Barry Duncan and Scott Miller are with Marc Hubble directors of The Institute for the Study of Therapeutic Change (...). These people play an important role in improving and renewing therapy. In this book, the authors explain how therapy has for too long been been neglecting, ignoring, and depersonalizing clients, by its over-emphasis on methods and techniques, by following the medical model, by its emphasis on pathology, by hegemony of biological approaches, and so on.

The authors first debunk the myths of:

1) PSYCHIATRIC DIAGNOSIS:
a) it lacks reliability,
b) it lacks validity,
c) it puts the blame on the client, and
d) it is often motivated by self-interest, fueled by greed, and blows with the winds of fashion,

2)DRUG TREATMENT OF MENTAL PROBLEMS:
a) they work no better than therapy in the short term
b) changes brought about by medication are less likely to persist over time
c) there often are severe adverse effects,
d) drug studies often look better than they are because they rate improvement by looking to clinicians' perceptions, not clients'
e) the relationship between drug companies and psychiatry is an unholy alliance, making most of the drug-effectiveness research very suspect

3) THE MAGIC APPROACH:
a) there is no special magic silver bullet approach which is much better than another approach
b) the role of the competence and experience of the therapist is rather unimportant

According to the authors, four decades of outcome research have shown that there are four main factors of change, being:

1. Client factors (percentage contribution to positive outcome: 40%).
2. Relationship factors (percentage contribution: 30%).
3. Hope and expectancy (percentage contribution: 15%).
4. Model and technique (percentage contribution: 15%).

Some conclusions:
1. Thoughts, ideas, actions, initiatives, traits of clients are the most important predictor of therapy success!
2. Next to what the client brings to therapy, the client's perception of the therapeutic relationship is responsible for most of the gains resulting from the therapy.
3. Models and techniques are much less important than generally thought.

The authors advocate a new and refreshing approach characterised by:
1) Client-directedness. Clients' beliefs, values, theories and goals are repected, close attention is being paid to clients' initiatives, interventions and perceptions. Much attention is given to establishing the quality of the relationship, and to monitoring the clients' perception of the quality of the relationship.
2) Outcome informedness. Progress is measured from session to session using paper and pencil questionnaires. By the way: the client's experience of meaningful change in the first few visits is emerging as one of the best predictors of eventual treatment outcome.

Two thoughts come up after having read this book. First, this book is refreshing indeed and a shock to the therapy system. Second, the ideas ventilated in this book might be relevant for work outside the therapy field as well. Consider for instance what management consultancy and managing coaching could learn from this......

In The Heroic Client, Barry Duncan and Scott Miller consider the whole field of "mental health," the roles of client and therapist, and the central question of what helps in therapy. They address mental health mythologies that affect the practice of therapy, including a pervasive reliance on medication, diagnosis, the medical model and priveleging the therapist's expertise. The book asks us to reflect on why we have lost confidence in the person-to-person collaboration of talk therapy, curious in light of the fact that research continues to show that talk therapy is more effective and enduring than medication for most of the problems people bring to therapy.

Duncan and Miller present an exciting, well-researched and thought-provoking argument for client-directed, outcome-informed therapy, which they call "co-therapy." Based on the research on what makes for success in therapy, Duncan and Miller propose we place greater reliance on the theories of change, experiences and strengths clients bring and less on our preferred causal theories and techniques.

This is a courageous and challenging book. Every mental health professional and consumer should read it. It can make a difference. Tobey Hiller MFT and Phillip Ziegler, MFT, co-authors of Recreating Partnership: A Solution-Oriented, Collaborative Approach to Couples Therapy (W.W. Norton, 2001)

This book is a must-read for all mental health professionals! Based on 40 years of outcome research regarding "what works in therapy," Barry Duncan and Scott Miller have articulated a way of being with clients that emphasizes collaboration, respect, and honors their theories of change. The authors challenge many of the dominant theoretical, political, and social discourses that have been privileged in society and unfortunately have informed psychotherapy practice in ways that tend to alienate and stigmatize clients and lead therapists astray. What they advocate for is therapy that is client-directed and outcome-informed, thereby honoring clients' voices and perspectives. This in and of itself has been a long time coming and is worth the price of admission. The Heroic Client is a thoroughly-researched book, and one that I have and will continue to recommend to my students and colleagues. It's a must for all mental health professionals!

There is a hunger in everyone for something...the type and intensity of the hunger just varies from person to person. This book explores many types of hunger and a wide range of feelings experienced, if not readily admitted to, by everyone. When I read this book, I wasn't quite sure what to expect.'Hunger' is mysterious, haunting, and intriguing on many levels...and entertaining too! As I read deeper, into and past the words, I found myself wondering what I would do were I in a particular character's shoes or thinking "Hey! I know how that feels!" It's a journey well worth the taking down an interesting literary trail...though I'm still wondering where the ghost town heroine ends up.....: )

The first time I opened the cover of 'Hunger' I anticipated a "nice interesting little book". Since I had just finished Margaret Atwood's 'The Robber Bride' I did not expect anyone to measure up to Atwood's genius for reaching inside and stirring up the old emotive cauldron. I STAND CORRECTED! After the first dozen pages, I knew I was in for the emotional ride of my life. It seemed as if Ms. Miller had somehow gotten her hands on the journals I kept during my late 20s and 30s. So many times I too had longed to escape. With 'Hunger' I found the perfect hideout in the ghost town. It can be a bit disconcerting facing old foes, but it has certainly been a growing experience. You can escape from everyone but yourself and that is the one spirit you must face up to. I am now on my third reading. 'Hunger' is not a book for the shallow of heart or mind. But anyone willing to step out on that literary tightrope will be richly rewarded.

I felt the writing was almost surgical, folding back layer after layer of ego and emotion to explore the essential self. Her focus is on women's sexuality and self image, but she doesn't shy away from exploring, and honoring, the masculine. Very courageous. The question of, "who am I when no one else is around?" at the center of the title novella is one I'm sure everyone has asked themselves. Miller answers mystery with mystery. The reality in this story seems more flexible than ours; I was thoroughly intrigued. Six short stories continue to address issues of self, sex, and society in the second half of the book. I found the writing so compelling I wanted to read them one after another -- but I also wanted to savor them one at a time. There's so much to enjoy and think about here, it definitely did not leave me hungry.

As a lawyer who has had experience in courtrooms throughout the United States and in many other countries, I was delighted to read William Miller's very funny exploration of our legal and political systems. He has a very deft way of examining the inadequacies of our system by holding up somewhat exagerated examples in a way that demands laughter. And, he does this in good taste and good fun. Political correctness has met its match in Mr. Miller.

William C. Miller, author of "Long Pig," is the kind of man you'd like to have sitting across from you at dinner. He can tell a story with humor. His ear for dialogue is near-perfect. He has experience enough to skewer the party blow-hard's pet political and cultural theories and smile as he does it. He also has expertise enough to lend credence to any skewering he chooses to do.

Those qualities that might make him excellent dinner companion also give this, his first novel, a leg up the ladder of literature-possibly to a rung on a best-seller list. It's fresh and fun and implausible and irreverent. A Berkeley graduate, this man can write. So pull up a chair for the feast. When was the last time you heard San Franciscans mentioned in the same breath as cannibals?

-------
Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of "This is the Place"

This is a charming and exceptionally creative work. It evokes images ranging from Waugh to 1930's "screwball comedy" movies. Despite the fact that the author exposes a range of human weaknesses, the story is never malicious. To the contrary, it is warm and understanding. It's as though God is observing His/Her children with a mixture of amusement and sadness.

People in the Bay Area in particular should enjoy this work, which is set in San Francisco and uses the city's colorful political scene as its backdrop.

if you're interested in nutrition and how to get and stay healthy this book gives you more information than any other i've seen. it helps you to select those supplements you specifically need, which is not easy in a vitamine shop these days!

If you are confused about all the vitamin choices, then look no further. This book will help you understand how and why vitamins are helpful and which ones are important for which ailments. Excellent book.

This book debunks the world of "snake oil" vendors promising miracle cures. It gives good down to earth practical information on a variety of ailments which can be successfully treated using the bodys natural healing processes - fueled with proper nutrition. It particularly addresses the need for QUALITY suppliments.

Diffusionism, which was dead in the water only a generation ago, has made a spectacular reappearance, as more and more people see the obvious similarities between the Maya and the cultures of South, Southeast and East Asia. But with Carol Miller's wide range of interests, keen powers of observation and delightful writing, it all comes alive as never before. I heartily recommend this book to both serious pursuers of the subject and casual travelers, who will be enriched by its pages.

A valuable and enticing source for archaeologists, historians, anthropologists and art historians, and thought-provoking as well for the general reader. This is the most unusual book in ages on the Maya.

The possibility of an East-West connection had often occurred to me, but never in such graphic and broad-based terms, easy to comprehend. There are rich facets to this issue, but fun to read. This book is charming, also knowledgable and serious, and definitely thought-provoking.

I've never been one for sci-fi literature or any types of novels that suggest unrealistic events, but this book made me believe that it is possible to cross back to the past! I'd read the book to which this is a sequel, and couldn't wait for this book to come out. I went to the store weekly to check to see if it was out. I snatched it up and soon as it hit the book shelves. It did not disappoint! But don't read it until after you read the first book!

...Miller's plots almost manage to seem plausible, and the stories always are captivating. HERE AND THEN is no exception to her series of books. It is touching and riveting and hopeful, even though it clearly is make-believe.

Linda Lael Miller never fails to write well. She pulls of this set of Time Travel series just as well as her vampire set. Time travel is difficult to write, but I found "Here and Then" steamy and suspenseful, and impossible to put down. What a well-written plot! You develop alot of real feeling for the characters. This is exactly what I feel a romance book should read like. A definite recommendation for romance readers that favor time travel and the other supernatural.

Rather ironic, really, that the editor of this fine book is a man ~ unless "John Miller" is the nom de guerre of some radical female. Still, editing the book can't have been very hard; Miller had some excellent writers to work with. The selection of the legends is somewhat more questionable. Of the fifty, less then twenty are neither from nor intimately associated with the United States; in the effort to remind people of the ability of the other gender to produce legends, the publishers have largely neglected the largest portion of that gender. And as if that restriction is not enough, the editor has not included anyone for whom a photograph is not available, thus denying any woman from the first 95% of history the opportunity to be a legend. Funnily enough, these censures aside, i really enjoyed this book. Quite unlike the usual "feminist book" (i hate the quotes, but you have to admit they belong there), this is neither strident not shrill, nor even obnoxious. It is beautifully written, nicely put together, with superb selection of wonderful photographs of handsome people. Can't ask for much more than that, eh?

Legends aptly pairs essays with black and white photos to examine the lives of women who have changed the world - as presented by great women writers such as Meg Cohen, Anne Hollander, Patricia McLaughlan and others. Enjoy an inviting collection of contemporary biographical sketches which reveals these women's many contributions to modern society.

I got this for my mum once and it is so good.A different author writes about each of the different famous women in the book in only praising tones and it is really great to look through.Each page is a seperate female,author,article and photograph. Some of the sheilas written about are:Marilyn,Audrey Hepburn(as the cover shows you),Twiggy,Anne Frank and lets not forget Mother Theresa.Or Princess Diana.Madonna does not make it into this book,thank the lord,and thankfully neither do big modern-day stars such as Britney Spaniels..I mean Spears.All-in-all as they say!,a very good book!

I read Mosca in two sittings with Leonard Cohen's The Future playing in the background. Misanthropy magnified.

It's about, like all of Miller's books in one way or another, facing up to the inevitability of our eventual self destruction... maybe I should say apparant inevitability for although there is a fatalistic feeling there is also an undercurrent of potential salvation. Even if it doesn't always go that way there's a feeling that maybe if something was done a little earlier... But anyway fantastically written, It reads to me like human thought on paper... but able to be followed (this is no finnegan's wake) excellent employment of zeugma.

William Burroughs said of Miller's "Snail": "Snail is at once delirious & serious... it addresses itself to basic themes of immortality, death, reincarnation & the future of the species." Mosca is no less than a novel addressing itself, often quite humorously, to the end of the human species. Coming to us in New Mexico just in time for the cuartocentenario, a significant part of the novel concerns New Mexico, Onate, the penitentes, moradas and a rakish Santa Sebastiana interacting with Mosca -- a CIA concocted, biogenetically engineered cyber fly. Along with the secret government, Mosca spends time in New Mexico and San Francisco's North Beach preparing to end the human race. As Miller says, the writing is "factual fiction" and is as multi-dimensional as it gets. Mosca gives new meaning to the term "trip" and Miller's intellect and wit are sharper than ever. Carl Hertel for ABQ Arts.

Let me start by saying I love MOSCA, Richard Miller's latest novel. I've read all his books. When he sent me MOSCA, his tale about a CIA-created, artificial fly who escapes from a creepy lab into the equally corrupt "free world," I read it and entered the Milleresque mindscape. It's remarkable how Miller melds together, collages, footnotes and embroiders the frightening, overwhelming facts most people repress to carry on with "life." MOSCA seems like wild delerium but at its heart it's a witty/serious look at unedited reality. That's why it seems surreal! It's funny, horrifying, devastating and so alive. There's nothing like it anywhere. Get it if you can.

Ms. Miller's childhood was extremely hard. Her father was a self-centered and self-centered junkie. He didn't even see his family as real people who had their own thoughts and feelings. Her mother tried the best she could to do the right thing. But it was wrong to keep the family together. She need to leave him when the opportunnities arose but she chose to stay with her husband so she would be a 'good' wife and mother. She was paralyzed with indecision. It was important to her to be seen as 'good'. Maybe in the 1950's it was unthinkable to leave your husband or give up your kids to give them a better life. The worst part for Ms. Miller was the daily beatings that she suffered from her brother. How can you survive that unscathed? Ms. Miller wrote this without self-pity. Yet you can hear the emotions that she felt clearly in her beautiful prose. She doesn't talk much about her adult life beyond how she dealt with her panic attacks as an adult. I highly recommend this book to people who suffered during childhood to see that you can overcome it at least to some degree. Also for people who love someone who had a bad childhood to understand them better. Everyone should have a safe environment. Not only had Ms. Miller survived her childhood she has accomplished much in her life. An amazing feat!

While the plethora of recent books penned by victims may have inured some to the stories of pain that human beings inflict upon one another, few will be unmoved by Susan Miller's trenchant family memoir Never Let Me Down. Her story causes one to ponder again accidents of birth and marvel at the remarkable resiliency within us.

Relating the secrets in her life very much as she must have unearthed them, the author cuts back and forth between childhood experiences and the agonizingly earned knowledge of adulthood - the awareness that her father was a 15-year heroin addict unable to love, and her mother, a withdrawn woman, was afraid to see the rage-driven brutality of her older brother, Aaron.

Raised in an ever changing yet congruent series of oppressive New York City apartments during the 1950's, the youngest child of a window dresser whose friends were Birdland musicians - Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Al Cohn and George Handy, all junkies, Ms. Miller suspected nothing. She writes, "It wasn't until I was twenty-one, a college senior, that my father told me he had been a heroin addict, casually slipping that information into some otherwise unremarkable conversation." And then she knew that his addiction explained their acrid family relationships, their penuriousness, and their many moves.

That knowledge, she remembers, "...not only brought uncertainty to every memory but was also the key to my past." Thus, with the aid of therapy, she begins to explore the murky labyrinth of her youth, reliving the gradual escalation of her brother's persecution from pokes to arm-twisting torture to throttling to sexual abuse. As an adult she tries to convince Aaron to see a therapist, insisting that he can find help but he refuses. "That was how it was," she writes, "He couldn't imagine himself as anything but lost, and I always saw myself as on the way to being found." That may have been her life raft.

Nonetheless, for Ms. Miller "being found" was an arduous journey. She learned that dysfunction in her family had spanned three generations. Her father's mother, Esther, hated men. This grandmother so detested her own son that she never displayed a photo of him in her home, she ignored him in her will, saying he was no good, yet lavished affection on Sarah, his sister. Sarah learned her lesson well, boasting that she could get her husband to do what she wanted by refusing to sleep with him. Ms. Miller recalls, "Her husband, the manager of an A&P, could not afford the fancy dresses and shoes that were stuffed into my aunt's closet, but each visit, newly acquired items were brought out for display. You could have such treasures, too, Sarah advised my mother, if you just played your cards right."

A victim, too, Ms. Miller's father lay on his death bed and admitted that he did not know how to love. To a degree, that may have explained his treatment of her but there was more pain to come: when a social worker asked him what he would miss most when he died. His reply was, "...yeah, sure, I'll miss my wife and kids, but what I'll miss most is the music. The music is the only thing that's never let me down." A callous blow to Ms. Miller, an even crueler barb for his wife who had stood by him.

Eventually, there is the recognition that father and daughter are bound together by shared pasts, histories that neither has wished to acknowledge. Perhaps that explains but does it excuse?

Today Ms. Miller is married and the mother of two children. She takes medication to assuage her panic attacks, and lives in a house, a real house, an old wooden one "with white curtains blowing at the windows." There is a garden, enough money, and she cooks dinner every night. She has survived.

Never Let Me Down is a complex intimate memoir. It is a sad yet triumphant story. Even sadder and more triumphant because it is true.

In telling her riveting story, Miller invents a new, jazz-like, rhythm and sentence--riffing far away from the moment into its meaning, and then careening back. Her clear eye and psychological precision are breathtaking. I couldn't put it down--nor could the several people I've given this to!

Folly's father is Ploutos (wealth) who regulates all public and private affairs of mankind (war, peace, military power, justice, assemblies, marriages, treaties, laws, art and science, humour and earnestness...).
This book is full of humour, occasionally pessimistic and sometimes a cynical diatribe against mankind. His principal targets: the Roman Catholic Church, his fellow countrymen, the Dutch, and women. Erasmus was a misogynist.
This book is still not old-fashioned and didn't loose his vitriolic style. By reading it, I still learned a lot about human foolish behaviour.
I recommend the short but impressive work by Stefan Zweig on Erasmus for an appraisal of his public and private life.

You cannot beat this edition, prepared in the early darkness of WW II, for depth, humor, and readability. An outstanding look at the most courageous Renaissance man imaginable.

This is a funny and inteligent choice. Praise of Folly may make us think much more than we might -- if that is possible -- imagine.