Books

In her luminous new memoir, Mary Pipher taps into a cultural moment to offer wisdom, hope, and insight into loss and change. Drawing from her expertise as a psychologist specializing in women, trauma, and the effect of culture on our mental health, she looks at her own story in A Life in Light. 

Her plainspoken depictions of her hard childhood and life’s difficulties are dappled with moments of joy and revelation and tragedies and ordinary miseries.  As a child, she was separated from her parents for long periods. Those separations affected her deeply, but in A Life in Light she explores what she’s learned about how to balance despair with joy. Pipher shares with readers every coping skill she has honed during her lifetime. She reminds us that there is a silver thread of resilience that flows through all of life.  In this book, she points us toward that light. 

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25th Anniversary Edition

Twenty-five years after the publication of the Reviving Ophelia,Mary Pipher and her daughter Sara Pipher Gilliam have revised and updated the original number #1 New York Times bestseller. They write that, while this generation is closer to their families and less rebellious than the one in 1994, it continues to struggle with America’s misogynistic, girl-poisoning culture. And, since the launch of the iPhone in 2007 and the enormous growth of social media, depression and suicide rates for girls have soared.  Pipher and Gilliam examine the impact of the digital age and the links between the decline in face-to-face interactions and the increase in girls’ levels of loneliness and despair. In this edition they explore girl’s needs that have stayed the same across time and the changes in the culture since 1994. Like the first version, this one is written for girls and all those who care about them. 

Mary Pipher is a clinical psychologist and therapist. Sara Gilliam, MFA, MEd,is Editor-in-Chief of Exchange, the leading magazine for early childhood professionals. 

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Women Rowing North offers a timely examination of cultural and developmental issues women face as they transition from middle age to old age. In life stage, women contend with ageism, misogyny, and many kinds of loss. Yet, contrary to stereotypes, most older women are deeply happy and filled with gratitude for the gifts of life.

Their struggles help them grow into the authentic, empathic and wise people they have always wanted to be.

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In Letters to a Young Therapist, Pipher shares what she has learned in thirty years of clinical practice, helping troubled families, alienated adolescents, and harried professionals restore peace and beauty to their lives. Through an exhilarating mix of storytelling and sharp-eyed observation, Pipher reveals her refreshingly inventive approach to therapy—fiercely optimistic, free of dogma or psychobabble, and laced with generous warmth and practical common sense. Whether she’s recommending daily swims for a sluggish teenager, encouraging a timid husband to become bolder, or simply bearing witness to a bereaved parent’s sorrow, Pipher’s compassion and insight shine from every page. Newly updated with a preface by the author addressing the changes in therapy over the last decade and the surprising challenges of the digital age. Letters to a Young Therapist is a powerfully engaging guide to living a healthy life.

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Reviving Ourselves in Our Capsized Culture

“Mary Pipher takes on our planet’s greatest problems with the skills of a truly gifted therapist. She knows why we avoid and deny the truth and she knows how we can heal ourselves and our communities even as we try to heal the earth. This book is a deep and true gift.” Bill McKibben, author of Earth.

Every day we are hit by a tidal wave of information, including a great deal of traumatic information about the fate of Mother Earth. Yet our basic equipment—our bodies and brains—have not changed since the Neolithic Era. We simply are not built to respond well. The Green Boat posits a trauma to transcendence cycle that begins with awareness and leads first to resilient coping and then, in many people, to what I call a transcendent response.

As our web of life becomes tattered and torn, it is easy to become disconnected from our emotions, our bodies, each other, and the truth. The Green Boat suggests that we can only be sane and healthy by reconnecting with these things. Healing ourselves will require us to reweave the web of life around us.

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Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World

After decades as a psychotherapist and author of such life-changing books as Reviving Ophelia and The Shelter of Each Other, Mary Pipher turns her attention to herself – collecting insights from her own life to illuminate the importance of the journey, not just the destination.

In Seeking Peace, Mary Pipher tells her own remarkable story and, in the process,  she reveals truths about our search for happiness and love. While her story is unique, Pipher writes, “The basic map and milestones of my story are universal. We strive to make sense of our selves and our environments.”

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In these tumultuous times, don’t we all want to be heard? Who doesn’t want to transform the world? And who doesn’t harbor a secret ambition to write? Writing to Change the World is intended to help people who have a message they’re passionate about to convey it clearly through writing. Inspired by a course of the same name that Pipher taught at the University of Nebraska’s National Summer Writers’ Conference, this book encapsulates her years of experience as a writer and therapist, as well as her extensive knowledge of the craft of writing.

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Helping Refugees Enter the American Community

Over the past decade, Mary Pipher has been a great source of wisdom, helping us to better understand our family members. Now she connects us with the newest members of the American family–refugees. They come with nothing but the desire to experience the American dream. Their endurance in the face of tragedy and their ability to hold on to the virtues of family, love, and joy are a lesson for Americans. Their stories will make you laugh and weep and give you a deeper understanding of the wider world in which we live.

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Navigating the Emotional Terrain of Our Elders

Mary Pipher, author of Reviving Ophelia, which charts the troubled passage of girls into adolescence, has nimbly covered yet another psychological passage: that into old age, which May Sarton called “a foreign country.”

Pipher reveals that the greatest shame for today’s elders, most of whom survived the Depression, is not being self-sufficient. The majority of them stoically prefer to keep their feelings to themselves, and this is why it’s so difficult to convince older parents to accept or even discuss such issues as physical and mental health, finances, eldercare, or living wills. This directly conflicts with the openness of their children, who were influenced by popularization of therapy. While a boomer can easily talk with a friend about marriage or personal difficulties, an elder is likely to find admitting such “weaknesses” abhorrent. Pipher offers new insights into communication across the generations. 

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Rebuilding Our Families

In The Shelter of Each Other, Mary Pipher opens our eyes wide to the desperate realities families are facing and shows us a way out. Drawing on the fascinating stories of families rich and poor, angry and despairing, religious and skeptical, and probing deep into her own family memories and experiences, Pipher clears a path to the strength and energy at the core of family life. Wise, compassionate, and impassioned, The Shelter of Each Other challenges each of us to face the truth about ourselves and to find the courage to protect, nurture, and revivify the families we cherish.

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