Dr. Tina's Books
When a number of my clients need similar information and we cannot find an existing book that is effective, I fill that need by creating a book with the practical information, real-life examples, and effective, step-by-step exercises which will help you get the results you want.
“I love your books. I always kind of shied away from self help books as I was embarassed to think that I could not solve problems myself. Then I picked up your books and realized just how self efficent I really can be. You have changed my life in so many ways and I canot thank you enough for becoming a writer.” –Amanda, Biloxi, MS
“I cannot thank you enough for the books you have written. We are just now going through a sensitive and delicate time with our daughter and one of your books is helping all of us cope and understand. You are keeping us all on the same page and that is something I will forever be grateful for.” –Laura, Westwego, LA
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Stop Overthinking: A Workbook to Stop Perfectionism, People Pleasing, Self-Sabotage, and Other Forms of Negative Thinking
Chartwell Books • November 28, 2023
ASIN: 0785842896
Stop spiraling and take control of your life!
If you’ve ever lain awake at night, feeling as if your thought were on a mental loop that you were unable to stop, then overthinking has affected your sleep.
And without adequate sleep your health and lifestyle can suffer.
To help guide your brain to more healthful and productive ways of thinking, Tina Tessina, PhD, applies more than 45 years’ counseling experience in “Stop Overthinking.” Using the same approach and “homework” she gives her clients, Dr. Tessina offers a useful and accessible workbook that provides a straightforward toolkit for confronting your toxic overthinking by getting to the core of what causes it.
With more than 100 original writing prompts and self-exploration exercises teaching easily mastered techniques, you will learn how to:
• Control worry and anxiety
• Rein in perseverance and perfectionism
• Take charge of obsessive thinking and avoidance
• Stop self-sabotage and people pleasing
• Resolve the origins of overthinking by unlearning learned behavior
These exercises will help you tackle the pattern of overthinking that is causing your mind to run on autopilot. Designed to help you manage your thoughts and your mind in a new way, they will convert your spiraling thought habits into productive, more healthy thinking. Ultimately you will improve your sleep and well-being, reduce stress and anxiety, and become focused to accomplish your goals.
Don’t let those racing thoughts keep you up or distract you any longer. Put an end to them today!
52 Weeks To Better Mental Health
Chartwell Books; Workbook edition • January 2023
ASIN: 078584189X
Nurture Yourself—and your well-being—through one year of self-reflective writing prompts. Discovering who you really are is a powerful way to create change.
Regularly writing down thoughts, feelings, and goals can ultimately help reduce stress, increase focus, ease anxiety, improve positivity, and make life work better overall.
In 52 Weeks to Better Mental Health, licensed psychotherapist Dr. Tina B. Tessina draws from her 40 years’ counseling experience to offer focused self-exploration exercises for every week of the year. The easy exercises and writing prompts in these pages will help you improve your attitude, sense of well-being, and satisfaction with your life.
As you continue your journey, you’ll notice that you’re more focused and mindful—and less stressed. Additionally, you’ll learn mental tricks that can help your daily routines go smoother and help you be more productive. You’ll also find out how to:
MOTIVATE yourself;
MAINTAIN happier relationships;
FEEL more in charge;
MANAGE difficult feelings;
CREATE a better work-play balance;
DEAL with problematic people;
Make this the workbook for creating the life you want. Explore yourself—and improve your mental outlook—in just one year!
Money, Sex and Kids:
Stop Fighting about the Three Things that Can Ruin Your Relationship
Muffinhaven Press • January 2021
ASIN: B08SVPMRRZ
VIDEO: Bobbi Palmer of datelikeagrownup.com interviews Tina Tessina
“With a Ph.D., eight books, and 40 years of counseling experience under her belt, [Redbook Love Expert] Tina [Tessina] has a lot to say about the everydays of life and love.”—Redbook.ivillage.com
Chances are your last argument with your partner was over money, sex or your kids; since couples battle over these three issues more than anything. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
The Perfect Peace Plan for Your Relationship
Relationships today are under extra pressure. Dr. Tessina offers struggling couples a much-needed fresh look at what is mean to be a couple; and what it takes to create a healthy, happy and fulfilling relationship.
In MONEY, SEX, and KIDS you’ll discover new ways to think about sharing and working together to make all your decisions about money, sex, and kids mutual ones. The point of Money, Sex and Kids is to show you how to create a partnership in which you’ll feel blessed and happy. Here you’ll learn to understand why you and your partner argue and the remaining skills you need to enhance your relationship and transform your struggles into working together to create a smoothly working partnership. With this book, you’ll be able to resolve your issues about money, sex, and kids, and move on to having a workable, satisfying relationship, with minimal or no arguing or fighting.
Inside you’ll find…
• Sample scripts to properly handle arguments
• Guidelines and exercises to deal with marital conflict
• Cases of other couples who have tackled the money, sex, kids conflict triangle
• Expert relationship advice from Tessina: the Internet’s “Dr. Romance”
• What readers are saying about Money, Sex and Kids
• Now available in Chinese. Click here to see cover image
Dr. Romance™’s Guide to Finding Love Today
Muffinhaven Press, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1722976415 • ISBN-10: 1722976411
Whether you are dating as an adult, a single parent, a widow/er or a senior and have experienced loss, or even if you have given up on relationships, or been single for a while, or are new to dating, this guide will tell you what you need to know to draw on your own life experience and knowhow and apply those skills to the dating process.
• If you are single as a result of a divorce or an acrimonious breakup, you can learn to avoid repeating old mistakes.
• As a single parent, you’ll learn how to balance dating and children.
• If you’re dating a single parent, you’ll learn the best ways to cope with the complicated dynamics.
• If you’ve lost a beloved spouse or partner; here’s how to complete your healing and move on into a comfortable connection with new people.
• If you fear you’re too old to find love today, this guide will help you find appropriate, comfortable and fun ways to open up to new experiences with old friends and new connections.
• If you have survived difficult relationship experiences and given up on relationships altogether, I’ll show you how to come out of isolation and make a new, much more successful start.
• If you have been single for a while, the information, facts and guidelines here can get you past your fear and into a more satisfying social life.
Dr. Romance™’s Guide to Finding Love Today covers all the basic information you need to know to successfully re-start dating. You’ll find timely, helpful for a single person dating today.
What you can learn from this book:
What to do with the baggage from your past
How to find the right kind of person to date
Dating safety and etiquette
How to handle friends, roommates, parents, and children
What to do if it becomes a relationship
What to do if it doesn’t work out
What to do the night before
What to do the morning after
What to say in person, by text or email, or on the phone
How to handle social media
How dating sites work; and how to use them
What people are saying about Dr Romance's Guide to Finding Love Today
For over three decades, this book has been recognized as THE established handbook on relationships between equals. It introduced the concept: cooperation instead of compromise or competition. It gives clear instructions to show you how to be true to yourself and true to your partner at the same time.
The book is designed especially for:
• People who seek a model for equal partnership.
• Couples who want to transform struggle into teamwork.
• Couples who are married, cohabiting, or dating.
• Couples who are in a traditional, LGBTQ or alternative relationship.
• Couples who’ve discovered their method isn’t working.
• Divorced people who are looking for a better way.
• LGBTQ people who seek a model from being a couple.
• Anyone whose parents showed them how not to be a couple.
• Single people seeking loving intimacy as equals.
How to Be a Couple and Still Be Free is the perfect tool for designing and creating a relationship unique to your individual personalities and situation. With it, any couple can learn to work together to create a loving, sustainable, healthy, and equal partnership that you will treasure.
What people are saying about How to Be a Couple & Still Be Free
How to Be Happy Partners: Working it out Together is a handbook on how to achieve mutual happiness, through cooperative negotiation and communication. Couples are led through a step-by-step process whereby each one learns how to take care of what he or she wants and care for a partner’s happiness at the same time.
The clear and concise instructions and guidelines teach couples the skills they need to create a mutually supportive partnership allowing each individual to be satisfied in their relationship. It is based on The Negotiation Tree, an ingenious tool that can help any couple turn a struggle or fight into a cooperative problem-solving session.
The book is designed especially for:
• People who seek a model for equal partnership.
• Couples who want to transform struggle into teamwork.
• Couples who are married, cohabiting, or dating.
• Couples who are in a traditional or alternative relationship.
How to Be Happy Partners is the perfect tool for designing and creating a relationship unique to your individual personalities and situation. With it, any couple can learn to work together to create a loving, sustainable, healthy, and happy partnership that both will treasure.
Despite the millions who've found relief from addictive and compulsive habits through 12-step programs, these same programs' insistence that members always keep coming back unwittingly fosters attitudes that can undermine the foundations of a successful, healthy life.
The Real 13th Step refutes the bedrock recovery principle that some people are just born with addictive personalities. Instead, therapist Tina Tessina identifies the underlying cause of addiction as learned dependency, and teaches readers how to develop the three central skills of true independence: risk-taking, problem-solving, and coping with failure. Her book then offers practical advice about applying these principles in every aspect of life: relationships, work, decision-making, and managing the continuing temptations of addiction. Readers will learn how they can take control of their own lives and remain free of the fear of relapse or setback in their recovery.
If you are a successful member of a recovery program and feel you've benefited enormously from it, but are also beginning to sense that your progress toward functioning independently in the outside world may be hindered by the program itself, then the time has come for you to Read The Real 13th Step and graduate from your dependence on the group's help.
The last recovery book you will ever need.
This is the paddle you don’t want to be up the creek without”- Don Fultz, recovery expert
Many parents, today and in years past, do not possess the tools to teach their children how to live a satisfying life. Because such parents have little knowledge of how to provide a good example, family dysfunction often runs through succeeding generations like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering speed and power as it goes. Growing up and learning to be responsible for yourself is often like standing at the bottom of that hill and stopping that huge snowball. The legacy of dysfunction ends with you.
In over 35 years of counseling people in recovery, licensed psychotherapist Tina B. Tessina Ph.D has worked with many clients struggling with similar problems: anxiety, depression, feeling out of control, relationship disasters, and a pervasive feeling that they don’t know what “normal” is. No matter how old they are, they don’t feel really grown up. They never learned the confidence, self-motivation, and emotional management tools they need to live healthy, happy lives, because their families didn’t provide good role models, structure, and information.
The exercises and guidelines in this book will help you finally understand what a functional family is, how its members are still affected by early experience, and how to develop the skills necessary for successful living and loving.
"One of the best books for women that I have read. It takes desires and dreams and shows you a step by step practical way to achieve them. For any woman who wants to do more than talk about changing her life, a road map to her goal." Sonya Friedman, Ph.D. Psychologist and TV Host
Why do some women seem as if they have it all together? Because they do. Do you? Or do you frequently second guess yourself at work, at home and in your relationships? You're not alone. Faced with a wave of increasing demands, many women are in the same boat, either drifting aimlessly or drowning in doubt. If you feel yourself going under, grab hold of The 10 Smartest Decisions a Woman Can Make Before 40.
This no nonsense guide shows women how to stop being led by life, and to create the futures they want for themselves by making some fundamental choices. Readers will follow the lives of eight diverse women who learn -- and live -- The 10 Smartest Decisions that every woman can make to improve her personal, professional and financial situation. A series of practical exercises guides women through implementing priorities, maintain motivation, discover their Wise Woman within and acquire the education they need to fulfill their promise.
For any woman who's ever felt on the losing end when it came to making decisions, this guide helps you level the playing field!
Dr. Tina Tessina helps women walk confidently into the prime of life.
At last, a book for 40+ women that does not focus on growing old gracefully, but on finishing the process of growing up, finally becomes a fully actualized adult.@ B Isadora Alman, syndicated AAsk Isadora@ columnist and author
The longtime psychotherapist and bestselling author of The 10 Smartest Decisions a Woman Can Make before 40 now turns her attention to the special challenges and opportunities available to women over forty. In mid-life, many women find themselves in new circumstances. Women with grown children discover more free time or consider returning to school, or a new career. Movers and shakers may want to consider the possibility of setting up their own businesses. Women of all sorts will find themselves thrust into the role of caretakers to their parents and grandparents. This practical and effective book helps them map their options and outline their strategies for taking complete control of their lives.
Lovers have differences—
• different desires
• different values
• different needs
• different styles
Discover your style. Understand your partner's. And make the differences work to enrich your life.
THE MORE YOU AND YOUR
PARTNER ARE DIFFERENT,
THE MORE YOU NEED
THIS BOOK.
You’ll find it delightfully refreshing in its approach to showing you how to use the differences in your lives to bring you closer together.
No two people have exactly the same idea of what it takes to be successful in love. Most of us believe there is a “right” way to love, and if only we could figure it out, our loneliness and relationship struggles would all melt away.
In this book, you’ll learn that everyone has a unique lovestyle, and there are many “right” ways to love. Discover what lovestyles are, how they evolve, how to communicate about love, and how to use your differences to create romance and excitement in your relationships. You can make your differences work for you to enrich your partnership and your lives.
“Perceptual and practical exercises to synthesize differences and encourage long-term results.” As seen on Oprah, CNN and Larry King Live.
Lovestyles is for:
• Single people seeking to create a successful relationship
• Couples who feel “stuck” or want to improve their partnership
• People whose past relationships felt confining, uncomfortable or unworkable.
“There are only a handful of people in the United States who are writing books that are helping society look at things in new ways, as opposed to those already part of the consensus. Tina Tessina is one of that handful” — Warren Farrell, author of Why Men Are the Way They Are
“Most people do things for their loved ones that reflect how they want to be treated. But the Platinum Rule is: Do unto others as they would wish you did unto them. And there is no better way to explore each other's needs than to follow the journaling suggestions in this book.” —Amazon customer review
Finally, much needed relationship help for geographically challenged couples! THE COMMUTER MARRIAGE: Keep Your Relationship Close While You’re Far Apart speaks directly to the more than 4 million U.S. couples juggling the unique struggles only long-distance marriages face.
As society becomes more mobile and as jobs move or involve travel more than ever, couples must create ways to stay connected while physically separated— for days, weeks, months, or years. Even working different shifts or managing long commutes may mean couples living in the same house never see each other during waking hours. Keeping a connection—both physically and mentally—is no easy feat.
According to Dr. Tessina, “Spending time apart is both a blessing and a problem. When you have time apart, it can freshen your relationship and remind you what you love most about your partner. On the other hand, if you begin to resent the separation, and don’t communicate well while you’re apart, your marriage has the potential to quickly unravel.”
With a specific program designed to help couples maneuver this terrain, Dr. Tessina helps readers through everyday situations, such as:
• Managing two homes, financially and physically
• Raising kids when one parent is distant
• Holiday and visiting schedules
• Overcoming jealousy and suspicions
• Maintaining a healthy sex life
• Reintegrating when two homes become one again
With quizzes, exercises, and studies from Dr. Tessina’s practice, readers will see what works—and what doesn’t. So whether the decision to commute is voluntary or mandatory, couples can not only keep their marriages intact but make their unions stronger.
Contact Us
Tina B. Tessina, PhD, LMFT | (562) 438-8077 | [email protected]
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