | Nov 4, 2019 |

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Obras
57
Miembros
886
Popularidad
#28,920
Valoración
½ 3.7
Reseñas
9
ISBNs
103
Idiomas
2

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