Blue Wolf Reviews

Tag: therapy

  • Other Lovers

    Other Lovers

    Natalia Rachel combines heart felt, emotional poetry with enlightening prose as she places love, or what may pass for love under the microscope as viewed by the modern generation.

    In this heartbreaking, but all too real novel she, through the life of Lena and her friends explores what it means to understand real love when it finally comes knocking at your door; is a combination of sex and love or love and sex or is it something different altogether.

    Divorced after a twenty-year marriage, living in Singapore and healing after a long illness, mother of two Lena is facing the reality of being single, free and available. On-line dating seems to be the way into a new love affair or a way to meet eligible men, but is it, as all she seems to get is needy men who are just like her, looking for a new direction.

    The sex is great, the angst is terrible, disillusionment is overpowering and love seems to be further away than it has ever been. She draws on the love and care of her friends, all women who are facing their own challenges, using the freedom of their lifestyles to cope with the stress of modern life, to help her understand where she is in her life.

    Natalia Rachel draws on her own life experience which comes through in the captivating poetry which begins each chapter before it is unpacked in the almost separate life of Lena as she tries desperately to understand her life, her desires and her way forward.

    Lena eventually discovers the one singular thing that is vitally important, that perhaps to find true love, you first need to understand yourself: a sobering thought in a world that bombards with almost impossible standards encapsulated within limited boundaries.

    Emotional and in many ways cathartic, Other Lovers offers a refreshing look at the tumultuous, dependant, destructive world of on-line dating and the reality that to find the emotional stability you are looking for, you must begin with you!

    Other Lovers could be considered as therapy between the pages of life through the medium of deep, enriching poetry.

  • Kitchen Therapy

    Kitchen Therapy

    Food can often be the one commonality which in times of celebration and crises draw people, community family together to create, produce, and to feed; to nurture one another with love and comfort.

    As Charlotte Hastings, in her role as a psychotherapist, discovered through her love of food, cooking and nurturing, it is also a wonderful way of being able to break through barriers, to offer someone a neutral ground where they can relax, chat and discuss their anxiety or distress in a positive, productive manner. Creating a meal or enjoyable treat is therapeutic, relaxing and a delightfully relaxing way to begin to accept so many of life’s little lessons.

    Kitchen Therapy has taken more than twenty years to evolve and over that time Hastings has built into the narrative so many wonderful aspects of conscious living, life lessons, along with a keen understanding of the human psyche, drawing on her own life experiences to illustrate the carefully made points of self-care and understanding.

    Set in three definite sections the first deals with The Departure – moving away from the normal and learning to view time spent in the kitchen as therapeutic, essential and enjoyable. There are several case studies which make interesting reading and how food, or rather the creation of delicious recipes, has helped people move towards a healthier, happier lifestyle.

    The Enchanted Kitchen which for those who love to cook or desire to understand far more about holistic, conscious cooking is an absolute treasure trove of fascinating information broken down into the four seasons of the year.

    Continuing on with the seasonal theme the final section The Return is full of wonderful recipes which are broken down into wonderful ‘bite sized’ pieces, each one with a backstory, Who it is and then a gentle message from the ingredient used to form the tantalisingly, must cook dish.

    Built around a platform of psychotherapy, cooking and a love of family, Kitchen Therapy is a wonderful book for anyone who desires to expand their love of all things culinary, but would like to add a further few layers of understanding about the importance of good food well cooked and presented.

  • Catalogue of Desire and Disappearance

    Catalogue of Desire and Disappearance

    Set in the time of ‘’Cold War’ East Berlin and modern day, Ana Wolfe is a librarian who has little, if any self-worth. She is 28 years old, still living at home and has no real desire to move out or get a boyfriend or even consider marriage.

    She is walking home from a late evening at the Lichtenberg Public Library where she works, when she thinks she sees a body of something small lying at the base of trash bin; this turns out to be a pile of rubbish, an old marble statue and a pile of papers that look like they are handwritten. On closer inspection they seem to be some sort of diary.

    So begins a most intriguing tale Catalogue of Desire and Deception that is captivating, with a very strong link to the history of the very frightening days of the Cold War, where to be different, to enjoy any aspect of life, to be a ‘gay or lesbian couple’ was to invite serious trouble.

    Gabriella Meyer was a sex therapist, a woman who loved to help others, to make them as happy and enchanted with their partners in a loving and sexual manner, as she was with her beloved husband Berndt. It is her diary Ana has found and finds intriguing, fascinating and also very worrying.

    As Ana becomes more involved with Gabriella’s story so she becomes more concerned about what happened to her and Berndt; she also begins to further explore who she is and slowly venture into the world of dating and sexual discovery.

    Ana Cruz has crafted very real characters who become alive on the pages, as they develop the characteristics that make them seem familiar, very much like people we all know. The story flows effortlessly segueing between the years with graceful aplomb to deliver a very easy, light read with a somewhat unexpected twist at the end.

  • All This Healing is Killing Me: A Memoir 

    All This Healing is Killing Me: A Memoir 

    The opening words to the first chapter of this heartbreaking and courageous Memoir from Gabrielle Pelicci, All This Healing is Killing Me, say ‘Nobody tells you how to become an adult’, which is absolutely true. If you have parents who guide you through the trauma of growing up, you are very fortunate: if not you have to find your way through what frequently becomes a battle ground, littered with bad choices, failed expectation and the detritus of human life.

    In Gabrielle Pelicci’s case, she grew up in a horrifically traumatic family with a father who was at the very least a homicidal maniac. Her parents eventually divorced and her mother died at a young age, leaving her bereft; an emotionally delicate woman in her early 20’s.

    From an ethereal or out of body experience at her mother funeral, to a serious rift with her brother Joseph, she decided the way forward was to study Psychology, which lead onto her study of many more subjects such as Energy Healing, Massage and over the years, many areas involved within the healing modalities.

    She staggered from one toxic relationship to another, each time destroying a little more of her fragile self-belief. Over the years she saw a raft of therapists who all encouraged her to face her fears; basically face her truths about her childhood, the trauma associated with this and by doing so beginning to heal.

    Fearful and terrified, she moved from one needy relationship to another, changing locations often, depending on what she was studying, either learning or involved in various healing disciplines, each time believing she was on the pathway to happiness, only to be cast aside once again, until she could go no further. She reached the end of her various routes of ‘escape’ and had, with the help of a very skilful therapist, to face her demons; to begin to heal.

    For anyone who has walked the challenging pathway of destructive relationships, mental and physical health issues, substance abuse and much more, Pelicci’s words will offer hope and understanding, as can only come from someone who has already travelled the pathway of self-destruction.

    Beautifully written with no sense of self-pity at any stage, All This Healing Is Killing Me is an unflinching Memoir, which shares the hard work, challenges and immense courage it takes eventually to walk away from a destructive life pattern and be able to live a freer and happier life.