Psychology

Five long essays that trace Jung's developing interest in alchemy from 1929 onward. An introduction and supplement to his major works on the subject, illustrated with 42 patients' drawings and paintings.

Two giants of twentieth-century psychology in dialogue

C. G. Jung and Erich Neumann first met in 1933, at a seminar Jung was conducting in Berlin. Jung was fifty-seven years old and internationally acclaimed for his own brand of psychotherapy. Neumann, twenty-eight, had just finished his studies in medicine. The two men struck up a correspondence that would continue until Neumann's death in 1960. A lifelong Zionist, Neumann fled Nazi Germany with his family and settled in Palestine in 1934, where he would become the founding father of analytical psychology in the future state of Israel.

Presented here in English for the first time are letters that provide a rare look at the development of Jung's psychological theories from the 1930s onward as well as the emerging self-confidence of another towering twentieth-century intellectual who was often described as Jung's most talented student. Neumann was one of the few correspondence partners of Jung's who was able to challenge him intellectually and personally. These letters shed light on not only Jung's political attitude toward Nazi Germany, his alleged anti-Semitism, and his psychological theory of fascism, but also his understanding of Jewish psychology and mysticism. They affirm Neumann's importance as a leading psychologist of his time and paint a fascinating picture of the psychological impact of immigration on the German Jewish intellectuals who settled in Palestine and helped to create the state of Israel.

Featuring Martin Liebscher's authoritative introduction and annotations, this volume documents one of the most important intellectual relationships in the history of analytical psychology.

Neurological patients, Oliver Sacks once wrote, are travellers to unimaginable lands. An Anthropologist on Mars offers portraits of seven such travellers - including a surgeon consumed by the compulsive tics of Tourette's syndrome unless he is operating; an artist who loses all sense of color in a car accident, but finds a new sensibility and creative power in black and white; and an autistic professor who cannot decipher the simplest social exchange between humans, but has built a career out of her intuitive understanding of animal behavior. These are paradoxical tales, for neurological disease can conduct one to other modes of being that - however abnormal they may be to our way of thinking - may develop virtues and beauties of their own. The exploration of these individual lives is not one that can be made in a consulting room or office, and Sacks has taken off his white coat and deserted the hospital, by and large, to join his subjects in their own environments. He feels, he says, in part like a neuroanthropologist, but most of all like a physician, called here and there to make house calls, house calls at the far border of experience. Along the way, he shows us a new perspective on the way our brains construct our individual worlds. In his lucid and compelling reconstructions of the mental acts we take for granted - the act of seeing, the transport of memory, the notion of color - Oliver Sacks provokes anew a sense of wonder at who we are.

Essays which state the fundamentals of Jung's psychological system: "On the Psychology of the Unconscious" and "The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious," with their original versions in an appendix.

In direct opposition to the Freudian drive theory, the author of the best-selling "The Drama Of The Gifted Child" believes that children, at birth, are inherently good, and she traces all forms of criminal deeds to past mistreatments.

The Biological Investigation of Sexuality and Anxiety is composed of three essential contributions from the period: The Orgasm as an Electrophysical Discharge, Sexuality and Anxiety and The Bioelectrical Function of Sexuality and Anxiety, Reich's detailed report on the physiological experiments in which he sought proof for his orgasm theory.

The author of the bestselling What Makes Your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite delivers 30 science-based actions to enrich your life.

Science writer and bestselling author David DiSalvo returns with Brain Changer: How Harnessing Your Brain's Power to Adapt Can Change Your Life. Drawing on the latest research in cognitive psychology, neuroscience, behavioral economics, and communications, DiSalvo replaces self-help with "science-help," giving readers practical steps to change their thinking and their lives.

Known for his accessibility and applicable findings, DiSalvo explains that the human mind operates via a series of "feedback loops" generated in the brain. By identifying how these systems work, DiSalvo shows we can actually redirect our thinking through metacognition, a tool for thinking about thinking, to influence the brain's response.

Using relatable examples and tackling major aspects of our lives including relationships, careers, physical health, and personal development, DiSalvo demonstrates how the brain's enormous capacity to adapt is the most crucial factor influencing how we feel and act--a powerful tool we can control to change our lives.

Written in the decade before Freud s death, Civilization and Its Discontents may be his most famous and most brilliant work. It has been praised, dissected, lambasted, interpreted, and reinterpreted. Originally published in 1930, it seeks to answer several questions fundamental to human society and its organization: What influences led to the creation of civilization? Why and how did it come to be? What determines civilization s trajectory? Freud s theories on the effect of the knowledge of death on human existence and the birth of art are central to his work. Of the various English translations of Freud s major works to appear in his lifetime, only Norton s Standard Edition, under the general editorship of James Strachey, was authorized by Freud himself. This new edition includes both an introduction by the renowned cultural critic and writer Christopher Hitchens as well as Peter Gay s classic biographical note on Freud."

One of the most influential works of social psychology in history, The Crowd was highly instrumental in creating this field of study by analyzing, in detail, mass behavior. The book had a profound impact not only on Freud but also on such twentieth-century masters of crowd control as Hitler and Mussolini -- both of whom may have used its observations as a guide to stirring up popular passions. In the author's words, "The masses have never thirsted after the truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim."
Although the volume focuses on crowd psychology, it is also brilliantly instructive on the effects of the generally accepted beliefs of a nation's citizenry on the processes of history. Among the topics covered here are general characteristics and mental unity of the crowd; the crowd's sentiments and morality; its ideas, reasoning power, and imagination; opinions and beliefs of crowds and the means used by leaders to persuade; classification of crowds, including criminal and electrical assemblages, as well as the functioning of criminal juries and parliamentary assemblies.
A must-read volume for students of history, sociology, law, and psychology, The Crowd will also be invaluable to politicians, statesmen, investors, and marketing managers. "Any study of crowd behavior, popular psychology, fascism, etc. would do well to begin with Le Bon's work." -- Anson Rabinbach, Professor of History, Princeton University.

From climate change to fake news, an entertaining and enlightening look at the widespread phenomenon of denial in our society

Donald Trump won the election; climate change isn't real; America is a color-blind country. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, why do so many of us refuse to admit the truth? In fact, as Jared Del Rosso argues in this thought-provoking book, denial is so much a part of our lives that we deny its existence all the time, even when this works against our best interest, even when we are being choked by its very fumes.

Denial is one of those rare books that will change the way you think. In a highly readable style that draws on examples from current events, politics, and pop culture, Del Rosso teases out the complexities of denial, from "not noticing" that someone has food stuck in their teeth, to companies that engage in widespread fraud, like Enron and Wells Fargo, to the much larger-scale denials of climate change or systemic racism. Drawing on classic studies in the social sciences and his own research of the denial of torture, Del Rosso builds a fascinating typology of the forms and meanings of denial, exploring the behavior of those who refuse to acknowledge their actions, and what it means to live in a society where such lying, fraud, and corruption is commonplace.

In wide-ranging examples, Del Rosso explores the causes, strategies, and consequences of denial. When scandal hits and accusations of misconduct are made, he argues that individuals like Harvey Weinstein or Brett Kavanaugh, or organizations like the Catholic Church or Penn State, go through a series of moves to try to avoid accountability. Del Rosso focuses on the individuals involved but also asks: how could so many people not know what their priests, or their coaches, or their coworkers were doing? Del Rosso effectively argues that recognizing what denial looks like is the crucial first step in mitigating its effects on us and society as a whole.

At a time when powerful people and institutions are increasingly being held accountable for their actions, Denial provides an undeniable reality check.

From the author of the provocative and influential Glow Kids, Digital Madness explores how we've become mad for our devices as our devices our driving us mad, as revolutionary research reveals technology's damaging effect on mental illness and suicide rates--and offers a way out.

Dr. Nicholas Kardaras is at the forefront of psychologists sounding the alarm about the impact of excessive technology on younger brains. In Glow Kids, he described what screen time does to children, calling it "digital heroin". Now, in Digital Madness, Dr. Kardaras turns his attention to our teens and young adults and looks at the mental health impact of tech addiction and corrosive social media.

In Digital Madness, Dr. Kardaras answers the question of why young people's mental health is deteriorating as we become a more technologically advanced society. While enthralled with shiny devices and immersed in Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat, our young people are struggling with record rates of depression, loneliness, anxiety, overdoses and suicide. What's driving this mental health epidemic? Our immersion in toxic social media has created polarizing extremes of emotion and addictive dependency, while also acting as a toxic digital social contagion", spreading a variety of psychiatric disorders.

The algorithm-fueled polarity of social media also shapes the brain's architecture into inherently pathological and reactive black and white thinking--toxic for politics and society, but also symptomatic of several mental disorders. Digital Madness also examines how the profit-driven titans of Big Tech have created our unhealthy tech-dependent lifestyle: sedentary, screen-staring, addicted, depressed, isolated and empty--all in the pursuit of increased engagement, data mining and monetization.

But there is a solution. Dr. Kardaras offers a path out of our crisis, using examples from classical philosophy that encourage resilience, critical thinking and the pursuit of sanity-sustaining purpose in people's lives. Digital Madness is a crucial book for parents, educators, therapists, public health professionals, and policymakers who are searching for ways to restore our young people's mental and physical health.

Newly reissued in trade paperback, from the author of the bestselling Man's Search for Meaning--the classic book in which he first laid out his revolutionary theory of logotherapy.

Dr. Viktor E. Frankl is celebrated as the founder of logotherapy, a revolutionary mode of psychotherapy based on the essential human need to search for meaning in life. Even while suffering the degradation and misery of Nazi concentration camps--an experience he described in his bestselling memoir, Man's Search for Meaning--Frankl retained his belief that the most important freedom is the ability to determine one's spiritual well-being. After his liberation, he published The Doctor and the Soul, the first book in which he explained his method and his conviction that the fundamental human motivation is neither sex (as in Freud) nor the need to be appreciated by society (as in Adler), but the desire to live a purposeful life. Frankl's work represented a major contribution to the field of psychotherapy, and The Doctor and the Soul is essential to understanding it.

As charming performers who skillfully reflect their parents expectations, far too many children grow into adults driven to greater and greater achievements by an underlying sense of worthlessness. Never allowed to express their true feelings, and having lost touch with their true selves, they act out their repressed feelings with episodes of depression and compulsive behavior. They in turn inflict the same legacy of repression on their own children.

This poignant and thought-provoking book shows how narcissistic parents form and deform the lives of their children. "The Drama of the Gifted Child" is the first step toward helping readers reclaim their lives by discovering their own needs and their own truth."A book that patients prescribe...the therapists are reading it because their patients are recommending it." "--Washington Post Book World"

"Full of wisdom and perception."--Anthony Storr, "New Republic"

"Rare and compelling in its compassion and its unassuming eloquence...her examples are so vivid and so ordinary that they touch the hurt child in us all." "--New York Magazine"

If humanity cannot live with the dangers and responsibilities inherent in freedom, it will probably turn to authoritarianism. This is the central idea of Escape from Freedom, a landmark work by one of the most distinguished thinkers of our time, and a book that is as timely now as when first published in 1941. Few books have thrown such light upon the forces that shape modern society or penetrated so deeply into the causes of authoritarian systems. If the rise of democracy set some people free, at the same time it gave birth to a society in which the individual feels alienated and dehumanized. Using the insights of psychoanalysis as probing agents, Fromm's work analyzes the illness of contemporary civilization as witnessed by its willingness to submit to totalitarian rule.