About The Author

Alix McMurray believes that being an outsider is something that is chosen for you—not something you choose. Whether she is channeling her inner swamp witch or empathizing with her disenfranchised clients, Alix is familiar with being on the outside looking in and the fresh perspective that provides. She was born in Los Angeles, where she first honed her empathy skills by trying to understand her talented but tortured parents and then, later, her equally talented and tortured clients. Working in mental health centers, hospitals, inpatient rehabs, halfway houses, jails, and in her own private practice, Alix has empathized with thousands of clients struggling to find meaning and significance. Since 2010, Alix has worked exclusively with justice-involved clients and has developed her own unorthodox therapy style based on hearing thousands of life stories. When not conducting therapy, Alix finds solace in her gardens and occasionally writes short/flash fiction, speculative fiction, and poetry. "Yours Rhetorically, Cold Blue Monster" is her debut book.
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Yours Rhetorically, Cold Blue Monster

A Criminal Counseling Text-Moir

By Alix McMurray

Overview

Providing therapy to clients who are involved in the criminal justice system can be a mind-altering experience. Especially when the stories told contain characters and adventures worthy of classic myth, yet they take place on the meanest of streets and in the darkest of alleys. These are the dark fairy tales of clients involved in crime and addiction, and just like in any fairy tale, they teach us how to be more human.
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Description

Providing therapy to clients who are involved in the criminal justice system can be a mind-altering experience. A therapist must sit in a middle space between remorse and reparation. In that middle space, if judgment is suspended and the therapist is willing to allow reality to be bent, magical stories can be told. These stories contain characters and adventures worthy of classic myth, yet they take place on the meanest of streets and in the darkest of alleys. These are the dark fairy tales of clients involved in crime and addiction, and just like in any fairy tale, they teach us how to be more human. This book is for those treated with psychotherapy, a person ready to embark on a self-therapy journey, and anyone curious about the therapy process—especially when the person seeking therapy is someone who already has the deck stacked against them.
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Book details

  • Genre:biography & autobiography
  • Sub-genre:Social Scientists & Psychologists
  • Language:English
  • Pages:204
  • eBook ISBN:9798317809652
  • Paperback ISBN:9798317809645

Book Reviews

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Daniel & Bridgette
This book is a must for every clinician! There are plenty of textbooks on addiction counseling, but few of them actually feel like the work. In Yours Rhetorically, Cold Blue Monster: A Criminal Counseling Text-Moir, Alix McMurray moves beyond traditional academic frameworks and delivers something far more valuable: a lived, practice-informed guide for clinicians working with justice-involved individuals navigating substance use. What sets this book apart is its balance between structure and story. McMurray presents a contextualized theory through real-world application. Her use of anonymized client experiences anchors each chapter in authenticity, making the material not only accessible but deeply relatable. One of the most compelling elements is her concept of ‘episodic psychotherapy.’ Rather than forcing rigid, linear treatment expectations, McMurray reframes therapeutic engagement as something more fluid, specifically meeting clients where they are, when they are there. It’s a practical and compassionate model that reflects the realities of working with complex, often transient populations. Equally impactful are her self-described “rabbit holes,” which quite comically serve as concise, insight-rich bullet points that function as immediate takeaways. These moments of distilled knowledge are where the book truly shines, offering clinicians tangible strategies they can integrate into practice right away. For seasoned clinicians, they offer refinement; for early-career practitioners, they provide a scaffold for skill development. This is not a passive read. It’s a working manual disguised as a memoir that invites reflection, challenges assumptions, and ultimately strengthens clinical perspective. Yours Rhetorically, Cold Blue Monster: A Criminal Counseling Text-Moir ultimately succeeds as more than a counseling text. It is a practice-informed guide that reflects the complexities, constraints, and ethical demands of addiction treatment within the criminal justice context. McMurray’s contribution is both timely and necessary, particularly as the field continues to grapple with how best to serve individuals whose lives do not conform to standardized treatment models. For those considering or currently working with justice-involved clients with substance use disorders, this book is essential. Read more
Michael
Eye opening Lots of information and easy to understand methods for therapists, and anyone looking for self-awareness. Read more
JD
Required reading, brilliantly written I am an experienced scientist, a biologist and pharmacologist by training, but I have had a long-standing interest in psychology and understanding human behavior. What is more fascinating than the working of the human mind, after all? Our minds are what we understand about ourselves and the world, but, for many, the world conspires to shape them in ways that confound and stand in the way of a healthy life. I came across this brilliantly-written, clever, and entertaining book by a self-proclaimed heretic… a therapist more interested in finding the common denominators among all the psychological theories and paradigms than pledging her life to academic self-gratification. In a combination textbook and memoir (a text-moir, as she calls it), the author explores the practicalities and truths in providing counseling for people jailed in the criminal justice systems. Now, these clients are people from challenging walks of life, trapped in a horrible environment of cinderblock rooms, angry and dispirited, sometimes having brain injuries, sometimes brilliant, mostly with significant drug abuse problems and terrible histories. The author paints a picture, both pragmatic and highly empathetic, of her evolution over the years as a therapist trying to reach them, to find ways to get them to connect, to help them understand themselves, all with the goal of creating some improvement in their lives (with sometimes as few as 24 total hours of therapy). It is an amazing story of her experiences in reaching them through a variety of “magic tools”, and music, and creative ways to encourage self-inquiry, with her personal life experiences provided for context. If this compelling compilation of the author’s experience and knowledge is “heresy”, then this heresy should be mandatory reading for every psychology student… perhaps every human being who cares about people in the world. You don’t need to be a therapist to enjoy this book, as there is much to be appreciated from her experiences in dealing with these poor souls with maladaptive coping skills in life. Read more