Here I Am

August 8, 2011
From almost 30 years of private practice in Los Angeles as a psychologist dealing with thousands of clients, Felder (Seven Prayers That Can Change Your Life) has distilled lessons that he offers in this book. He asserts that individual human problems are largely due to stress and that Jewish spiritual sources offer a way to cope with these challenges, regardless of one’s religious identification or lack thereof. He presents eight “meditation and refocusing techniques” for dealing with stress in the eight chapters of his book, illustrating how to use them with examples drawn from his caseload. Felder deals at length with responding to tragedy and the Jewish spiritual notion that “even this could become for the good.” He cites others on the subject, including the influential rabbi Harold Kushner, and includes his own experience with pain and sadness. Rather unpersuasively, he concludes that “something good” can emerge. Although Felder invites his readers “to debate or respectfully disagree” with his approach, he refers to his techniques as “remedies” that can produce “huge benefits.” His popularity testifies primarily to the pervasiveness of popular psychology with its facile solutions to complex problems rather than to the effectiveness of his methods.

September 1, 2011
With the busy, stressful lives that people lead, finding a way to deal with anxiety and achieve relaxation is important. Felder, a clinical psychologist, offers a combination of Jewish spirituality and mindfulness meditation as a method of rebalancing emotions and centering. He has chosen eight prayers that readers may use as a basis for meditation, matching them to life situations: Hineini (Here I am) for times when one feels pulled in all directions; Asher Yatzar (prayer thanking God for a well-functioning body) for health issues; and so on. He encourages readers to use as many or as few of these as they need and provides adaptations for those with differing spiritualities. Felder also notes that the Jewish tradition requires an active partnership rather than passive prayer, so one must meditate and do something concrete to remedy the situation. He provides notes for those who wish to pursue study of the original texts, and a discussion guide for book groups (not seen) will be included as well. A useful combination of self-help book and Jewish meditation.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)