Bøger af Linda Mather

A fairy tale for all. It is about a fairy on the christmas tree who is very sad at being in the attic.Until one day some lively charactors appear and make all her wishes come true.A happy ending for all.

After the success of my first book "I shall wear purple," I was keen to do a series of books in the "I shall......." range. Looking at other psychological issues and helping people to overcome them.So this is my second book "I shall be blue" taking a look at depression, what it is and how to overcome it.From my experience when one is suffering with depression, there is very little empathy from the society, family members and friends. We often hear comments like "pull yourself together," "try and do something and you will feel better". In all fairness people just want the 'old you' back, they are trying to help, they don't know what to say to you to make you feel better., and they don't know how to make you better.These type of comments do not help, they just leave you feeling worse, they leave you feeling guilty for being unwell, ashamed that you are unable to function like you used to or like other people do. They leave you feeling 'bad' when you already feel 'bad'. Unless you have suffered with depression then you would not know just how extremely difficult it is. It is like being in a 'black hole' that you can not get out of, you are trying to claw your way out but each time you get near the top you fall back in again. It feels like your whole body is unable to function, it leaves you breathless and sad to the depths of despair. It is like walking through mud, or carrying around with you a ton of sand on your back when you try to do anything.It takes every inch of energy that you can muster to just get out of bed in the morning. When you wake up in the morning, you just want to go back to sleep again, to avoid that dull ache inside, as sleep is your only respite.So when people say to you things like "Pull yourself together" then this just makes you feel worse, Often what is needed is some kindness, some understanding and some nurturing particularly in the beginning, then some understanding of what is happening to you and why, then some useful guidance on how to overcome this awful illness.That is what I hope this book can offer you, tools to recover slowly but effectively. If this was a physical illness, then the patient would be nurtured, told to rest up given information about their illness and then various treatment options would be explored to find the right one for them, they would not be told "Pull yourself together." My motivation for writing this book is that we are living in an age where therapy is becoming more and more difficult to access, waiting lists are far too long and 'brief' therapy appears to be the answer to everyone's problems, I learned during my own therapeutic journey both as a client and as a therapist many tools that can help us to begin to learn more about ourselves and change the 'things' that are impacting on our lives in a negative way. Although this book is by no means a tool to replace therapy, nothing can beat the process of a good therapeutic relationship and the excellent work that therapists worldwide do. Nor is it a tool to replace medical intervention. It is a tool to start you on that journey, to give you an insight into different therapeutic models so that you can decide which therapeutic model feels the right one for you, (we are all different and what works for one, does not always work for another) and to give you an appreciation on what therapy is about, how it works and how it can change your life and the way that you function as a human being. This way you are in charge of your own treatment plan and can decide which treatment model will work best for you.I hope that this book offers you the above and more. If I am having a low day, then I give myself permission to be 'blue.' "I Shall be blue." To fight it makes it more difficult to recover. To accept it and accept that this is where you are and how you are feeling today, makes recovery much easier and faster.

If you are fan of 'Sybill' and 'The three faces of Eve", then this book will take you to a different and more twisted dimension. When and where can we draw the line between insanity and sanity when they both sightlessly blend into the other? Debbie a mysterious and unethical professional works blindly with three extremely complex clients with a serious mental health issue. Her motives are slightly dubious, her needs are definitely deprived and ironically the one that is eventually left bordering between that fine line of sanity and insanity is her.Two mind blowing twists, to a powerful emotionally charged ending. I will be surprised if this book does not have you pondering the complexities of the human mind, experiencing the highs and lows of the characters emotions and reaching for the tissues.

Have you ever thought about the consequences of several depraved human beings paths crossing? Has it ever scared the life out of you when you think about society today and the consequences of some of its citizens? Gut Instinct brings to life the often horrifying results.A serial killer contrary to the norm, a psychotherapist that runs away from her own murky history like she is fleeing a tsunami. A murder squad team with dark memoirs and hidden secrets and an egotistical head of homicide that needs his team's adulation and relies on a rapidly becoming dysfunctional gut. That's not forgetting the deprived lives of the vulnerable victims. This is an exciting and fast paced thrill ride with a sequence of amusing, sadistically sad and alarming events that lead to an unexpected twist in the tale. Gut Instinct is a psychological thriller with a unique and daring twist. It's characters are sympathetic and believable. It is an unforgettable novel which will leave you pondering the outcome for some time after putting the book down.With this author's professional background, keen insight into human nature and ability to surprise the reader she is able to deliver.

I wish I had a pound for every time I had been asked as a therapist and as a mother: "Linda how did you manage the teenage years" or"From a psychological point of view what advice would you give to parents raising teenagers?"There is not a parent that I know that has swum through the teenager years of their offspring without some difficulty; it is part of the course. However from my experience if these years are managed in a healthy way then the terrible teen years end between nineteen and twenty one.If however, they are managed in an unhealthy way then the challenging behaviours of our offspring can go on further into their twenties and sometimes early thirties. Therefore if your hard work is done between twelve and eighteen, then hopefully you will have lovely, respectful and healthy functioning adults.My husband and I are survivors of five teenage children; I say survivors because it does feel like a survival of the fittest at times, therefore we decided that we have enough knowledge and experience between us to write this book.We have the experience of joint parenting, being single parents and of being step parents to teenage children.And we have lived to tell the tale!One of the first things that we discussed when thinking about the structure of this book was; if there was one resource that a parent would need the most when raising teenagers what would it be and we both agreed it would be: A SENSE OF HUMOURThis is why we decided to run humour through our book, with jokes and comical quotes as it is, we felt an important tool to have in your survival kit. However we hope that it looks at the serious side to teenage difficulties too.Although we very much look at the negative behaviours in this book, we want to acknowledge that they do have positive qualities and can be very endearing sometimes.This book focuses on the challenging behaviours of teenagers and it is specifically for parents that are struggling with these difficulties."No child comes with an instruction book" you will hear many parents and professionals say. Well this is in a sense an instruction book, although we have to bear in mind that all children are unique and what works for one child may not work for another.These are basic guidelines for parents to adopt and adapt to suit their unique child.If you have got this far in the parenting process, than you have done a pretty good job. You have got through the 'terrible two's, ' the 'where, what and why three and four's, ' the 'messy five to seven's', the 'argumentative eight to ten' years and the 'stroppy ten to twelve' years.Congratulations! You have survived those stages and are still smiling.Now you are at your final stage before they go out into the big wide world and may eventually have kids of their own, with lessons learned that will help them with their own parenting skills and you can relax and enjoy the joys of being a Grandparent

My earliest recollection of being somewhat 'different' from other people was when I was five years old. I was never interested in playing the 'silly' games that other children played at nursery school. I had always felt old beyond my years. One teacher once called me a 'little professor' and although I think that this was meant to be a criticism, for me it was a compliment. I became appreciably aware of the 'gift' that I had at around the age of six or seven when I found a small frightened bird in my garden. It had a broken wing. It lay on the ground looking defeated as if ready to die. I made the bird a nest in an old shoe box and gently lay it inside. I nurtured it back to health. Well that is what everyone else thought. The truth is that the bird's wing healed the minute that I put my hand on it. I watched in awe as the bird's skin sculpted together again and the feathers spread over the newly formed skin. I was fascinated although had very little understanding of what I had done. The second time that something like this happened was when I was about eight or nine. My best friend Robert fell off his bike. He had rolled around the ground screeching in pain, tightly holding his shin with both hands. When I managed to remove his hands from the bloody wound, there was a four inch gash about four millimetres deep. It would need stitches I had thought. I gently lay my hand over the wound to stop the bleeding. When I removed my hand to my amazement there was just a slight graze. Luckily Robert did not see the original injury or he would undoubtedly have been freaked out. Instead he was embarrassed about the fuss he had made over such a small injury. It was then that I came to the realisation that I had some sort of healing powers, but I never for one minute thought of the impact that this would later have upon my life. It never crossed my mind that it was so unique or that this gift would become such a burden. To be honest, I don't really remember what I thought at the time as we carried on happily with our bike ride. The only thing I did instinctively know was that I must keep it a secret. How I knew this I will never know, but I told no-one, not even my mother. For several years I kept this secret gift to myself and whilst I did it was not a burden, it was an offering that I was very proud of. In hindsight now I wish that I had kept it my secret for all of my life. It was the same when at nine years old I had the most amazing vision. I was alone in the house. Suddenly the light bulb in my bedroom flickered and went out. At first I thought perhaps that the bulb had blown and as I turned around to go and get a new one out of the kitchen cupboards, I noticed my whole room light u. It was almost like a torch blindingly shining in my face and at the same time there was a great sound of a trumpet. I shivered as the temperature fell in my room. It was then that I saw her. She stood in the corner of my room. She was a beautiful angelic figure dressed in white. I remember looking for her wings, but she had no wings, so I immediately doubted that she was an angel sent from heaven. All angels had wings I had thought. Never the less I knew that she was someone extraordinary, someone that only I would see. She asked me in a gentle melodic voice not to be scared. She invited me to sit whilst she told me the story of exactly who I was and whom I was related to. I sat mesmerised whilst I listened to this beautiful woman's story. Then as quickly as she came she disappeared giving me no time to ask any questions. I was overjoyed at the information that she had given to me and I felt very honoured to find that my ancestry was so very important. You will now hear my extraordinary story, it is an honest account and completely true.

Children suffer with anxiety and if they are not taught good healthy anxiety management tools then they will continue to be anxious throughout their teenage years and adulthood. I believe all children should be taught emotional regulation tools at an early age to assist them with the high level of emotion some teenagers will experience and the anxiety we have to manage as adults."Have no fear a Dinosaur is here!" is a book that will help your child to manage their anxiety. It explains what anxiety is, why we need it sometimes, and how to manage it, sharing child friendly emotional regulation tools.Linda is a counsellor, trainer, clinical supervisor and author with 20 years experience in working with adults, families and children. She shares the emotional regulation tools that both adults and children have found powerful in managing emotions.

I have worked in the substance misuse field as a therapist, couples counsellor and family behavioural therapist for ten years and I feel that I have learned a lot about this client group and addictions, both from my colleagues and from my clients.It's very easy to get involved with drugs in this day and age, there is likely to be a 'dealer' within a mile of anyone's home. No matter what type of area you come from drugs are not defined by class.It is extremely hard to come off drugs, once you are entrenched in them, by yourself. It takes motivation, willpower and it needs to be because you want to stop, not other people wanting you to stop.Some people would define substance misuse as an illness, for me that is difficult to accept. Illnesses are things that happen to us that are out of our control. For example illnesses like diabetes, colds and flu, thyroid disorders and cancer. We don't ask for these illnesses, they just come. Whereas substance misuse is self inflicted, we choose to take drugs, we don't choose to get cancer. So maybe we could call it a self inflicted illness. I do believe however that what maintains people's use is ill health i.e. emotional or psychological ill health and/or mental illness. Either due to life events/experiences, issues caused by their drug use or issues that were pre existing their drug use therefore they self medicate. People take illicit drugs for all sorts of reasons, some of which I will be exploring in this book, but what I have learned most from my work with substance using clients is that for whatever reason they started taking drugs, i.e. to experiment, to manage painful emotions, to manage mental health problems, peer pressure and so on, they then continue to take them to obliterate the past, the shame, the guilt for starting drugs in the first place and for all the hurt that they feel that they have caused themselves and others. This then becomes a block to recovery, facing all the people who they have hurt can be pretty challenging when they are clean.What I have also learned is that the media, and society in general have a lack of empathy and can be quite judgemental about drug users. On the contrary they have been some of the nicest people that I have met. My motivation for writing this book is that we are living in an age where therapy is becoming more and more difficult to access, waiting lists are far too long and 'brief' therapy appears to be the answer to everyone's problems, I learned during my own therapeutic journey both as a client and as a therapist many tools that can help us to begin to learn more about ourselves and change the 'things' that are impacting on our lives in a negative way. As in my previous books "I shall wear purple" and "I shall be blue" I wanted to share the tools I have learned and developed over the years that have helped clients to make changes in their drug using behaviours, with therapists and clients to support people in their struggle with substance misuse. Although this book is by no means a tool to replace therapy, nothing can beat the process of a good therapeutic relationship and the excellent work that therapists worldwide do. In fact this is an excellent resource for those who work in the field. Nor is it a tool to replace medical intervention, or the great work that drug workers do across the country. It is a tool to start you on that journey, to give you an insight into different therapeutic models so that you can decide which therapeutic model feels the right one for you, (we are all different and what works for one, does not always work for another) and to give you an appreciation on what therapy is about, how it works and how it can change your life and the way that you function as a human being. This way you are in charge of your own treatment journey and can decide which treatment model will work best for you.I hope that this book offers you the above and more.

Self absorbed mothers have been part of our society for millions of years. It has enabled writers to pen fairy tales such as Snow white and Cinderella. They are usually portrayed as evil step mothers rather than biological mothers, although biological mothers are just as capable (either in awareness or totally outside their conscious awareness) of abusing and manipulating the minds and hearts of their offspring. As therapists we are well aware of the 'self absorbed' or narcissistic mother and the impact they have on their children's lives which predominantly come out in adulthood. They fill our therapy rooms and keep us in business. Without a doubt they will access therapy at some point in their life usually after several failed relationships or when suffering with anxiety or depression or both. As their story enfolds we learn about the 'hidden' and often covert abuse they have experienced at the hands and minds of the one person, the first person they have learned to trust, the person who gave birth to them and were supposed to nurture and love them unconditionally throughout their lives, their mother.We now live in a society where we see mums continuously on their computers playing angry birds, candy crush or networking on facebook and taking 'selfies' to publish on social media. They are on their mobile phones, I pads and laptops and their children are crying for attention. They say "just a minute honey" which are nice words if they were not giving a covert message to their children that "this black box in front of my face is far more important than you or your emotions right now". Are they all narcissists we may well ask? People who are self absorbed? No I don't think that they are, but what concerns me the most as a therapist and as a mother is 'what about the lack of emotional attachment' that this 'new' behaviour may have on their children, which makes me ask the question are we nurturing children to become narcissists as they develop.All the theorists will tell us how important emotional attachment to our mother is and without it the impact that this may have on the child's life, both in infancy and in adulthood. Is this behaviour breeding more and more narcissists? Children that do not have their emotional needs met so therefore are not able to meet the emotional needs of significant others in relationships and just as importantly their own children's? In this new world of technology it is extremely frightening how distant we are all becoming to our fellow human beings. We communicate by telephone, by social media, by Skype. We splatter our dirty washing all over social network sites watching out for all the 'likes' and getting a quick 'feel good' fix the more that we get. The book has been written to help clients who feel that they may have had a narcissistic parent. It will enable them to gain an understanding of and insight into the heart and mind of a narcissist mother and to develop an insight into the impact that this now has on their relationships in the here and now. It is also a useful resource for therapists to gain further insight into this subject to enable them to work with and support clients that are presenting in a way that they may have lived through this painful experience.I hope it achieves this and more and helps each and every one of you to recover and move on into healthy, mature and loving relationships and break the cycle of generational narcissism to raise healthy and functional children of your own.Linda Mather

DISCOVER YOUR NEW FAVOURITE PRIVATE DETECTIVE AND ASTROLOGER, JO HUGHES.'A born storyteller.' Judith Cutler, bestselling crime author'A gripping yarn. Astrologer Jo Hughes battles to solve her first murder as a private investigator.' Edward Marston, bestselling author______________________________Astrologer and Private Investigator Jo Hughes is at a christening when she receives a call from her oldest friend.She's found a body in the cellar of a local pub. And they've been dead a while.Jo has her first case as a solo PI.The victim is identified as Leah Ellerman, a local landlady who was renovating the canalside cottages opposite the pub. She's been dead for two weeks. So why hasn't anyone reported her missing?Leah was evicting her tenants so she could skyrocket the rent. And this wasn't taken well by the local community . . .So it's not a case of who wanted her dead, but who succeeded.Jo must watch her back. It's clear that the culprit will do anything to keep their secrets buried . . .Perfect for fans of Faith Martin, Hannah Hendy, Ian Moore, Lis Howell, L.J. Ross, Rachel McLean, Cathy Ace or Richard Osman.

Jo Hughes has almost forgotten her career as a PI. Her astrology business is taking off and she's put investigating on hold. Yet, suddenly there's David Macy, her old boss, walking through the door, eating a cherry Bakewell, asking her to help on a case. Macy needs Jo to attend a networking event in Bournemouth. The target is Flora Howell, suspected of selling information to her company's bitter rivals. Jo agrees to go undercover - it's just for one night after all. But Jo can't help getting drawn in, especially when Flora tells her she's looking for a missing friend. Almost immediately Flora gets knocked off her bike in a hit-and-run and is left fighting for her life. Then a body is discovered in a nearby lake, stabbed to death. The victim is the friend Flora was so desperately looking for. Who wants Flora and her friend dead, and why? It's up to Jo to read the signs and uncover the truth before it's too late.