A Memoir · In Development
Come On In. The Water Is Fine.
A Memoir About the Strengths That Protect Us — and the Life We May Be Missing While They Do
“At 83, a cardiac psychologist finally asks: did a lifetime of guarding his heart end up breaking it?”
About the Memoir
At eighty-three, after more than fifty years as a psychologist, I began asking questions I had spent a career helping other people ask.
What if the vigilance, independence, competence, and emotional self-protection that helped us survive eventually begin keeping us from fully living?
Come On In. The Water Is Fine. is a memoir about achievement, vulnerability, marriage, aging, and the possibility that late is not the same as too late.
Representation and Publication
The memoir is represented by Wild Goose Agency and is currently being pitched to publishers. It is not yet available for purchase. Publication news will be posted here as it develops.
The Companion Book
That Wasn’t My Intention
When Your Best Efforts Backfire
What happens when our best qualities produce results we never wanted?
Drawing on more than fifty years as a psychologist and executive coach, Decker explores how competence, responsibility, independence, and good intentions can become automatic responses that interfere with the very outcomes we hope to achieve.
Combining personal experiences, psychological insights, and practical exercises, the book offers readers ways to recognize those patterns and make more deliberate choices.
Completed manuscript, approximately 40,000 words. Represented by Wild Goose Agency. Not yet available for purchase.
Published Books
Six published books on the psychology of the heart, from A Change of Heart to The Cost of Strength, are available now.