Lynne Namka, Ed. D. is a retired Happy Psychologist in Tucson, AZ, and an occasional storyteller. Her 
last three books are about finding and keeping love: Love as a Fine Species of Madness – which is a tear-jerker; the metaphysical fairy tale, Castalia Ever After; and the hysterically funny, feminist fairy tale, The Loathsome Lady: The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell. These three books take a hard-eye look at the wrong kind of loving.
Woven into the fabric of her numerous books and articles are models and metaphors of science, psychology, and the mystical spirit world. Her writings contain ideas from Native American lore, Sufism, Buddhism and Taoism, with a basic overall Christian approach to becoming a kind, loving person.
The ideas in Lynne Namka’s popular children’s self-help books are based on years of working in programs for children with severe behavior problems. These books include Good Bye Ouchies and Grouchies, Hello Happy Feelings: EFT for Kids of All Ages, Parent’s Fight, Parents Makeup, and the best-selling The Mad Family Gets Their Mads Out. In addition, she has written several curricula for therapists, teachers, and parents to work with angry children. She has a CD for children called Get Your Angries Out, which features anger management techniques.
Her award-winning website, LynneNamka.com, features a write-in advice column for angry children and has over 300 articles on anger management information. Her website receives 30,000 hits a month. She has also written an inclusive book on Bullying called Bullies Need Help Too! – Lesson Plans for Helping Bullies and Their Victims.
One of her talents is translating psychology research into everyday people’s language to provide practical ways of living a healthy life. Her light-hearted writings encourage the readers to be their highest and best selves by using positive tools and techniques to work with their emotions. Her extensive research and writing have instilled a constant drive to practice what she “preaches.”
I know the ways of the depths of the human heart and our longing for love. As a therapist I work with people who want love but try for it with the weapons of war—the ego and its defense mechanisms which separate us from others. Intimacy is a set of skills to be learned, which happens when we address our deepest fears. I love being a Love Coach! It’s part of my job as a healer helping people address their unruly and aggressive feelings and the negative ways of coping with them. Life is a great, grand mystery and we are here to connect with each other in loving relationships. There is a science and an art to creating loving relationships and my writings combine the two with practical advice and some fun. – Lynne Namka, Ed. D.
– Books –
Love As a Fine Species of Madness
It tells about the soul-searching portrait of Janie Perkins, who obsessively sorts through her haunting childhood memories to solve a long-hidden family murder. Janie, a vulnerable woman with grit and determination, builds her life around, and then runs from, flawed men. This poignant psychological mystery has themes of loss, holding onto the first love across a lifetime and healing. This is a bittersweet story of moving through the illusions of a never-to-be romance and finding an identity and place in the world. It is a life-affirming story of parental insanity, betrayal and redemption. So give yourself to love.
Castalia Ever After
It is a tale of seeking true happiness written in the romantic language of long ago. Enchantments, riddles, metaphors, quests, and a finding of the self through a long, grueling search. In this universal story of the Heroine’s Journey, Castalia seeks the answers to a riddle and faces the darkness of her nature and supernatural adversaries. The wounded woman archetype on a healing journey is an allegory every woman can relate to. The tale uncannily cuts to the reader’s heart in her heroine’s journey. The tapestry of myths and symbols woven into this parable gives insight into the intricacy of the human heart and the need to love and be loved and speaks to the healing of the collective unconsciousness in returning to the Divine Feminine.
The Loathsome Lady
It is a romp of a wicked and bawdy fable, the way a much-loved knightly tale should be, told by a wise-cracking storyteller who speaks of the great vexing of love. It all starts with a dire threat to have King Arthur’s head. The grand and gruesome details of this oft-told-down-through-the-ages legend are all here: The Giant’s churlishness and his ready battleaxe, the Good King’s dilemma, the Old Hag’s despicable appearance and her outrageous bargain, Gawain’s chivalry and that most famous question of all: “What Do Women’s Hearts Most Desire?” With these humorous challenges, how could anyone ever get to their Happily Ever After? Need we say more? Well, yes, and in this update of the old Welsh story of enchantment and disenchantment, you might learn something helpful about breaking love spells and the battle between the sexes, which has been going on since time immortal but never won. Take heed, for if you are a man, our tale might help you avoid an outbreak of that well-known malady—THE DREADED LUV PAIN!
Good Bye Ouches and Grouches Hello Happy Feelings
Speaks to the questions – Too many sads, bads and mads at your house? Too many pesky, annoying, baffling, depressing, maddening, bothersome and awkward feelings keeping everyone upset? Are your child’s out-of-control emotions making everyone else miserable? The absolute truth about feelings: Feelings are meant to be felt, then released! If people would learn to feel their feelings and let them go, there would not be so much acting out and hate in the world. Typical children’s problems are discussed as different parts of the personality with lightness and humor to help children understand themselves and want to change. The book teaches The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), a new, exciting, fast-acting approach to releasing negative feelings. Acclaimed by therapists and thousands of people worldwide, EFT helps create a happier life.
Parents Fight! Parents Make Up!; Take Good Care of Yourself!
Parents are angry and frustrated by the slowdown in the economy. Here is a book to help children deal with parental conflict.
Today’s children are more in touch with angry feelings but don’t know how to release them safely.
They feel helpless when overhearing family arguments and internalize anger. Children need skills to deal with their parents’ frustration and arguments, which are more frequent in this poor economy. Developing life skills such as talking about feelings and using self-regulatory skills of anger management is necessary for good self-esteem.
Bullies Need Help Too! – Lesson Plans for Helping Bullies and Their Victims
This book offers new ideas and black-and-white cartoons to help the bully and the victim! Practical ideas and activities from the latest worldwide research on Bullying! Help children who bully recognize and break into feelings of disgust and contempt that lead to harmful behaviors. Help your middle schoolers and teens learn strategies to control angry feelings and break into errors of thinking that it’s okay to harass others because it feels fun. The lesson plans teach the values of respect, tolerance of differences, empathy and feeling good about stopping harmful acts. They foster kindness and expose children to the addictive feel-good emotions that being supportive of others brings. They give positive ideas and strategies for victims on building assertiveness, walking tall, dealing with bullies, and building confidence and good self-esteem. Included are fun cartoons of kids and teens to challenge teasing and harassment.