Strained or broken relationships are a given in most of our lives. Friends fall away, siblings drift apart, children sever ties with their parents, and despite our best efforts, these painful fissures are difficult to mend.

Best-selling author and clinical psychologist Dr. Ray Guarendi shares practical wisdom and strategies to help you navigate through friction-filled relationships. With heavy humor, Dr. Ray helps you form better ways to talk, think, act, and react to repair and strengthen relationships.

Through Dr. Ray’s down-to-earth style, professional experience, and personal stories, you will discover the key to neutralizing insults and offenses, and changing any relationship for the better. You will also learn:

• To avoid three conversation killers
• To more accurately read your own motives and those of others
• To become a smart listener
• To keep your expectations real
• To offer (and to receive) criticism
• When to speak up and when to shut up

Dr. Ray teaches you to avoid “psychological claptrap,” to respond more calmly to hurtful comments, and to communicate better with difficult people. You will become more easygoing, more forgiving, and less controlled by heated emotions.
Paperback. 149 pages.

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In our toxic culture, it increasingly seems as if raising children in the Faith is a losing battle. Perhaps your spouse wishes you were more “fun” than religious, or your peers challenge you in your beliefs. Concerns related to faith can become touchy topics for today’s believers, especially when questions arise regarding your views on family life or your approach to raising children.

With his rare voice of reason and characteristic humor, popular television and radio host Dr. Ray Guarendi provides you with sound practical and spiritual wisdom and expertise as a clinical psychologist and father of ten. In these engaging pages, Dr. Ray addresses numerous issues, such as:

• How can I live my faith better, especially with those closest to me?
• What to do when children ask: Why do we have to go to church when Dad doesn’t?
• Should adolescents be required to go to Mass if they don’t want to?
• What should I do when my adult children aren’t living the Faith?

Dr. Ray lays out ways in which parents can witness to their beliefs, even in broken marriages. He explains how to respond when your children’s faith is threatened at school or by peers who don’t share your beliefs or mindset.

Let Dr. Ray show you how to effectively live your faith and share it convincingly and peacefully with those you love.
Paperback. 163 pages.

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In a lively question-and-answer format, Dr. Ray unpacks issues ranging from sibling relationships and peer pressure to curfews and chores to overcoming backtalk and teaching your kids to avoid drugs. He equips parents to give their teens a safer, more stable adolescence and help them develop virtues for a lifetime with practical approaches such as:

• Three techniques for becoming a calmer parent
• Five ways to monitor your child’s use of technology
• Four simple house rules that lead to success
• A strategy to motivate underachievers

You will also learn key sayings for communicating more effectively with your teens. In addition, you will find out specific ways to cultivate an attitude of gratitude in your kids. Most significantly, you will learn how to help your children treat you with respect, a habit they will then develop in their relationships with others as well. As you grow in becoming a stronger parent with calm, loving resolve, you will learn how to foster quality time with your teens and have real fun together.

This book is wise, perceptive, and laugh-out-loud funny. Dr. Ray uses his trademark humor-with-a-dash-of-sarcasm to give those parents who are barely treading water some good, sound, logical advice to change the tone and tenor of their households for the better.
Paperback. 225 pages.

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In his lighthearted style, Dr. Ray explains that the secret of a good marriage is applying a handful of commonsense, time-tested ideas practiced by others who have done it well. Each chapter in this book presents a baby step you can take, encouragement to overcome resistance to taking the step, and a fictional couple in dialogue with an anonymous therapist (guess who!)

Simple Steps reminds you that a happier, more rewarding marriage is achievable. You will learn how to make basic changes that will leave “daily discontent” behind and create a positive chain reaction in both your marriage and your family. Dr. Ray even shows how couples on the brink of separation can restore healing and intimacy to their marriage.

With the Doctor’s advice, you will learn:

The importance of developing the habit of saying “I’m sorry” (with apologies to Erich Segal!)

Why silence can truly be golden (and how to really listen!)

How to be polite when you don’t feel like it and how to ask constructive questions

Tips on how husbands can support their wives in parenting (it’s easier than you think!)

How living by the “Just don’t say it” philosophy is a game changer

How “touch says much,” and why affection sometimes chills in a marriage

Moreover, you will see how simple manners can transform your relationship, and you will gain pointers on how to give meaningful praise to your spouse.

Paperback. 145 pages.

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With his rich, tenfold experience as a father, Dr. Ray gives guidance that will help you gain confidence in molding and instructing your own children. Through his many absorbing anecdotes, you will learn how to act with calm authority whether with a disrespectful teen or a tantrum-throwing toddler.

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This is the book you need to master your anger so your anger won’t master you. Popular TV host, clinical psychologist, and best-selling author Dr. Ray Guarendi incisively cuts to the heart of the matter to help you determine whether your anger response is justified — and what to do when it isn’t.

Dr. Ray unpacks for you the many types of anger and the types of people who suffer most from anger. For some, anger is a trait; for others, it is a state. Some are “wired fiery,” with an anger that is always simmering or on a low boil, while the anger of others often comes and goes quickly.

You’ll learn why feelings aren’t neutral, and whether anger is a product of your nature or nurture. You’ll also learn the difference between righteous and unrighteous anger — and why those closest to us can anger us the most

Paperback. 160 pages.

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In his latest book, Adoption: Should You, Could You, and Then What?, Dr. Ray Guarendi — renowned clinical psychologist and father of ten adopted children — provides authentic answers to challenging, real-life questions. With humor and wisdom, Dr. Ray draws from professional and personal experience, as well as scientific research, to allay frequent misconceptions. Issues he addresses include:

• frustrations about the adoption process, including why couples have to wait so long
• healthy motives and reasons to adopt
• how to make adopted children feel special
• adopting children of various ages and if it will impact “birth order”
• relationships (if any) between adopted children and their birth parents
• rearing children with special needs
• adopting children of other races
• tips for responding to difficult reactions
• talking to children about their adoption stories
• whether adoptive children should be treated differently

Dr. Ray’s counsel in Adoption is relatable to all families. In an increasingly socially disconnected world, Dr. Ray reminds us that, through commitment and bonding, parents enable children to thrive at “home and beyond.” In discussing how to choose, live, and love adoption, Dr. Ray emphasizes that “a loving, strong parent can do much to put a child on the path to recovery” and counsels, “Never let the opinions of others overrule your decision to adopt.”

Paperback. 176 pages.

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In some teachings, Jesus Is two millennia ahead of what psychology is only now coming to understand. In other, He directly contradicts what today’s psychology preaches. In these pages, Dr. Ray explores the teachings of both modern psychology and Jesus Christ to identify the therapy tools worth employing – and those we should avoid. Most notable, he helps us understand that every tool and counseling guideline worth pursuing can find its roots directly in the words of Christ.

Jesus knows our minds far more intimately than we do, and He knows the rewards we receive for following the paths He advocates. Dr. Ray’s experience as a father of ten and his mastery of the New Testament enable him to provide recommendations for dealing with numerous daily issues, including:

• Ways of transforming your natural qualities into supernatural qualities
• Methods for overcoming jealousy and other passions
• The rearing (and benefits!) of problem children
• What it means – and doesn’t mean – to turn the other cheek
• Developing habits that help improve your self-awareness
• Means of truly understanding the old adage “know thyself”

Paperback. 144 pages.

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Dr. Ray brings to bear his decades of clinical experience—and his experience as a father of ten—with some of the hardest questions of modern parenting:

• How do you manage kids’ access to pop culture—and to the corporations who all want a piece of their allowance?
• How do you respond to others, including your own family, who don’t approve of your countercultural parenting?
• How do you handle the overabundance of stuff—toys, clothes, technology—that clogs up your family’s everyday life?
• When do you give (or take away) a smartphone?
• How much freedom do you give your kids to choose their own friends—and when do you step in when they make wrong choices?
• What are the habits of mind you need to form in them so they can stand strong against a morally and spiritually corrosive culture?

Raising Upright Kids in an Upside-Down World is a clarion call for strong, confident parenting in confusing times. More importantly, Dr. Ray gives you the resources to grow in that confidence: the knowledge of an expert, the insight of an experienced clinician, and the wisdom of decades of fatherhood. This is a book for parents who aim to form children who value the things of God, no matter the work and the effort. Dr. Ray is here to tell you: it’s worth it.

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What do I do if I can’t control my emotions?

When do I correct others, and when do I hold my tongue?

Too often we are late in realizing that we mishandled a situation, causing both resentment and frustration. But what if you could approach every situation with the mind of Christ?

Distilled from his decades of experience as a clinical psychologist and a practicing Catholic, Dr. Ray Guarendi, popular radio and TV host, offers here dozens of bite-sized reflections that combine sound spiritual advice with the best of modern psychology.

Dr. Ray will help you address countless daily problems and create a plan of action for your most common troubles. With his trademark frankness and humor, Dr. Ray tackles all the topics that too often bring confusion and heartache, including:

• What to do when you’re easily offended
• Common excuses parents make for bad behavior in their children—and themselves
• The difference between speaking your mind and losing your emotions.
• The fine line between being a confident evangelist and being a jerk?
• What you should do when emotions overwhelm you?
• How to hold your children to high standards without causing resentment
• The difference between making an excuse and justifying an action
• How to tell people you’re angry without being nasty about it.
• What true humility is – and isn’t.

Thinking Like Jesus is more than a self-help book. It will place you firmly into the mindset of a disciple of Christ so you can focus your attention on God and, ultimately, what it will take to spend eternity with Him in heaven.

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