Achieving Moral Health
By Charles Shelton
Crossroad Publishing, 235 pp.

From grapefruit diets to indoor rock climbing, yoga to the analyst's counch, health is an American obsession. We're willing to spend millions of dollars each year to ensure our physical and emotional well-being. But we leave out "the moral realm," and Charles Shelton (a psychologist) is determined to promote the concept of "moral health."

He argues that without a healthy, well-functioning conscience, a flourishing sense of right and wrong, we will be unhappy and "morally unhealthy." For a therapist, there is something rather unreflective and glib about his scolding to just be good. But there are clearly some important lessons here as well, about throwing out the Nikes and looking inward a little more. Shelton's message that we should give our consciences the same workout that we do our abdomens, biceps and quadrilaterals is well taken.

Think of it as Pilates for the soul.