Alpha Girls - Dan Kindlon

After reading Stressed Out Girls the beginning of this year, this book left me refreshed. It justified the new-age, driven, female perfection we see so often. Let's face it, almost all my AP class is girls.

An alpha girl"
"1. a GPA of 3.8 or higher
2. At least one leadership position ........
3. Participation in extra curricular activities, in or out of school, for a min. of 10h a week
4. High achievement motivation score..
5. High self-rating for dependability...."

While many books, especially pop-psych books, leave females feeling victim of their time and power, this one left me hopeful. The working definition of feminism (as more equal than overpowering and "damn the man") and the role of positive media were pleasant surprises.

Yes, another psych book for Abbie's reviews.. but this one makes you kinda smile, and feel more normal for wanting to take over the world....

Thin

So, honest is best. I bought this book because I have a swimmer on every team I've coached who has had an eating problem. I look back at my high school career as a distance runner, and have realized that I didn;t eat nearly enough to fuel my body, or enough of the right foods (I worry how many female athletes never realize this, because it's so subconscience). I never had a full-blown eating problem, but I did know the skinny= faster equation, and while scared of it, did my best to hold by its standards. Not any diagnosable criteria, I realize now, but no healthy. Every anal athlete should have a set of goals each day as it pretains to nutrition....

My health was never a question, and I was not in danger. Not the case in some of my atheletes, no the people you met in "Thin." Danger, fear, worry. Behold the power of pictures. So scary. So true. It oly makes me worry more... and not ot be too dramatic, but how much time peoplewho suffer from this have left.

The book is a mix of had and type- written notes, and pictures, based on a HBO documentary. It's all too real. And sad.

Welcome To My Country by Lauren Slater

I am drawn to memoirs, especially associated with mental illness. To be inside the head of someone suffering from a disorder allows for a level of understanding that is unmatched by textbook facts on symptoms and treatments.

"Welcome to my country" is 80% wonderful. Lauren is a first-year counselor in a group home for schizophrenic men. Her fears-to-concerns-to-comfort spectrum show the emotions we've been warned first-year counselors go through "is this good enoug" "can i really help" "why are there no results".....

The problem with a memoir is that there's a part of a person that you really don't care about-- you still get it in writing, and have to schlep through it to get to the parts you like. Flashbacks to her adolescent, eating disorder years and her own desire for control just as her patients strive for it as well worried me-- not that everyone magically becomes perfect when they've gotten an MA or PhD, but that if these issues are resolved, tehy should not play so actively into the counseling relationship.

The family history her patients present makes you worry and think all at once. Some mental disorders are so engranded in envornment, others spring up randomly. Makes you never want to have kids, really.

Bottom line: I have total respect for those who do, but no desire to work with scizophrenics. Or in a group home. A dorky delicacy, but not for typical consumption..