Integrative Body-Mind-Spirit Social Work: An Empirically Based Approach to Assessment and Treatment, is the first book to strongly connect Western therapy with Eastern philosophy and practices, while also providing a comprehensive practice agenda for social work and mental health professionals.  The authors argue that integrative body-mind-spirit social work is indeed a practical therapeutic approach in bringing about tangible changes in clients.  In the excerpt below we look at just one technique and one patient, Rebecca.The authors are highly regarded researchers from both Asia and America.  Mo Yee Lee is a Professor in the College of Social Work at The Ohio State University.  Siu-man Ng is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration and the Associate Director of the Centre on Behavioral Health at the University of Hong Kong.  Pamela Pui Yu Leung is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration at the University of Hong Kong.  Cecilia Lai Wan Chan is a Professor in the Department of Social Work and Social Administration, the Director of the Centre on Behavioral Health, the Associate Director of the HKJC Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong.

Rebecca was a lady in her thirties.  When she first came to the therapist’s office, she talked with a soft and weak voice and seemed afraid of looking directly at the therapist.  She did not clearly express what she wanted.  She gave the therapist the impression that she was a timid, little girl instead of a woman in her late thirties.  After building rapport, she shared with the therapist that she was thinking about changing careers but was not certain about what she could do.  She hoped the therapist could help her develop self-confidence so that she could take charge of her life.

In the first few sessions, the therapist helped Rebecca to explore and clarify what she wanted.  She wanted to make some changes in her life, but she was afraid of the uncertainty that would go with the change.  She realized that she was stuck because she was used to staying with the familiar and not taking risks.  Rebecca also discovered that she had made herself psychologically dependent on others, her father in particular.  This dependence had developed into a pattern so that she always relied on others to make decisions for her.  Though there was an inner voice calling her to meet a new challenge and attempt a new job, she dared not, as her father did not support the idea.

During the fifth session, the therapist revisited the treatment goal with Rebecca and tried to help her to make a choice for herself regarding her pattern of being dependent on others.  The therapist said, “You told me that your goal is to take charge of your life.  Now you realize that you have developed a pattern of being dependent on others.  What are you going to do with this pattern? Do you want to keep it, or change it?”  Rebeca promptly responded that she did not want to keep the old pattern, but having been used to relying on others for so many years, she felt uncertain of what sh

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On her way home from school, Sophie Amundsen finds two notes in her mailbox. On each note is written a simple, yet infinitely profound question. "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" These questions are the humble beginnings of Sophie's very own basic course in Philosophy being taught by a mysterious nameless philosopher. As Sophie progresses through the History of Western Philosophy, strange things begin to happen. Sophie gets letters intended for Hilde, a girl with the same birthday as Sophie. To unravel the mystery behind the letters, and the other strange events which occur, Sophie must use philosophy. However, the inevitable truth is unfathomable until it is finally revealed.

Sophie's World is a thrill ride. There is no other way to fully describe Sophie's World in such simple terms. Right from the beginning, the reader begins to ask themselves the same questions being faced by Sophie. Who are you? and Where does the world come from? are just the beginning. Sophie's anonymous teacher takes her from the Pre-Socratic natural philosophers, through the famous Greek trio of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, up to Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Hegel, Kant, Marx, even Darwin and Freud. These are just to name a few. The wealth of knowledge in this book makes Bill Gates look poor.

The most remarkable thing about this book? It pulls you in. It fascinates you. It makes you hunger and thirst for more. You cannot put it down. Ever heard of food for thought? Well this is a feast, only not just a feast. It induces a kind of intellectual high too. It's like flying. The mind is opened up to such a multitude of things. You're left feeling weightless, capable of anything. You feel all this, right from the beginning. Right from chapter one until you close the book, the intensity rises, the fascination grows. About two-thirds into the book, the most dramatic twist I have ever seen in any piece of literature occurs. From then until the end, the puzzle pieces begin to fit together into a big picture. It is impossible to summarize the twist, or its effect on the already mounting tension. Simply put, it is mind-blowing, earth-shattering, and totally wicked!

I give Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder 5 out of 5 daggers.






It is quite possibly the best book I've ever read.

Yours in wonder and awe,
Gabriel Gethin


P.S. I apologize in advance for sounding like a screaming schoolgirl in the front row of a Jonas Brothers concert for the majority of my review. The fact of the matter is, this book is just fantastic. I loved it. Therefore, it is impossible to separate emotion from my own personal reading experience.

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Every 11-12 year old-girl I've ever known, including me, has gone a little horse crazy at some point. What is it about young girls and horses? In my case, I was fortunate to have a friend down the street who had a horse. She taught me how to groom her horse, how to muck out his stall, the basics of riding, and the best way to feed and water him. I learned that taking care of a horse is an awesome responsibility and one that does not disappear when you start to lose your interest.

I always thought it would be fun to live on a ranch for a summer. In the newly re-published series, The Horses of Half-Moon Ranch, Kirstie Scott does not have to imagine what life on a ranch is like. She lives on the ranch. Her mom, her brother, and a small group of dedicated hands have brought her grandmother's ranch back to life again and they take in guests during the summer.

In both Wild Horses and Rodeo Rocky, the first two books in the series, author Jenny Oldfield creates a satisfying mix of horse lore, mystery, and local color. Not surprisingly, Kirstie is the most fully developed character but there are plenty of memorable characters, even if a little heavy on stock characters of the old crusty trusted ranch hand and heart-of-gold, hermit in the woods kind.

For many readers there will be much to learn about in these stories including how wild horses are tamed and trained and what a rodeo is like. But the thing that shines through both of these stories and rings most true is the love and connection that Kirstie has for these horses. By caring for them and loving them, she learns much about herself and the world around her. A very enjoyable read.

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So, it's Tuesday night here in ol' Woodbury, Minnesota and I'm about as excited as a fella can get. I'm completely rested up from our mad-dash weekend of filmmaking and I'm so pumped about how things turned out, I just can't stand it.

My new film (written and directed by yours truly) is called High School Drifter and it turned out 800x better than I ever expected. Seriously. We raised the bar on this one and I feel like I'm ready to do another one next month if I have to.

So...if you've been following the rules and stuff about the 48 Hour Film Project, you'll know this about the movies:

1. We didn't know the genre until Friday night.
2. It had to contain 3 elements that will be present in all of the other entries as well.
3. We had exactly 48 hours to get it done.

Here's what we knew beforehand and what we had lined up to work with:

1. A location: In this case, a high school in St. Paul.
2. 13 actors. Seriously. I think we overdid it on the talent front. 13 actors in a 7 minute film? Crazy.
3. I wanted there to be ninjas in my movie.
4. One of our actors REALLY wanted to do action-y stuff. Plus, he can crack a bullwhip.
5. Somehow, I wanted to have a custodian in the movie who could kick some butt.

Sounds like recipe for an absolutely terrible movie, doesn't it?

Big J, Lo-Ol, and I went to the kick-off event which, ironically enough, was in the same building I used to work at before taking my new job. On our way there, we stopped at Ragstock, which is a 2nd hand clothing store. It's where all the cool alternative kids buy their clothes. We wanted to find a jumpsuit for our custodian. We spotted one and not really knowing what size he wore, held it up to me. It looked like it might be a bit long, but we bought it anyway. $5.


At the event, we learned that there were 89 other teams competing. Imagine that. 89 other crews were out burning the midnight oil and slaving over their little films the same time we were. How friggin' cool is that? At one point, Big J (my producer) looked around and said to me:

"I don't like filmmakers."

I can't help but agree to a certain point. A lot of filmmakers in Minnesota act like they've gotta have a gimmick or something to make them stand out. We saw all sorts of goofballs in really dumb sunglasses, 'arty' t-shirts and piercings that just looked awful.

All I cared about was picking a good genre. We got stuck with 'Romance' a couple years ago and I just didn't want that one again. Yuck.

Well, after what seemed like forever, I got in line to pick my genre out of a hat. I pulled out the piece of paper and unfolded it.

Musical/Western

I was heartbroken. The category is forgiving in that you can pick one or the other, but still. A western in a highschool? What were we going to do? I trudged back to our seat and showed J and Lo-Ol what I picked. Their faces sank.

"We're screwed," I said, envious of the people who picked Comedy or Action/Adventure.

We then waited for the 3 elements that all 90 films must contain. They were:

Character: Mr. or Mrs. Perkinson, a subsitute teacher. (we got lucky with that one!)
Prop: A fish. (great.)
Line of Dialogue: "You look very familiar."


With that info, we took off for our meeting at our location, the school.

There, almost all of our actors were waiting in earnest to hear what genre we picked and to hear what kind of movie we were going to make. It was a little intimidating. I'm not a shy guy, but standing in front of about 20 people (cast and crew) and telling them what my plan was made me kind of nervous. Plus, the A/C was off.

"So, hi everyone," I said. "I'm Thomas and I'm going to be directing this mess."

(a couple cheap laughs)

I introduced everyone in my crew and we went around and had the actors introduce themselves, too. After that, it was all eyes on me.

"So, we picked musical/western," I began. "And I'm pretty sure musical is out the door. I don't think it's possible to write and score a bunch of goofy songs and make it good. Plus, I'm not sure how many of you want to sing."

I looked around at the expectant faces and I felt like a general about to lead his troops into a deadly and brutal skirmish. I took a deep breath and said:

"So, I think we should do a movie about a janitor who fights an elite ninja death squad and he can do all kinds of cool moves and say funny things."

"How is that a western?"

I explained to them that they didn't expect us to build a wild west set and bring in some horses. We would include elements of a western into the mix. There would be a showdown. The main character would say western-y things. Also, there might be a cowboy hat in there.

Anyway, we waded through other suggestions and ideas and some of them were downright impossible. I told them that I had a plan and that as ridiculous as it sounded, I wouldn't just make a big pile of crap for a film. I sort of had a vision.

I think.

After we came up with some very vague character ideas and stuff, we told them what to bring to wear. We assigned our big actress a the part of Ninja Death Squad leader and our action-guy was to be our hero, the custodian named Mr. Perkinson. We sent them home and Big J turned to me.

"Write, Troupe," he said. "You have like 2 hours."

I sat down and was looking over all my elements. Fish, students, ninjas, school... Good lord, what was I doing???

After 2 and a half hours, I had a script. I printed it off and handed it to my crew and they sat down and read it. It was quiet. Too quiet. No one was laughing at first. All of a sudden, a woman who was married to our camera guy and our go-to person for the location laughed. I was sure everyone else thought it sucked.

Big J looked up after he finished it.

"It's too long."

He did this to me before, when I wrote the script for our film from a couple years ago. He didn't say he liked it or hated it, simply that it was too long.

I told him he backed me into a corner, having 13 actors/actresses to work with. I said that if we planned it out right we'd be able to do it. For some reason I was completely confident about the whole thing.

At about 1am, I e-mailed the script to our actors and we prepared for what would be a long weekend.

Saturday was an early morning. We had about 4 hours of sleep and had to do some grocery shopping before getting to the set. We bought all kinds of crap to feed our talent and keep 'em happy. We had our main star try on his jumpsuit and...

It fit like a glove!

We got cracking with filming and literally went from 8am until almost 9pm. All of this for a 7 minute film. I won't bore you with the details, but here are some exciting things that happened during the shoot:

- A girl who played a student was locked into one of the lockers. She was claustrophobic and I had to calm her down so I could direct in how to get herself out.
- I invented a way to launch fake fish guts against a wall.
- Only one actress proved difficult to work with.
- Our grip got his car stereo stolen from his van during the shoot.
- A toilet mysteriously started flushing and wouldn't stop for 15 minutes.
- We had the guy who did the voice of the HOM Furniture commercials play the principal.
- I wanted breakfast sausages to fall out of a character's mortal wound during a pivotal scene. It worked.
- There were tornado sirens going off as we packed up at the end of the shoot.

All things considered, our shoot went amazingly well. We did our best not to waste anyone's time and no one got too angry with each other. There was no yelling really at all. That's a rare thing for people who are tired, cranky and stuck in the same place with each other for a long time.

But...that was only half of it.

At 11pm or so, we arrived at Big J's work to edit the thing down. We had 3 guys sitting around me so I could tell 'em what to cut and where. It was surreal. For so many of the projects I've worked on, I had to wear so many hats. Writer/director/camera guy/special effects/craft services... To be sort of the guy everyone was asking was pretty cool. Not that I like to be bossy or anything, but it's like they knew it was my movie and my vision and wanted to make sure I was down with what they were doing.

We worked around the clock. A couple of us had to sleep for a bit. I stole a 2 hour nap. I literally walked into one of the offices in the building, sat in a chair, put my Nintendo hat over my eyes and didn't wake up until my arm fell asleep....2 hours later.

A couple dudes working with us didn't sleep at all.

Oh...the really cool thing? A local band called Sherbetty came in to see some of the footage and they sat in another room and recorded a soundtrack to the movie. How sweet is that? They asked what we were looking for and I described our main character and the western feel the whole thing should have. After about 4 hours, they laid down a bunch of tracks and took the movie to a whole different level.

Anyway...we had an edit put together sometime around 3am and we all wanted to cry. The movie clocked in at around 11 minutes. It could only be 7 minutes in length. 8 minutes with the credits. I was ready to jump out the window.

One of our editors didn't even flinch. He sat back and clipped off little chunks that were unneccesary. We were convinced that he was only chipping away seconds that wouldn't amount to much. After a couple hours, he had it trimmed down to a lean and mean 6 minutes and 56 seconds.

"Yes!" I yelled, all punchy and delirious from lack of sleep. "We did it!"

We spent the rest of the time plugging the music and sound effects into the movie. I sat in the sound studio and picked which licks from Sherbetty we wanted to use and where. We selected over-the-top sound effects for the fight scenes, really gross noises for the gratuitous violence, and just had a blast doing it. Of course, I could barely keep my eyes open come Sunday afternoon, but I managed to see it though to the end.

Big J delivered the movie to the drop off with about 5 minutes to spare. We all agreed that we were going to do something like this again and soon...maybe not in just 48 hours, though.

So...that's that. My new film High School Drifter (get it? it's sort of like High Plains Drifter, except it's in high school) is going to premiere at the Riverview Theatre on Thursday, June 19th at 6:30pm. It's stuck in there with a bunch of other entries in the festival. I think HSD will play 3rd from the end.

If you live in the area and want to see it, totally come on down. The judges will pick their top 3 and the audience gets to vote for their 3 favorites as well. Call me optimistic, but I think we're gonna give them a run for their money.


Man...if only my work consisted of writing books and making films. How sweet would that be?

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One of the best things about working at Oxford University Press is finding older books you didn’t know about. A couple of days ago I came across The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales: The Western Fairy Tale Tradition from Medieval to Modern, edited by Jack Zipes. I decided to put the volume to the test. Would it have the modern musical interpretation of fairy tales? It did! Below is the entry about one of my favorite shows, Into the Woods.

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I'll start by going out on one of my habitual limbs to say I'd nominate this one for the Premio Aztlán Literary Prize. No, I don't think it's as passionately written as last year's winner, Across a Hundred Mountains by Reyna Grande, but hell, she raised the bar so high, authors are going to be scrambling for some time to catch up with her.

To quote from Kermit Lopez's website, Cibolero "is a tale of sorrow and terror, hope and triumph, set against the backdrop of 1800's New Mexico. Antonio Baca, a former cibolero, or buffalo hunter, pursues his daughter's kidnappers in Post-Civil War era New Mexico and Texas. Cibolero is a fictionalized account of the Hispanic experience before and after the conquest of the Southwest by the United States." (Go to the publisher IUniverse website for a more extensive account.)

Press like that made me want to read Cibolero; it sounded intriguing. But I confess I soon grew more intrigued by the historical references the author used to develop his story. In truth, there's such a wealth of this, the novel should more rightly be categorized as historical fiction.

Cibolero proves that you Chicanos've come a long way, Bebé. Categoried on the back cover as a "Western"--rather than some "ethnic" labeling--it's got all the elements that once accompanied John Wayne on the screen. Cowboys, Indians, horses, shoot-em-ups, cross-prairie chases--the Western culture in detail by an author who knows his history, even researching his own family's history to lace into this novel.

Anyway, as a Western it's got your bad guys, the Texas Rangers, and then your real evil bad guy, Calhoun, son of a wealthy slaveholder rancher; the hero, Antonio Baca; and the quest, to rescue his daughter Elena, Captain Travis Russell, the head of the Rangers is a mixed-up gringo with some morals who won't go along with all the rape and pillage ideas of his men and is the only thing standing between Elena and a gang-raping or two before certain death. His role raises the gringo to co-protagonist with the Hispanic Baca, something we don't usually get from raza writers. I loved that.

The whole cibolero backdrop to the novel introduced an aspect of our history I'd never known. The high plains of New Mexico, el Llano Estacado, serves as the principal scenario, adding to the novel's unique perspective. Likewise, Lopez gives us extensive insight into the plains culture, including details about the omnipresent cibolero lance used to hunt the buffalo, now destined to serve a different purpose.

Using the back-story to Antonio Baca, as a typical New Mexican Hispanic, Lopez interweaves most of the significant economic, historical and political events of this part of the Southwest. Of course, it's a story with plenty of ugly parts, some still denied by the apologists of U.S. history. Especially the parts about los pinches rinches, the Texas Rangers.

The only historical bone I've got to pick with Lopez is that Anglos from Texas are referred to as "Texans." Texicans is what they loved to go by before 1836 and some time after; of course, maybe it's there, and I just missed it.

Now for the bad news: Lopez's historical accuracy may be what keeps his book from reaching a wider audience. In a county where the majority don't notice that their President's WMDs wear no clothes, how popular can the truth be? Readers who read Westerns assumedly are looking for escapist literature. (Readers of historical fiction might not be so much.) Being confronted by the ugly truth of what your ancestors did to the Southwest--Mexican citizens, the indigenes, the buffalo and the land--probably won't let them escape enough to enjoy the story. I'd recommend the publishers reclassify and rewrite press about the novel to attract more an historical-fiction audience.

Okay, so the Premio Aztlán committee is probably going to ignore my opening remarks (Amazon has one reviewer who gave it five stars), but today at least you can easily purchase a "Western", some escapist literature, written by one of us. Remember the old days when you couldn't? To boot, you'll get a more realistic account of los pinches rinches than you get in Texas public schools.

Lastly about the book, several times when reading it, I had flashbacks of Tell Them Valdez Is Coming. It always bothered the holy pinche out of me that Kirk Douglas portrayed such a cowering Bob (sic!) Valdez who, yes, later became the shoot-em-up hero, but still--. Hollywood has yet to fully make that up to us, and giving Lopez an option would be a good way to start. (N.B.: the only redeeming value to that movie was Lancaster's response to what did he used to hunt: "Apache, before I knew better.")

About the author's name: I had the same questions you do: is this his nom de plume, did he legally change it, or, what were his parents smoking? That's some not-so-critical info I'd like to have seen on the author website. Also, a historical bibliography and way to contact the author would be nice. It does have a short streaming video on the book that's worth checking.

Rudy Ch. Garcia

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These are four pages from a comic book short,"Out in the West" I did for Dark Horse Comics. The art is all black and white airbrush. I wanted it to have a Howard Hawks/John Houston feel to it. There are references to a lot of Western stories, some fiction and some fact in it, which prompted one critic to refer to it as a "Western fairy tale". However the title is a tip of the Stetson to "ElPaso" by Marty Robbins. The other four pages include a page that mirrors the one here of the Sherrif that features a outlaw who is more in the spaghetti western mode. If anyone would like to see the entire story, I'll scan the other four pages and post them. When he saw the rough sketches I was doing for this Chris Warner wanted to title it, "Slap leather!"

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Here's a little 'ol illustration I did for an unnamed (howdesign.com) forum. Never could keep my mouth shut. Anywayz...this is Tex. I'm not sayin Tex is me and I ain't sayin he's not.

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