Respark

Igniting hope and joy after trauma and depression

“This book is absolutely brilliant, beautifully written, with a fantastic central metaphor about sparking and those who have lost spark.”
Dr. Karen Treisman. MBE, TedX speaker, author

How can we respark hope and joy after depression and trauma? Acclaimed psychotherapist and trauma expert, Graham Music, distills decades of experience into a road-map for reigniting zest and optimism in troubled adults and children.

In these challenging times many feel unmotivated, listless and have lost their mojo. Some have retreated after trauma, others are depressed, or succumb to addictive temptations such as screens. Too many have lost both ease and enthusiasm.

Weaving cutting-edge science, therapeutic wisdom, and deep humanity, Music uses fascinating tales from the consulting room and life to outline the steps needed in each case to regenerate confidence and desire.

Whether you are a therapist, professional, parent, or just looking to find inspiration, this book offers a captivating and hope-filled journey, showing how we can rediscover vitality and passion to live richer lives.

Nurturing Children

“Dr Music is certainly one of the best and probably the most deep thinking child psychotherapists in the world. This beautiful book distills decades of neuro-clinical thinking, interpreting children’s and young people’s experience and behavior in terms of the most applicable and scientifically credible models of mind. …I could not recommend a book more strongly.”

Professor Peter Fonagy OBE, UCL;
Chief Executive of the Anna Freud National Centre

Drawing on decades of experience, internationally respected clinician and trainer Graham Music tackles major issues affecting troubled children, including trauma, neglect, depression and violence. Using psychoanalysis alongside modern developmental thinking from neurobiology, attachment and trauma theory and mindfulness, Music creates his own distinctive blend of approaches to help even the most traumatised of children.

A mix of personal accounts and therapeutic riches, Nurturing Children will appeal to anyone helping children, young people and families to lead fuller lives.

Nurturing Natures

This new edition of the bestselling text, Nurturing Natures, provides an indispensable synthesis of the latest scientific knowledge about children’s emotional development. Integrating a wealth of both up-to-date and classical research from areas such as attachment theory, neuroscience developmental psychology and cross-cultural studies, it weaves these into an accessible enjoyable text which always keeps in mind children recognisable to academics, practitioners and parents.

Affect and Emotion

Why are emotions so vital to living our best life? How do psychoanalytic ideas shed light on this? What are the key things we really need to know about feelings? What is the difference between emotions, affects, and feelings?

Emotions are at the heart of psychotherapy, indeed of all relationships, and of life in general. Using examples from the consulting room and everyday life, Music shows how emotional decision-making is often unconscious, how early experiences influence later attachment relationships, and how the body is the seat of emotions. We learn about the effects of both trauma and neglect on emotional capacities, why some people seem to feel too much, others too little, and we see the negative effects of feelings being disowned, repressed, projected, and defended against.

The Good Life

Are we born selfish or primed to help others?
Does stress make people more antisocial?
Can we ever be genuinely altruistic?

This book explores some of the dilemmas at the heart of being human. Integrating cutting edge studies with in-depth clinical experience, Graham Music synthesizes a wealth of fascinating research into an explanation of altruism, cooperation and generosity and shows how we are primed to turn off the better angels of our nature in the face of stress, anxiety and fear.