Emily Dalton

be Straight with Me by Emily Dalton is a great reflection and memoir to add to your shelves!

I love picking up the odd memoir, because people have such cool stories to tell! Emily Dalton is one of those special people that has a great story and a great voice for it.

This memoir is presented in an interesting fashion - kind of like poems in their odd style on the page. Despite me labeling them as "odd", I found it quite quirky and it made it all the more interesting! It's not the typical memoir, and I liked that! It spiced up my reading and had me very interested as to why the story was presented this way!

Emily falls in love with Max, but there's a wee problem - she's straight and he's gay. Unlucky as it is, this memoir presents it in such a lovely fashion. Just because that seems like such a black and white comment (you know, I put the word problem to make it seem that way), it really isn't. They can be in love but not have their sexuality define the joy they can bring each other. It's unique and lovely and gave me all of the feels! It brings hope and inspiration and makes me believe in love in more ways than ever before! There's also heart break and loss though, and you know... that hurt, but the descriptions of love... ahh. Yes, I like that.

Even so, it's more than just love. There's experimentation and other joys of life that come along to Emily. It's a coming of age story in it's own right. I just liked the love part, because I'm a sucker for that kind of thing.

Overall, I like this book! I think it's sweet and whimsical and magical and majestic. Emily is a great story teller too!

Four out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Andrew McMeel Publishing for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.… (mere)

Article I: My perception of Japanese-style basic encounter groups ~ learning from facilitating encounter groups ~ by Makiko Mikuni.
Useful cross-cultural (from my European perspective) exploration of encounter groups. I found of particular interest the author's reflections on how the formal use of language perpetuates unquestioned social power hierarchies in a space intended to be egalitarian.

Article II: Carl Rogers' reset with an African American client: a discussion by Ross Crisp
This article compares Carl Rogers' demonstration counselling sessions in 1977 and 1984 with two different African American clients, showing the development in Rogers' capacity to engage with his interlocutors with increased cultural sensitivity and awareness of his own white privilege, demonstrating greater empathy and congruence in the latter session. The author's reflections on anti-racism are helpful.

Article III: An unexpected epigraph: exploring the personal and philosophical relevance of Ralph Waldo Emerson to Carl Ransom Rogers by Emily Dalton
I know Emerson only from a couple of extracts I've read of his work, so was interested to hear that there may be more of relevance to person-centredness in his thought than I'd been aware of. Dalton's essay reasonably posits an influence from Emerson on Rogers' ideas, though making no great claims that Emerson's Transcendentalism is foundational but rather one of the many strands Roger wine into his own work. I definitely want to read more Emerson now.

Article IV: Focusing, the felt sense, and meaning in life by Siebrecht Vanhooren, Annelies Grossman's and Jeroen Breynaert
Interesting study of how the Focusing attitude may reduce existential angst.

Article V: "The scientific flourishing of Emotion-Focussed Therapy": a bibliometric analysis of EFT articles in Web of Science databases by Estefanía Mónaco, Rhonda N. Goldman and Inmaculada Montoya-Castilla
Lots of statistical analysis which went over my head 😊… (mere)