Jeffrey A. Kottler is one of the most prolific authors in the fields of counseling, psychotherapy, and education, having written more than 90 books about a wide range of subjects. He has authored a dozen texts for counselors and therapists that are used in universities around the world and a dozen books each for practicing therapists and educators. Some of his most highly regarded works include Creative Breakthroughs in Therapy, The Mummy at the Dining Room Table: Eminent Therapists Reveal Their Most Unusual Cases and What They Teach Us About Human Behavior, Bad Therapy, The Client Who Changed Me, Divine Madness, Change: What Leads to Personal Transformation, Stories We’ve Heard, Stories We’ve Told: Life-Changing Narratives in Therapy and Everyday Life, and Therapy Over 50. He has been an educator for 40 years, having worked as a teacher, counselor, and therapist in preschool, middle school, mental health center, crisis center, nongovernmental organization, university, community college, private practice, and disaster relief settings. He has served as a Fulbright scholar and senior lecturer in Peru and Iceland, as well as worked as a visiting professor in New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Nepal. He is professor of counseling at California State University, Fullerton.
This book demonstrates how what we own can control us - the terminal stage of the social disease of acquisitive desire for material things. Topics covered include: what acquisitive desire means in people's lives; diagnosis and treatment of consumer disorders; interventions and clinical issues for those who follow an excessively materialistic lifestyle; how therapists and therapy are treated as possessions to flaunt; and the struggles of therapists with their own acquisitive desires. Jeffrey Kottler does not recommend giving up all attachment to things, but makes clear that satisfaction comes not from owning possessions, but from their legitimate use for amusement, stimulation or learning.
