Author Chris Warren-Dickins
Coming soon9/23/2023 Coming soon! Books for kids, written by Chris Warren-Dickins, a psychotherapist in Ridgewood, New Jersey, and illustrated by Theodore Key.
Here are some sketches from the first in a series. Sign up to learn more. Chris Warren-Dickins Author & Psychotherapist
0 Comments
It is hard to believe that it is almost a year since I published Beyond Your Confines. Since then, I have received some great reviews, so thank you for those.
If you haven't yet left a review, please do add as many to the following forums -If you haven't managed to get your hands on a copy, you can buy one today via any of these links. Beyond Your Confines is available as a paperback or ebook. Chris Warren-Dickins Author & Psychotherapist Chris has published two non-fiction books:
Beyond Your Confines (published by Zero Labels in 2022), and Beyond the Blue (published by Zero Labels in 2021). Their debut novel is coming soon. Chris is a psychotherapist (licensed professional counselor) in New Jersey. They started out life as an attorney in the UK (having graduated from University College London in 1998), and since then, Chris has been awarded a Masters in Counseling & Psychotherapy in 2010 (University of East London). That same year, Chris published research into male experiences of suicidal ideation and counseling interventions. Aside from writing and psychotherapy, their true passion is being a parent to two elementary-aged children. Chris finds that writing, parenting and psychotherapy complement each other, as we are all continuously in a state of growth and change. Learn more Award for book cover3/2/2023 What an honor! The cover of my latest book Beyond Your Confines (cover designed by the talented Anabeth Bostrup) has been shortlisted for a Cover of the Month award.
You can vote here - Review from Rewired Soul10/27/2022 Truly honored to get a mention in this weekly non-fiction reading list. Thank you to Chris Boutté of The Rewired Soul.
You can read his full review of Beyond Your Confines here, and I have set out an extract below - “This is one of the better mental health books I’ve read in a while. Chris Warren-Dickins seems like a great therapist, and he was able to pack a ton in this short book, and I think it’d be hard to find anyone who wouldn’t benefit from this book… I think one of the best aspects of this book is that the author discusses how wealth disparities, being a minority and other difficult life circumstances can affect our mental health differently. He also discusses how it’s important to recognize one’s privilege and how it’ll make your circumstances differ from others. It’s a fantastic book all around, and I definitely recommend it.“ Chris Warren-Dickins Author & Psychotherapist I am honored to have contributed to Selena Gomez’s new mental health platform, Wondermind.
Here is an article about loneliness, a common complaint in this post-pandemic world. Read the full article here. Chris Warren-Dickins The fault lines of our internal prison10/7/2022 “Prior to COVID-19 we were starting to see that our love affair with technology was tantamount to abuse, its draw sucking us in so that we became isolated from ourselves and other people...
And then the pandemic hit, and we became more dependent on technology. We found ourselves trapped within another prison, confined to our homes to work, educate our children, and somehow survive. The fault lines of our internal prison were further stressed, and we were taken further away from our internal wisdom and natural rhythms… Beyond Your Confines gives you the chance to stop and reflect on the wisdom and natural rhythms that you already have within.” Beyond Your Confines Available now. Chris Warren-Dickins Psychotherapist and Author www.chriswarrendickins.com Book signing at Barnes & Noble10/1/2022 Thank you again to Barnes & Noble (Paramus) for hosting the signing of Beyond Your Confines. Here is a little speech about why I wrote this. Get your copy today. How technology imprisons us10/1/2022 "At one time our knack for invention seemed to open the world up to endless opportunities for freedom...
But though our new “toys” might satiate our need for new experiences, stimulating that enjoyable dopamine hit, we ultimately sink back into an internal prison of self-doubt. Within these confines it can be hard to recognize our strengths, and our self-esteem dwindles, taking with it any hope or motivation… Beyond Your Confines will help you to understand that the internal prison is your own creation, but so too are the keys that can free your mind. " Beyond Your Confines Available now. Chris Warren-Dickins Psychotherapist and Author www.chriswarrendickins.com Why I have written Beyond Your Confines9/20/2022 Since the pandemic, our mental health has deteriorated at a global level. Some studies estimate an increase in depression by 53 million extra cases and a staggering 76 million extra cases of anxiety. In the United States alone, research shows that 4 in 10 adults suffer from anxiety or depression, whereas before the pandemic it was just 1 in 10.
As a psychotherapist, this troubles me, but we don’t just get to blame the new kid on the block. Even before the pandemic, we saw a decline in our mental health due to the rapid growth in technology (including smartphones). Our need for certainty and the quick fix of an instant answer has taken us further from the wisdom and natural rhythms that we can find within. At a greater rate, we are recycling half-baked ideas that take us further and further from a felt sense of truth. In my new book Beyond Your Confines, I argue that the coincidence of these two major trends (the pandemic and the growth in technology) has trapped us within an internal (mental) prison of our own creation. Evidence of this is all around, with greater emotion dysregulation and an uptick of unhelpful thought patterns (for example, the over-simplification of black and white thinking that polarizes views). For survivors of trauma, life during (and since) the pandemic has been particularly challenging, creating an even greater swing on the dialectic of trauma that is a feeling of too much at one moment, and then feeling nothing (or shutdown) at the next moment. In Beyond Your Confines, I pay particular attention to the prevalence of trauma, and how we can learn how to regulate our emotions again. One of the hardest groups hit by the pandemic has been parents of school-aged (and younger) children. In recent studies, 27% of parents reported that their own mental health has deteriorated, and 14% reported worsening behavioral health for their children. For those parents who are also survivors of trauma, the growth in technology and the pandemic has created unique challenges. As a result, I dedicate a whole chapter to parenting through, and after, a pandemic. It is my hope that Beyond Your Confines can help you to understand how you trap yourself within a mental prison, and if you can understand what confines you, this might help you to find the key to free your mind. We can learn a great deal from history, and so I examine other pandemics, and how we have responded to these. For example, in 1980 smallpox was eradicated because of the cooperation and collaboration between countries. In Beyond Your Confines, I explain that we need each other to free our minds and achieve a healthy state of mind. We can co-regulate each other, a concept introduced by Dr Stephen Porges when he explained Polyvagal Theory. As you will find out in Beyond Your Confines, Polyvagal Theory is an important component to mental health. We can also learn from the 1918 and 2020 pandemics, which showed us that confinement helped to slow the spread of influenza (in 1918) and COVID-19 (in 2020). In Beyond Your Confines, I explain that confinement can sometimes help with your mental health, especially if you translate that to a period of rest or disengagement, whether that is from work, social media, or even the demands of your loved ones. In my new book, I examine the concept of burnout, something that has posed a greater risk since the pandemic and a growth in technology has blurred so many boundaries. Did we see a rebellion against this blurring of boundaries during the Great Resignation of 2021? Was this an example of people reaching beyond their confines, freeing their minds, and reaching for a more authentic way to live? Perhaps. I will leave that to you to decide once you have read the book. The process of writing Beyond Your Confines has underscored my belief that to tackle any mental health issue, it is impossible to confine one’s focus to the individual. We are all interconnected, and so we are not just looking at an internal prison of distorted thought patterns or emotion dysregulation, we need to understand the societal distortions that confine us; distortions such as structural inequality, societal privilege, and discrimination. Mental health practitioners have a duty to examine these societal influences, and I hope that I have, at least in part, addressed this duty by publishing my new book. Beyond Your Confines is available from all good book retailers from 1 October 2022. Chris Warren-Dickins Psychotherapist and Author www.chriswarrendickins.com Sources The Lancet - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02143-7/fulltext Kaiser Family Foundation - https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/the-implications-of-covid-19-for-mental-health-and-substance-use/ “Brain Health Consequences of Digital Technology Use,” Gary W. Small, Jooyeon Lee, Aaron Kaufman, Jason Jalil, Prabha Siddarth, et al https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7366948/ The Polyvagal Theory, Stephen W. Porges Well-being of parents and children during the pandemic - https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/146/4/e2020016824/79686/Well-being-of-Parents-and-Children-During-the?autologincheck=redirected?nfToken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 Chris
|
Books by author and psychotherapist Chris Warren-Dickins
©2023 Chris Warren-Dickins. All rights reserved
Address: 143 E Ridgewood Ave, #1484, Ridgewood, NJ 07450
Address: 143 E Ridgewood Ave, #1484, Ridgewood, NJ 07450
Disclaimer - The content on this website (“Content”) is created for information only. You are not to consider any Content as a substitute for professional therapeutic advice or treatment. No website is a substitute for professional support. Chris Warren-Dickins does not recommend or endorse any materials, resources, professionals, products, opinions, tests, procedures, or any other information mentioned on this website. Reliance on any information on this website is solely at your own risk.