This book proposes to open up the debate on mental disorders, to get people interested and talking, and to get them thinking. For example, what is schizophrenia? Why is it so common? Why does it affect human beings and not animals? What might this tell us about our mind and body, language and creativity, music and religion? What are the boundaries between mental disorder and 'normality'? Is there a relationship between mental disorder and genius? These are some of the difficult but important questions that this book confronts, with the overarching aim of exploring what mental disorders can teach us about human nature and the human condition. Contents: 1. Personality, identity, and agency; 2. Schizophrenia, the price for being human; 3. Depression, the curse of the strong; 4. Manic depressive psychosis, that fine madness; 5. Anxiety, freedom, and death; 6. Suicide.
An epic scholarly work, The Oxford Handbook of Hypnosis really is the benchmark reference volume for those interested in hypnosis. If you are serious about understanding the contemporary study and practice of hypnosis then this book is a must. (HypnosisAndSuggestion.org )
The exploration of the direct experience of healing and of the divine through the witnessing of movement becoming conscious. *Uses sample sessions and descriptive theory to explain the discipline. *Based on the author's 35 years of movement work. Offering from the Conscious Body reveals both the theory and practice of a unique body-based process that is cathartic, creative, healing, and mystical-as presented by Janet Adler, the presiding voice in the field. This Western awareness practice encourages the individual to experience the evolving relationship with oneself, another, the collective, and the divine through the natural impulses of conscious movement, compassionate witnessing, and clear articulation of experience. Through the vivid examples taken from her own practice, Adler demonstrates that physical movement can invite direct experience of spiritual truths. The reader is led through the multiple layers within the discipline-moving and witnessing in dyads and then groups, in the presence of a witnessing teacher-to develop a comprehensive and experiential understanding of this innovative way of work. Designed for professionals and laypersons interested in psychology, bodywork, mystic traditions, or personal transformation, the discipline of Authentic Movement is at the cutting edge of emerging Western healing practices.
How do animals perceive the world, learn, remember, search for food or mates, and find their way around? Do any non-human animals count, imitate one another, use a language, or think as we do? What use is cognition in nature and how might it have evolved? Historically, research on such questions has been fragmented between psychology, where the emphasis has been on theoretical models and lab experiments, and biology, where studies focus on evolution and the adaptive use of perception, learning, and decision-making in the field. Cognition, Evolution and the Study of Behavior integrates research from psychology, behavioral ecology, and ethology in a wide-ranging synthesis of theory and research about animal cognition in the broadest sense, from species-specific adaptations in fish to cognitive mapping in rats and honeybees to theories of mind for chimpanzees. As a major contribution to the emerging discipline of comparative cognition, the book is an invaluable resource for all students and researchers in psychology, zoology, behavioral neuroscience. It will also interest general readers curious about the details of how and why animals--including humans--process, retain, and use information as they do.
In the seventeenth century, the philosopher Spinoza examined the role emotion played in human survival and culture. Yet hundreds of years and many significant scientific advances later, the neurobiological roots of joy and sorrow remain a mystery. Today, we spend countless resources doctoring our feelings with alcohol, prescription drugs, health clubs, therapy, vacation retreats, and other sorts of consumption; still, the inner workings of our minds-what feelings are, how they work, and what they mean-are largely an unexplored frontier.
With scientific expertise and literary facility, bestselling author and world famous neuroscientist Antonio Damasio concludes his groundbreaking trilogy in Looking for Spinoza, exploring the cerebral processes that keep us alive and make life worth living.
When the first English-language edition of The Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique was published in 1991, it was recognised as a classic of its field to rank with the accounts of Glover, Fenichel, and Greenson. For this edition, R. Horacio Etchegoyen has added new material on insight, early development, and the contribution of Margaret Little, among other topics. The book has also been completely redesigned and re-typeset for ease of use. The structure of the first edition has been retained, with topics such as Analysability, the Psychoanalytic Interview, Transference and Countertransference, Interpretation and Termination treated in sequence. Within each subject, Etchegoyen presents the theories and observations of each major contributor to the discussion of these topics, from Freud to the present day, and in the process reveals the particular advantages and disadvantages which fall to the various theoretical positions and orientations adopted. As a resource both theoretical and practical for analysts new and old, The Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique stands alone in the contemporary analytic literature. As Patrick Casement wrote, reviewing the first edition for the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, "There is no other book like it."
