The Ghosts of Heaven
Marcus Sedgwick - 2015
Beginning with the cave-drawings of a young girl on the brink of creating the earliest form of writing, Sedgwick traverses history, plunging into the seventeenth century witch hunts and a 1920s insane asylum where a mad poet's obsession with spirals seems to be about to unhinge the world of the doctor trying to save him. Sedgwick moves beyond the boundaries of historical fiction and into the future in the book's final section, set upon a spaceship voyaging to settle another world for the first time. Merging Sedgwick's gift for suspense with science- and historical-fiction, Ghosts of Heaven is a tale is worthy of intense obsession.
The Gossamer Thread: My Life as a Psychotherapist
John Marzillier - 2010
It shows his progression from a hard-nosed behavior therapist with a strong commitment to science to a psychodynamic therapist with an interest in narrative. Along the way he shows the way the main schools of psychotherapy (behavioral, cognitive, psychodynamic) work, drawing on case material from his professional practice. He shows the mistakes he made and the lessons he eventually learned from his patients. His focus on clinical cases enables readers to see psychotherapy in operation and get drawn into the ups and downs of trying to help some fascinating and often tricky people who rarely conform to what is expected of them.The book is free of jargon and can be enjoyed without any prior knowledge of psychology or psychotherapy. It is designed to entertain and inform the general readership about the mysterious world of psychotherapy, what goes on behind the consulting room door. It will be of particular interest to the increasing number of people who encounter psychotherapy either through their own experience of seeking help or the experiences of family and friends or through reading of popular books such as those of Oliver James and Irving Yalom.It should also prove invaluable for those interested in training as a clinical psychologist, counsellor or psychotherapist.
Face to Face with Evil: Conversations with Ian Brady
Chris Cowley - 2010
With his co-conspirator, Myra Hindley, he perpetrated the Moors Murders in which five children were abducted, assaulted, and murdered. Dr. Chris Cowley is a forensic psychologist who is in the unique position of having exclusive access to Brady. For six years, he has been conducting groundbreaking research by corresponding with and visiting him in prison. By gaining his trust, Cowley has been able to take an unrivalled look inside the mind of a serial killer. In this in-depth and revealing book, Dr. Cowley reproduces letters and transcripts of conversations with Brady that have never been published before. Using this fresh perspective and original material, he is able to shed new light on what went wrong in Brady’s formative years to set him on a path of crime, how Hindley became the lethal factor that started Brady’s murder cycle, as well as revealing Brady’s unflinching account of being caught and convicted of serial murder and his thoughts and emotions concerning Hindley as he moves into his eighth year on hunger strike. This important study provides information that will prove essential in our understanding of the psychology of serial killers. By broadening our knowledge of these complex issues, we can increase the likelihood of catching murderers and perhaps even prevent their terrible crimes from taking place.
Set This House in Order
Matt Ruff - 2003
. . . It was no ordinary murder. Though the torture and abuse that killed him were real, Andy Gage's death wasn't. Only his soul actually died, and when it died, it broke in pieces. Then the pieces became souls in their own right, coinheritors of Andy Gage's life. . . .While Andy deals with the outside world, more than a hundred other souls share an imaginary house inside Andy's head, struggling to maintain an orderly coexistence: Aaron, the father figure; Adam, the mischievous teenager; Jake, the frightened little boy; Aunt Sam, the artist; Seferis, the defender; and Gideon, who wants to get rid of Andy and the others and run things on his own.Andy's new coworker, Penny Driver, is also a multiple personality, a fact that Penny is only partially aware of. When several of Penny's other souls ask Andy for help, Andy reluctantly agrees, setting in motion a chain of events that threatens to destroy the stability of the house. Now Andy and Penny must work together to uncover a terrible secret that Andy has been keeping . . . from himself.
Skin Picking: The Freedom to Finally Stop
Annette Pasternak - 2014
Step-by-step she leads you through: 1) Exercises to help you to break the habit of the behavior. 2) Techniques to reduce stress and anxiety naturally, thus reducing the body’s need to pick. 3) How to release negative thoughts and emotions holding you back.4) Lifestyle changes to restore physiological balance, including which foods to avoid, which to eat more of, and natural supplements to help you stop. This comprehensive guide is a lifesaver for those suffering from skin picking, and is invaluable also for health professionals interested in learning how to help their patients who pick.
Welcome, Silence
Carol S. North - 1987
Carol North was diagnosed with schizophrenia in college. The story of her life is traced from her early life in a middle class small-town family in the Midwest. For many years, Carol struggled against overwhelming odds to achieve in school in spite of her illness and was finally admitted to medical school to pursue her hopes and dreams of becoming a doctor. In medical school, however, she slid further into psychosis and finally succumbed the inexorable incapacitation so often characteristic of the illness. Carol was fortunate enough, however, to find a skilled psychiatrist who understood her dedication to becoming a physician and who worked with her to stay well enough to remain in school. When all hope seemed lost, her doctor enrolled her in an experimental dialysis program, similar to the treatment given to patients with kidney failure. With this treatment, her illness went away and she no longer required medication for it. This engrossing and ultimately triumphant story of courageous struggle against mental illness will inspire anyone who has ever had to battle for achievement against overwhelming odds. After recovering from her illness, Carol returned to school and received her medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri in 1983. She then completed her internship and residency at Barnes Hospital/Washington University, and subsequently obtained a masters degree in psychiatric epidemiology (the study of psychiatric disorders in populations) while simultaneously pursuing a NIMH fellowship in psychiatric epidemiology at Washington University. Dr. Carol North is currently a board-certified psychiatrist and full Professor of Psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine. She treats patients with schizophrenia and a range of psychiatric illness, trains young physicians and psychiatrists, and pursues federally funded research in psychiatric epidemiology. She is the recipient of numerous national awards and has appeared on many national television and radio programs.
The Pawn in the Portal
Nick Cole - 2016
Ward, a tier-one operator turned mercenary, has just flung himself off the cargo deck of a doomed C-130. Now he’s out of the Drop Zone and evading the undead as a terrible new breed of hunter enters the Wyrd. But these new, faster predators might not be the only thing to fear in an apocalypse beset by zombies, nukes and killer A.I.’s. One of the last warriors of a collapsed government is planning on putting up some big numbers in this final, ultimate game of Survivor, until he finds a mysterious new companion... a stranger dressed in black.
Topics About Which I Know Nothing
Patrick Ness - 2005
Have you heard the urban myth about Jesus's double-jointed elbows yet? 100% true. Or seen the latest reports on the 'groomgrabbing' trend - the benevolent kidnapping of badly-dressed children by their well-meaning (and more dapper) elders? Heard the one about the Amazon from the Isle of Man? Or perhaps you'd like a job in telesales, offering self-defence classes over the phone? Don't worry, as long as you meet the weekly quota, you won't be sent to the end of the hall...Wonderfully original, fresh and funny, 'Topics About Which I Know Nothing' is stuffed to the gills with dizzyingly inventive writing and warming, puzzling emotions - a fictional guide to how the world might have turned out.
Lazarus: The Complete Book and Lyrics (NHB Modern Plays)
David Bowie - 2015
Years later he's still stranded here, soaked in cheap gin and haunted by a past love. But the arrival of another lost soul brings one last chance of freedom...Inspired by the book The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis and its cult film adaptation starring David Bowie, Lazarus brings the story of Thomas Newton to its devastating conclusion.Written by Bowie with the playwright Enda Walsh, and incorporating some of Bowie's most iconic songs, Lazarus was first performed at New York Theatre Workshop in 2015, starring Michael C. Hall and directed by Ivo Van Hove. The production transferred to London in 2016.‘Ice-bolts of ecstasy shoot like novas through the fabulous muddle and murk of Lazarus, the great-sounding, great-looking and mind-numbing new musical built around songs by David Bowie’- Ben Brantley New York Times‘Wild, fantastical, eye-popping. A surrealistic tour de force’ - Rolling Stone Data Lookups Explore
'I'm a dying man who can't die.'
Thomas Newton came to Earth seeking water for his drought-ridden planet. Years later he's still stranded here, soaked in cheap gin and haunted by a past love. But the arrival of another lost soul brings one last chance of freedom...Inspired by the book The Man Who Fell to Earth by Walter Tevis and its cult film adaptation starring David Bowie, Lazarus brings the story of Thomas Newton to its devastating conclusion.Written by Bowie with the playwright Enda Walsh, and incorporating some of Bowie's most iconic songs, Lazarus was first performed at New York Theatre Workshop in 2015, starring Michael C. Hall and directed by Ivo Van Hove. The production transferred to London in 2016.‘Ice-bolts of ecstasy shoot like novas through the fabulous muddle and murk of Lazarus, the great-sounding, great-looking and mind-numbing new musical built around songs by David Bowie’- Ben Brantley New York Times‘Wild, fantastical, eye-popping. A surrealistic tour de force’ - Rolling Stone
The Becoming of Noah Shaw
Michelle Hodkin - 2017
This is what happens after happily ever after.Everyone thinks seventeen-year-old Noah Shaw has the world on a string.They’re wrong.Mara Dyer is the only one he trusts with his secrets and his future.He shouldn’t.And both are scared that uncovering the truth about themselves will force them apart.They’re right.
Asylum Piece
Anna Kavan - 1940
The sense of paranoia, of persecution by a foe or force that is never given a name, evokes The Trial by Kafka, a writer with whom Kavan is often compared, although her deeply personal, restrained, and almost foreign —accented style has no true model. The same characters who recur throughout—the protagonist's unhelpful "adviser," the friend and lover who abandons her at the clinic, and an assortment of deluded companions—are sketched without a trace of the rage, self-pity, or sentiment that have marked more recent accounts of mental instability.
Bedlam's Door: True Tales of Madness and Hope
Mark Rubinstein - 2016
Former practicing psychiatrist Mark Rubinstein opens the door and takes the reader deep into the world of mental illness. From the chaos of a psychiatric emergency room to the bowels of a maximum security prison, the stories range from bizarre to poignant and the people from noble to callously uncaring. Bedlam's Door depicts the challenges mental illness poses for patients, their families, health-care professionals, and society. More importantly, it demystifies the subject while offering real hope.
The Color Out Of Space, The Dreams In The Witch House
H.P. Lovecraft - 2016
Behind everything crouched the brooding, festering horror of the ancient town, and of the moldy, unhallowed garret gable where he wrote and studied and wrestled with figures and formulae when he was not tossing on the meager iron bed. His ears were growing sensitive to a preternatural and intolerable degree, and he had long ago stopped the cheap mantel clock whose ticking had come to seem like a thunder of artillery. At night the subtle stirring of the black city outside, the sinister scurrying of rats in the wormy partitions, and the creaking of hidden timbers in the centuried house, were enough to give him a sense of strident pandemonium. The darkness always teemed with unexplained sound—and yet he sometimes shook with fear lest the noises he heard should subside and allow him to hear certain other fainter noises which he suspected were lurking behind them.
The Second Book of Robert E. Howard
Robert E. Howard - 1976
Talman, September 1931"Sword Woman" "Which Will Scarcely Be Understood" (poem) "The Striking of the Gong" "The Song of Horsa's Galley" (poem) "The Good Knight" "A Word From the Outer Dark" (poem) "Black Canaan" "The Song of a Mad Minstrel" (poem) "Kelly the Conjure Man""Surrender" (poem) "The Footfalls Within" "Knife-River Prodigal" "Musings" (poem) "Life" (2, "They bruised my soul . . .") (poem) "The House of Suspicion""Rueben's Brethren" (poem) "Two Against Tyre""The Guise of Youth" (poem) "For the Love of Barbara Allen""Guns of Khartum" "Lines Written in the Realization That I Must Die" (poem)
The Devil You Know: Stories of Human Cruelty and Compassion
Gwen Adshead - 2021
Gwen Adshead provides fresh and surprising insights into violence and the mind. Through a collaboration with coauthor Eileen Horne, Dr. Adshead brings her extraordinary career to life in a series of unflinching portraits. Alongside doctor and patient, we discover what human cruelty, ranging from serial homicide to stalking, arson or sexual offending, means to perpetrators, experiencing first-hand how minds can change when the people some might label as “evil” are able to take responsibility for their life stories and get to know their own minds. With outcomes ranging from hope to despair, from denial to recovery, these men and women are revealed in all their complexity and shared humanity.