Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I’m a Gestalt-trained, Buddhist-flavored psychotherapist and group leader in private practice on Long Island. I have a wife, two kids, two grandkids, and a pit bull with a personality disorder. I love sushi, jazz, mystery novels and Rachel Maddow. MONKEYTRAPS is my first book.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
MONKEYTRAPS: WHY EVERYBODY TRIES TO CONTROL EVERYTHING AND HOW WE CAN STOP (Lioncrest, 2015). It grew out of twenty years of working with all sorts of client, which taught me to see most emotional and relationship problems as stemming from what I call control addiction.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I won’t usually publish anything unless my wife likes it. Not sure if that’s unusual or just codependent.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Fritz Perls (especially GESTALT THERAPY VERBATIM), Alexander Lowen (especially DEPRESSION AND THE BODY), James Hillman (especially KINDS OF POWER), Mark Epstein (especially THOUGHTS WITHOUT A THINKER), Snell & Gail Putney (THE ADJUSTED AMERICAN), Robert Lane (THE LOSS OF HAPPINESS IN MARKET DEMOCRACIES), Charlotte Joko Beck (especially EVERYDAY ZEN), Viktor Frankl (MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING) and Alan Watts (especially PSYCHOTHERAPY EAST AND WEST).
What are you working on now?
The next book in what will be a six-book series. Titled MONKEYTRAPS IN EVERYDAY LIFE, it will describe some of the most common ways in which we unconsciously control our way into problems. Future books in the series will include MONKEYTRAPS FOR ADULT CHILDREN, MONKEYTRAPS FOR PARENTS, MONKEYTRAPS FOR COUPLES and MONKEYTRAPS FOR THERAPISTS.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Social media and blogging. I also lean heavily on my friend Cat Lyon, whose Lyon Book and Social Media Promotions (https://anAuthorandWriterinProgress.wordpress.com) repeatedly saves my life.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Write for yourself first. Easier said than done, but I wasted years until I learned it.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
The more control you need, the less in control you feel.
What are you reading now?
I usually keep one foot in fiction and the other in nonfiction. Just now I’m alternating between IDISORDER: UNDERSTANDING OUR OBSESSION WITH TECHNOLOGY AND OVERCOMING ITS HOLD ON US by Larry Rosen, Ph.D., and DEATH WITHOUT COMPANY, the second of Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire mysteries.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I’d like to publish one book per year until I finish the six-book MONKEYTRAPS series described above.
Then I’d like to start giving talks and conducting workshops for readers who found the books helpful and want to learn more.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Bible, I suppose — not because I’m religious (I’m not) or familiar with it (ditto), but because (a) I’ve never read it cover to cover, and (b) I imagine, as both literature and psychology, it would hold up to multiple rereadings. I’d probably take THE ILIAD, THE ODYSSEY and BULLFINCH’S MYTHOLOGY for similar reasons.
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