Books: Spring 2023

Cortney S. Warren ’00. Letting Go of Your Ex: CBT Skills to Heal the Pain of a Breakup and Overcome Love Addiction (New Harbinger Publications, 2023).

Dr. Warren is a board certified clinical psychologist and adjunct professor of psychiatry and behavioral health at the UNLV Kirk Kirkorian School of Medicine. She spoke with Macalester Today about her new book.

What prompted this book?

In 2014, I gave a TEDx talk called “Honest Liars: the Psychology of Self-Deception” because I truly believe that self-deception is the biggest reason we stay stuck in our lives. In addition to using lots of practical, real-world examples of people lying to themselves, I also used myself in romantic relationships as an example. The response was astounding and unexpected to me—I received so many questions about how self-deception plays a role in romantic relationships and how to overcome it. Eventually, I agreed to write this book to address a growing desire in people to understand romantic love and breakups from an addictive framework focused on self-honesty. My goal is to help people struggling through breakups to use them as a platform for learning and growth.

What is one tool for moving on from love addiction?

One of the most important skills is to challenge self-deceptive thinking about your ex, which we refer to as cognitive restructuring in psychological terms. Over the course of your relationship, it’s likely that you believed many things about your ex (or current partner) that are making you emotionally stuck on them now. Things like, “They’re the best” and “I can’t live without them in my life.” Although fundamentally not helpful (and also not fully true!), thinking these kinds of thoughts will keep you hyper-focused on your partner before and after a breakup. When the content of your thinking is inaccurate or unhelpful, it’s time to practice challenging it. Part two of my book delves into how you can challenge unhelpful thinking and beliefs about your ex. Learn more at DrCortney.com.

R. W. Haynes ’73 was recently named a Regents Professor by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents. In November, he published The Deadly Shadow of the Wall, his fourth collection of poetry. “Alapaha Flow” was first published in The Galway Review.

“Alapaha Flow”

…like a roe
I bounded o’er the mountains…
Tintern Abbey

Sometimes I meet a bounder
Who knew me when I was a rounder;
He grabs my hand
And says “Boy, have a drink!”
Jimmie Rodgers

The story of my life flows through shadowed limestone
With whiskey-looking water rippling over sand,
Going God knows where to sinkholes unknown,
Halting in swamps or making a calm stand
In long dark lagoons whose invisible flow
Finds ominous caves and silent tributaries,
And moccasins and gar, hoot owls by moon-glow,
Tune in to dark music the Alapaha carries.
Old Woodrow Wilson Wordsworth, young at the time,
Returned to the Wye half-devastated,
And wished on his little sister all of the sublime
Feelings he had outgrown but still contemplated.
I nearly drowned in this river one day,
Or did I buy the farm and float away?

—R.W. Haynes

Dr. Chris Wells, professor and chair of environmental studies, co-edited a new book titled Nature’s Crossroads: The Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota. The book features an interdisciplinary team of distinguished scholars who aim to fill gaps in Minnesota’s environmental history.

“The environment is in everything, even in cities, even in places where all you see is concrete and human ingenuity,” Wells says. “As a discipline, environmental history highlights the ways that we’re bound together, both in ways that we can see and also in ways that are largely invisible unless you know where to look. We’re all living inside the same ecosystems, but all too often we’re not aware of the ways that we depend on them or the ways we remake them as we go about our everyday lives.”

Ashley Allen ’21 contributed to DC’s Legion of Bloom #1, a comic book anthology from DC Comics that went on sale March 1. “I’m featured alongside a huge roster of rockstar writers and artists,” Allen says. “I’ve always been a fan of comics and I was incredibly lucky to have the chance to write a story for Poison Ivy, one of my favorite characters.” Allen notes that a visual story-telling class with Professor Matt Burgess rekindled her love of writing: “In the class, we wrote a comic book and I really enjoyed the process, prompting me to look into how to become a comics writer.”

Kevin Cannon ’86. Pivotal Moments in History: The Sinking of the White Ship (Beaver’s Pond Press, 2023).

In what he calls a “history book for those who don’t read history,” Cannon links the titular 900-year-old event to subsequent historical developments, including the dismantling of the Knights Templar and the legalization of golf.