Best of
Brain

1986

Neurophilosophy: Toward a Unified Science of the Mind/Brain


Patricia S. Churchland - 1986
    Contemporary research in the empirical neurosciences and recent research in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science are used to illuminate fundamental questions concerning the relation between abstract cognitive theory and substantive neuroscience.

The Three Pound Universe


Judith Hooper - 1986
    

Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential


Charles T. Tart - 1986
    I. Gurdjieff taught that we are not really awake, but are entranced automatons, controlled by mechanical habits of thought, perception and behavior. Tart clearly presents the evidence for how deeply asleep we are and its consequences, and then describes methods for becoming more awake, less asleep, more spiritual, less mechanical, allowing us to realize our full potential. Problems with spiritual teachers and groups along the way are sensitively analyzed and ways given to avoid them, so we can become more intelligent and compassionate, rather than members of some cult.

South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of an American City


Jill Jonnes - 1986
    In this new edition, she describes in a new final chapter the extraordinary and monumental rebuilding of the borough by the grass-roots groups that was just getting underway in 1984. The original book was hailed as a vivid history of the Bronx from its origins as colonial farmlands to the borough's 1980s status as one of the nation's foremost urban disasters. The book tells the colorful story of the Bronx, starting with its development as a New York suburb and boomtown when hundreds of thousands of German, Irish, Italians, and above all, Jewish immigrants flowed into the borough to raise their families.Franklin Delano Roosevelt, assisted by his powerful lieutenant, Boss Ed Flynn, built vast Democratic majorities in the polyglot Bronx into political domination of New York and the nation. After World War II, the Bronx underwent its second boom, beginning with emigrants from Puerto Rico and blacks displaced from Manhattan. On their heels came the camp followers of modern urban poverty: drug dealers, real estate pirates, arsonists. By the mid-1970s the Bronx was burning. Block after block, once given over to working- and middle-class family life, was now utterly destroyed, abandoned, given up on. The teeming, populous Bronx had turned into an American urban desert.This borough, which in its heyday had produced such notable Americans as Clifford Odets, Paddy Cheyefsky, Lauren Bacall, Herman Wouk, Jules Feiffer, Jake LaMotta, Stanley Kubrick, E.L. Doctorow, Neil Simon, and Tony Curtis, now lay in ashes, visible to us mainly as a dreadful object lesson.Yet change was in sight. Even while the worst destruction was taking place, new forces were rising to set aside or remake the tired machinery of government, allying such institutions as the Catholic Church, insurance companies, and dedicated non-profits to rally the Bronx and turn the tide of urban thinking. In her new final chapter, Dr. Jonnes describes the triumph of the grass-roots groups as they fulfilled their great dream of rebuilding these devastated neighborhoods.

The New Handbook of Cognitive Therapy Techniques


Rian E. McMullin - 1986
    It tackles, with logic, persistence, and creativity, the distorted beliefs underlying our emotional responses to everyday events. With dozens of soft, hard, and objective countering techniques, as well as methods to encourage perceptual shifts, this book is a huge toolbox for cognitive therapy practitioners.In this major revision of his 1986 Handbook of Cognitive Therapy Techniques, McMullin has added seven new chapters which explain how to teach basic concepts, how to uncover harmful schemes, and how to resynthesize historical and cultural beliefs. He directs special attention to using these strategies with addicted clients and with severely mentally ill patients. In addition, he has tripled the number of examples, dialogues, case transcripts, and illustrations.Whether they are new to cognitive therapy or have been using it for years, clinicians will find here a rich, engaging, practical resource.