Whether as a person’s counselor or as a founding member of facilities for the homeless, Kevin Everett FitzMaurice, M.S., seeks to make others’ lives better by helping them improve how they function. As a volunteer, he supports community services to improve others’ living conditions. As a counselor, he counsels in the traditional sense: advising, directing, and nudging—or pushing—others into facing and resolving their issues.

Mr. FitzMaurice has a variety of formal and advanced training in counseling, which includes Addictions Counseling, Family Therapy, advanced Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Transactional Analysis (TA), and over 1,650 hours of diverse training for continuing education units (CEUs). To make the best use of that extensive training, he takes an integrative approach, grounding himself in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (REBT and CBT) and using the other theories to build upon that one core theory, rather than focusing on multiple theories and mastering none of them.

After more than twenty-five years in counseling, Mr. FitzMaurice has worked in the substance abuse field, directed two community mental health programs, and spent many years counseling in private practice. In that time, he has refined many principles for and methods of counseling. He now puts those methods, principles, and techniques into book form to share them with a broader audience, so more people can benefit than he can reach in person. Currently, he has more than forty books written, more than thirty of which are available worldwide as e-books from Amazon, Barnes&Noble, Google, Kobo, and Apple.

The philosophical odyssey of Mr. FitzMaurice began in the late ’60s. It has remained a mostly self-taught pursuit, with little formal training or education in philosophy. The odyssey started with Western philosophy and a study of pragmatism and atheism. For example, he read every work of Nietzsche that had been translated into English at that time. From there, he moved to the study of Zen, Buddhism, Hinduism, and a misguided experimentation with psychedelics to achieve states of superconsciousness. He continued into Eastern philosophy, pursuing Taoism and J. Krishnamurti.

Next came a study of Christianity that consisted of seven readings of the Old Testament and nine readings of the New Testament, from cover to cover and word for word. This study was followed by a formal survey of Western psychology. The ongoing influences for FitzMaurice’s thinking continue to be Christianity, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (REBT), General Semantics, and an Eastern combination of Taoism, J. Krishnamurti, Yoga, and Zen.

Academic Credentials: Master of Science (M.S.) in guidance and counseling, with a specialization in agency counseling, from the University of Nebraska. Associate of applied science in human services—chemical dependency counseling (with honors), from Metropolitan Community College.

National Certifications: National Certified Counselor (NCC) [active for 20+ years, now expired]; Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor (CCMHC) [active for 20+ years, now lapsed]; Family Certification in REBT; Primary Certification in REBT; and Advanced Certification in REBT.

State Certifications: Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor and Certified Gambling Addiction Counselor in the state of Nebraska. Both were allowed to lapse.

State Licensure: Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in Oregon [lapsed in 2018]; previously Licensed Independent Mental Health Practitioner (LIMHP) in Nebraska; and previously Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in Iowa.

Community Service: One of the founders of the Francis House, Siena House, and Stephen Center homeless facilities still in operation in Nebraska. Organizer of free yoga classes for 4–5 years in his local community before moving.

Recommended Organizations for World Change: Fellowship for Intentional Community (ic.org), The Cohousing Association of the United States (cohousing.org), The Federation of Egalitarian Communities (thefec.org), Global Ecovillage Network (ecovillage.org), NuMundo (numundo.org), North American Students of Cooperation (nasco.coop).

READING LIST FOR 7 STEPS TO SANITY

Note: You can move around the steps and work on any one; however, progress does depend on doing each step.

Step 1: Practice Emotional Responsibility

The first step on the path to sanity is emotional responsibility.

1. To begin your understanding of emotional responsibility, read "Secret of Maturity, Fourth Edition."

2. To advance your understanding of emotional responsibility, read "Garden."

3. If you want to focus on your attitude and emotional responsibility, then read "Attitude Is All You Need! Second Edition."

4. If you are stuck in drama games as a lifestyle or if your family is stuck in a cycle of dealing with social services or the criminal justice system, then read "Garbage Rules." This book is also appropriate for those in early recovery, self-help, and 12-step groups.

5. Professionals who want to advance their counseling skills regarding emotional responsibility should read both "Garden" and "Not."

6. Anyone who wants the highest level of emotional skill and maturity should read "Stiffer: Stoic Mind."

Step 2: Upgrade Coping & Problem-Solving

Coping and problem-solving skills are needed at every stage on the path of returning to sanity. We are not born with these skills, and few of us have been formally taught them. Therefore it is logical and practical to pursue a complete understanding of them.

1. "Stress for Success, Second Edition" will help you to learn how to make stress work for you instead of against you.

2. "Breathe" will give you easy and simple exercises to instantly calm and center yourself in any situation.

3. "Garden" will teach you advanced coping skills that you can practice until they become habits.

4. "Problem Solved! 3Rs" will help you master problem-solving skills using a tried and true system.

5. "World Within: The Inner Life" will teach you about your inner life and how to make it work and keep it working positively and productively.

6. "Not" addresses the underlying problem of why coping and problem-solving fail.

Step 3. Discover & Reduce Ego Control

The third step on the path to sanity is to recognize the ego as the problem in all things.

1. To begin to understand how ego is your problem, read "Ego." This book requires you to be aware of your self-talk (inner dialogue).

2. To become more aware of your self-talk, first read "Garden."

3. To support and reinforce the work you learn to practice in "Ego," read both "What’s Your Story?" and "Journal Journey from Ego."

4. To gain more insight into the false beliefs and thinking errors of self-esteem and ego, read "Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, Second Edition."

5. To understand the ego in social relationships, read "Games Ego Plays."

6. To develop greater insight into ego and skills in spotting ego, read "Ego Playground."

Step 4. Rediscover Authentic Self

The fourth step is to strengthen your understanding of your original nature.

1. Learn how you are not your self-talk by reading "Ego."

2. Strengthen your understanding of your original nature by reading "Self: Who Am I?"

3. Strengthen your understanding of your identity by reading "World Within: The Inner Life."

Step 5. Upgrade Thinking Skills

Thinking skills are needed at every stage of life. We are not born with these skills, and few of us have been formally taught them. Therefore it is logical and practical to pursue a complete understanding of thinking skills.

1. "Attitude Is All You Need! Second Edition" will help you to develop thinking skills in relation to your attitudes.

2. "Discovery Demands 5TP" will help you build your perspective-taking skills, which will empower you to be able to see more sides to any issue or problem.

3. "Garden" will teach you thinking skills from a CBT and REBT perspective.

4. "Not" addresses a specific and pervasive thinking problem (no-ting).

5. "Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, Second Edition" will help you to recognize self-defeating belief systems.

6. "We’re All Insane! Second Edition" will help you to understand and apply General Semantics principles to the development of your thinking skills.

7. "World Within: The Inner Life" will teach you about dialectics, duality, triality, the 5 Thinking Positions (5TP), and advanced thinking skills.

8. "Stiffer: Stoic Mind" will teach you the nature of thinking and emotions and how to make them both work for you.

Step 6: More Responsibility & Less Ego

These books support and reinforce your learnings about emotions, ego, and self in various ways. All of these ways will help you to stay on the path of increasing your emotional responsibility and lessening your time spent on ego.

1. "Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, Second Edition" will help you to face and surrender self-esteem, faulty belief systems, thinking errors, and games.

2. "We’re All Insane! Second Edition" will help you to understand and apply General Semantics principles to your practice of recognizing, removing, and replacing your ego.

3. Other titles are collections of ideas and sayings that will help you to understand all of the principles of these steps from various perspectives and through different expressions. These include "Acid Test," "Anything Goes," "Something For Nothing," and books in the "3D: Daily Dose of Discernment series."

Step 7: Improve World & Communication

These books will improve your communication skills and help you to understand and deal with social systems.

1. "Planet Earth: Insane Asylum for the Universe, Second Edition" will help you to face and surrender socially accepted insanity.

2. "How To Govern Anything" is for those who want to discover and practice a saner system of governing any size organization or country.

3. "Carl Rogers, Control Freak" is for professional counselors interested in applying Carl Rogers’ primary technique.

• Share, Encourage, & Support: Please help others to recognize and walk the path of emotional responsibility and ego reduction by recommending our books and practices. Thank you.