The Best Part
I am at the best part of the semester, in which my books start coming in each time the mail man gets here. So far, I have recieved a handful of the books I'm waiting for. And M assures me I didn't splurge too much on Pagan books. Here's what's come in so far...
- John Updike's "Witches of Eastwick"--They say Updike is an excellent author, and despite the fact that this book is less than 100 years old, I can't hold it against it since it is about my favorite subject in the world ever. Plus, the book was 67 cents (isn't it weird that modern keyboards don't come with a "cents" symbol??). It doesn't look too long, so if I ever catch up on my homework, I'll give it a read.
- "Global Assessment of Relational Functioning: Using the DSM-IV GARF". The GARF is used fairly universally by community service agencies. It is a way of measuring how well someone is doing, so you can discover if they have improved during treatment. It seems like a "no duh" to me, but now we can assign a number to it. Although it is a textbook, it was only slightly revoltingly priced, considering how short it is. And apparently the APA is not going to use the GARF in the fifth edition of the DSM. I don't know if they are going to use something else or not. Our professors at Amridge decided to keep teaching the GARF because a lot of community service agencies use it now and will probably in the future. It's worth knowing. Why I had to buy a special book about it, when there is (ooh.) a whole three pages devoted to it in the DSM is beyond me.
- "The Recovery Spiral:A Pagan Path to Healing" by Cynthia Collins. She's an M.Div and a Marriage and Family counselor who wrote a book about alcohol and addiction recovery from a Pagan perspective. I got it for M to look at. I'm not taking recovery this semester, so I'm holding off on reading it until it becomes more relevant, and I can see what the different ideas are, etc. I expect I'll use this in my private practice in the future.
- "A Treasury of Witchcraft" by Harry Wedeck. Actually, we found this at an antique store. The book is a collection of spells, incantations and summonings from a variety of places, ages, pantheons and sources. Lots of Babylonian, Greek, Shakespearean and occult writings. It's not really useful for modern practitioners, but it is quite fascinating.