Making Healthy Families
Shadow and Light Productions.
264 pp., paperback.
$22.14

• Excerpt: Creating Your Garden
• Excerpt: Tilling Your Garden
• Excerpt: What is Good Enough Parenting
• Excerpt: Raising Adolescents: The Transformation of the Family
• Excerpt: Trouble-shooting and Preventing Predictable Pitfalls
  
  

Making Healthy Families explains the elements required to make and sustain healthy, functional families. This timely book describes the family life stages, from "Becoming a Couple," to "Becoming Parents," to "Raising Adolescents" and "Launching Children." It educates about the predictable stresses of each stage of development, and offers guidelines and hands-on exercises for achieving a healthy adjustment in each stage of family life.

A chapter on “Trouble Shooting” offers couples an opportunity to plot their own predictable stress points on the family journey, thereby allowing them to better master their particular life struggles. A chapter on “Divorce: Crisis and Transformation” offers advice to parents for helping their children and themselves through trying times. A chapter on “Stepfamilies” provides wisdom about the stages of stepfamily development that make remarriage rewarding, helping families avoid the pitfalls that cause over half of second marriages to fail.

Learn what makes families work—from structure and communication to family style and characteristics of healthy marital relationships. Cutting edge research is enlivened through real-life questions about marriage, family, and parenting that have been answered by Dr. Peterson on her “Ask Dr. Gayle” column.

Review:
"Peterson covers all stages of the family unit from becoming a couple to raising teenagers in order to help parents understand and efficiently negotiate the normal, varied stages of the family life cycle. Of special value is a chapter on troubleshooting tips to help parents anticipate their own predictable stress points on the family life cycle. Making Healthy Families is highly recommended for parents at all stages of parenthood, marriage and family counselors, as well as students of psychology."
_____ - Wisconsin Book Watch, March 2000

What Readers are Saying:
"Your assessment of the situation was right on target. Thank you for the practical and meaningful advice." -Peg

"Your advice column is really terrific. The stepfamily and divorce articles are helping me a lot!" -Ann

"Congratulations on the wonderful job you are doing on the web. I have been following your responses to the many questions people ask you and I think that your answers are intelligent and wise. I am learning so much!” -Adriana

An Easier Childbirth:
A Mother's Guide for Birthing Normally
Shadow and Light Productions.
177 pp., paperback.
$20.85

• Excerpt: Your Partner's Role During Labor
• Excerpt: Mothering Yourself
• Excerpt: Making the Most of the Prenatal Journey
• Excerpt: Postpartum Blues and Support
• Excerpt: Siblings at Birth
  
  

Childbirth should be one of the most joyful experiences in a woman's life. All too frequently it is one of the most fearful. In An Easier Childbirth, Gayle Peterson, a nationally recognized leader in the field of perinatal psychology, prepares the mother-to-be for the most positive experience possible utilizing a childbirth preparation method based on medical research that shows emotional factors to be important in a healthy pregnancy and delivery.

Reviews:
"This program starts where traditional education ends. Here is a truly personal preparation for childbirth, reaching emotional and unconscious depths."
_____ - David Chamberlain, Ph.D., President of the Pre and Perinatal
_____ Psychology Association of North America and author of
_____ "Babies Remember Birth"

"An Easier Childbirth should be read by every expectant parent. Peterson's workbook focuses on the personal reality of the pregnant couple, offering valuable approaches to explore and resolve emotional issues prior to birth. This extremely important process, which is overlooked in most childbirth books, is the essence of preparation."
_____ - Elizabeth Noble, author of "Childbirth with Insight and
_____ Exercises for the Childbearing Year"

"Years from now when we look back on the childbirth reform movement, Gayle Peterson will be called a pioneer." See review for more details.
_____ - Peggy O'Mara, editor and publisher of Mothering magazine

Birthing Normally
A Personal Growth Approach to Childbirth
Shadow and Light Productions.
250 pp., paperback.
$20.85

• Excerpt: Introduction
• Excerpt: Psychophysiological Integration
  
  

Pregnancy is a time of natural stress. It is the healthy stress of changes that flow within a woman physically and emotionally, as she grows towards motherhood. Ever evolving, a woman's travels through pregnancy and birth ready her for the work of mothering and family synthesis. Birthing Normally is about the very intimate nature of personal growth in pregnancy, and woman's quest towards birth, in both physical and psychological terms. It is also a very practical guide to understanding and applying holistic principles of prenatal care for the physician, midwife, and childbirth educator interested in decreasing complications of birth, and increasing potential for normal childbearing. It is the first technical book about birth that is widely read by both the childbirth professional and by women preparing for labor and birth.

Reviews:
"This is a terrific book The approach is suitable for professional and families alike. It stresses the normalcy of the process of childbirth and assists the clinician and family to rediscover inner strength and resources for growth and change. I highly recommend Birthing Normally."
_____ - Mimi Bronner, RN, Professor of Nursing, University of
_____ Maryland

"Birthing Normally is an unusual and provocative book of the deepest dimensions...it offers brilliant psychological insights into the process of pregnancy and birth. All childbirth professionals should read the fascinating case histories which eloquently demonstrate the relationship between mind and body. This very special book explores and unites essential elements for birth...strength and softness, pain and pleasure, growth and change."
_____ - Elizabeth Noble, author of "Childbirth with Insight and
_____ Exercises for the Childbearing Year"

Body-Centered Hypnosis for an
Easier Pregnancy and Childbirth
Audio CD
Shadow and Light Productions.
60 minutes.
$14.95

For the pregnant woman

This CD is an extension and companion to the book, An Easier Childbirth. For a complete preparation program, use the CD and workbook together. Body-centered hypnosis has proven to be a powerful tool for increasing the likelihood of normal delivery and developing the bond between mother and unborn child. It addresses the mother's fears and concerns aimed at decreasing anxiety and increasing confidence and sense of well-being. Track 1: How body centered hypnosis works and how to use this CD. (3 minutes)Track 2: Relaxation with suggestions for enhancing your enjoyment of pregnancy, bonding with your baby and preparing for childbirth-to be used throughout pregnancy. (26 minutes)Track 3: The birth visualization is to be used in the last two weeks of pregnancy to prepare for the experience of childbirth - continues the relaxation and includes birth visualization with suggestions woven in to help you adapt and adjust to labor. (31 minutes)
Reviews from amazon:

5.0 out of 5 stars:
by a customer
"My wife used this recording and I was able to listen and help her through the pain of contractions by using the imagery of the ocean waves making it safely to shore. It helped me, as well as her, to focus on getting through the contractions and resting, in between. I highly recommend this recording to all pregnant women and their partners."by a customer: 5 stars
"I had read an article about using hypnosis as a technique for getting through labor. After a 24 hour labor with 3 hours of pushing with my first I was desperate to try anything (breathing through it is a joke!) I fell asleep every night with this recording. Everything she said came back to me during labor...get her An Easier Childbirth book. She has the text in there and you can either make your own recording or have a friend recording it. Regardless, the book is invaluable too. I just found out today that I am pregnant with #3 and the first thing I did was reorder the recording and book because I gave the originals to a friend when I thought that I was done having children."
Reviews of previous birth visualization CD:
"Peterson - a family therapist specializing in childbirth - gives clear expression to the body's wisdom in her recording, Body Centered Hypnosis for Pregnancy, Bonding and Childbirth. Messages such as "Family waits for you already" offer comfort, while the guided breathing and visualizations remind us in dreamlike ways of what we already know. Many women build shrines for the coming child: this recording demonstrates another way to connect with the baby within."
_____ - Joan Logghe, Mothering Magazine
"Gayle Peterson uses vocal techniques, intonations and symbols to encode messages the body and address emotional concerns which affect the pregnant woman during pregnancy and birth. Techniques for reaching the unconscious, such as tonality, phrasing and cadence are embedded. The language and images are a lovely form of labor "
_____ - Debra Davis, The Doula Magazine
This audio CD is a generalized recording. If you prefer a customized, individual recording for your specific situation, such as breech presentation, prematurity risk, twin delivery or other resolution of past childbirth complications, please e-mail Dr. Gayle Peterson at: drgayle@askdrgayle.com for a phone or in person appointment.

Mini-Introductory Self Study Training Course in Prenatal Counseling and Hypnosis for Childbirth. Online video file with E-manual.
Shadow and Light Productions.
56 minutes.
$75.00

Body-centered hypnosis has proven to be a powerful tool for increasing the likelihood of normal delivery and developing the bond between mother and unborn child. It addresses the mother's fears and concerns through exercises aimed at decreasing anxiety and increasing confidence and sense of well being. This is a training video for professionals in Dr. Gayle Peterson's relaxation and birth visualization techniques. (DVD available on request, contact gp@askdrgayle.com)