In 1996 Joseph LeDoux's "The Emotional Brain" presented a revelatory examination of the biological bases of our emotions and memories. Now, the world-renowned expert on the brain has produced with a groundbreaking work that tells a more profound story: how the little spaces between the neurons-the brain's synapses--are the channels through which we think, act, imagine, feel, and remember. Synapses encode the essence of personality, enabling each of us to function as a distinctive, integrated individual from moment to moment. Exploring the functioning of memory, the synaptic basis of mental illness and drug addiction, and the mechanism of self-awareness, "Synaptic Self" is a provocative and mind-expanding work that is destined to become a classic.

    We need to belong to groups. In many parts of the world, the group identities that matter most - the ones that people will kill and die for - are ethnic, religious, sectarian, or clan-based. But because America tends to see the world in terms of nation-states engaged in great ideological battles - Capitalism vs. Communism, Democracy vs. Authoritarianism, the "Free World" vs. the "Axis of Evil" - we are often spectacularly blind to the power of tribal politics. Time and again this blindness has undermined American foreign policy.In the Vietnam War, viewing the conflict through Cold War blinders, we never saw that most of Vietnam's "capitalists" were members of the hated Chinese minority. Every pro-free-market move we made helped turn the Vietnamese people against us. In Iraq, we were stunningly dismissive of the hatred between that country's Sunnis and Shias. If we want to get our foreign policy right - so as to not be perpetually caught off guard and fighting unwinnable wars - the United States has to come to grips with political tribalism abroad.Just as Washington's foreign policy establishment has been blind to the power of tribal politics outside the country, so too have American political elites been oblivious to the group identities that matter most to ordinary Americans - and that are tearing the United States apart. As the stunning rise of Donald Trump laid bare, identity politics have seized both the American left and right in an especially dangerous, racially inflected way. In America today, every group feels threatened: whites and blacks, Latinos and Asians, men and women, liberals and conservatives, and so on. There is a pervasive sense of collective persecution and discrimination. On the left, this has given rise to increasingly radical and exclusionary rhetoric of privilege and cultural appropriation. On the right, it has fueled a disturbing rise in xenophobia and white nationalism.In characteristically persuasive style, Amy Chua argues that America must rediscover a national identity that transcends our political tribes. Enough false slogans of unity, which are just another form of divisiveness. It is time for a more difficult unity that acknowledges the reality of group differences and fights the deep inequities that divide us.

    If reason is so useful, why didn't it also evolve in other animals? If reason is that reliable, why do we produce so much thoroughly reasoned nonsense? In their groundbreaking account of the evolution and workings of reason, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber set out to solve this double enigma. Reason, they argue with a compelling mix of real-life and experimental evidence, is not geared to solitary use, to arriving at better beliefs and decisions on our own. What reason does, rather, is help us justify our beliefs and actions to others, convince them through argumentation, and evaluate the justifications and arguments that others address to us.In other words, reason helps humans better exploit their uniquely rich social environment. This interactionist interpretation explains why reason may have evolved and how it fits with other cognitive mechanisms. It makes sense of strengths and weaknesses that have long puzzled philosophers and psychologists--why reason is biased in favor of what we already believe, why it may lead to terrible ideas and yet is indispensable to spreading good ones.Ambitious, provocative, and entertaining, The Enigma of Reason will spark debate among psychologists and philosophers, and make many reasonable people rethink their own thinking.

    Devon Price, a conversational, stirring call to “a better, more human way to live” (Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author) that examines the “laziness lie”—which falsely tells us we are not working or learning hard enough.Extra-curricular activities. Honors classes. 60-hour work weeks. Side hustles. Like many Americans, Dr. Devon Price believed that productivity was the best way to measure self-worth. Price was an overachiever from the start, graduating from both college and graduate school early, but that success came at a cost. After Price was diagnosed with a severe case of anemia and heart complications from overexertion, they were forced to examine the darker side of all this productivity. Laziness Does Not Exist explores the psychological underpinnings of the “laziness lie,” including its origins from the Puritans and how it has continued to proliferate as digital work tools have blurred the boundaries between work and life. Using in-depth research, Price explains that people today do far more work than nearly any other humans in history yet most of us often still feel we are not doing enough. Filled with practical and accessible advice for overcoming society’s pressure to do more, and featuring interviews with researchers, consultants, and experiences from real people drowning in too much work, Laziness Does Not Exist “is the book we all need right now” (Caroline Dooner, author of The F*ck It Diet).

    He clearly outlines the fundamentals of working with dreams, daydreams, and fantasies, discussing numerous anxiety dreams, nightmares, and fantasies told to him by his own patients. By examining transference and countertransference in detail through the use of clinical vignettes, Fink lays out the major differences (regarding transference interpretation, self-disclosure, projective identification, and the therapeutic frame) between mainstream psychoanalytic practice and Lacanian practice. He critiques the ever more prevalent normalizing attitude in psychoanalysis today and presents crucial facets of Lacan's approach to the treatment of neurosis, as well as of his entirely different approach to the treatment of psychosis.Fundamentals of Psychoanalytic Technique is an introduction to psychoanalytic technique from a Lacanian perspective that is based on Fink's many years of experience working as an analyst and supervising clinicians, including graduate students in clinical psychology, social workers, psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychoanalysts. Designed for a wide range of practitioners and requiring no previous knowledge of Lacan's work, this primer is accessible to therapists of many different persuasions with diverse degrees of clinical experience, from novices to seasoned analysts.Fink's goal throughout is to present the implications of Lacan's highly novel work for psychoanalytic technique across a broad spectrum of interventions. The techniques covered (all of which are designed to get at the unconscious, repression, and repetition compulsion) can be helpful to a wide variety of practitioners, often transforming their practices radically in a few short months.

    Private corner offices and management by decree are out, as is unquestioned trust in the government and media. These former pillars of traditional power have been replaced by networks of informed citizens who collectively wield more power over their personal lives, employers, and worlds than ever before. So how do you navigate this new landscape and come out on top? Adam Grant, Wharton organizational psychologist and New York Times best-selling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B, went to the World Economic Forum in Davos, the epicenter of power, and sat down with thought leaders from around the world, to find out.In interviews with two dozen leaders and thinkers - from top executives at Google, GM, Slack, and Goldman Sachs, to the CEO of the Gates Foundation and NASA's former chief scientist - Grant shares hard-earned insight on how to succeed in this new era of hyper-linked power. He also explores how it's reshaping everything from how employees work to how employers manage their workers, from how women rise in the office to how scientists influence policy.The combination of captivating interviews, compelling data, and Grant's unmistakably incisive and actionable analysis results in an inspiring crash course from the frontlines on the changing nature of power today.

    An easy-to-learn overview of the theorist opens each chapter. The author then distills the theorists’ work to reveal how it relates to child care and children.

    Writing within a Jungian framework, they perceive symptoms of "Boycaps per book psychology" all around us--in men's abusive behaviors, passivity and inability to act creatively. To help males become more nurturing and mature, Moore and Gillette identify four archetypes of masculine energies from myth and literature: the Lover, brimming with vitality and sensitivity; the Magician, guider of the processes of inner and outer transformation; the selfless and wise King identified with Adam or primordial man; and the Warrior, whose energies often go awry in destructive activity. Dream analysis, meditation, Jungian "active imagination" and ritual processes are among the tools set forth in a clear, concise map to territories of masculine selfhood.

    "This book clearly illustrates the true nature of disturbed characters, exposes the tactics the most manipulative characters use to pull the wool over the eyes of others, and outlines powerful, practical ways to deal more effectively with manipulative people."

    Gang Leader for a Day is the fascinating full story of how Sudhir Venkatesh managed to gain entrée into the gang, what he learned, and how his method revolutionized the academic establishment. When Venkatesh walked into an abandoned building in one of Chicago's most notorious housing projects, he was looking for people to take a multiple-choice survey on urban poverty. A first-year grad student, he would befriend a gang leader named JT and spend the better part of the next decade inside the projects under JT's protection, documenting what he saw there. Over the next seven years, Venkatesh observed JT and the rest of the gang as they operated their crack selling business, conducted PR within their community, and rose up or fell within the ranks of the gang's complex organizational structure. Gang Leader for a Day is an inside view into the morally ambiguous, highly intricate, often corrupt struggle to survive in an urban war zone. It is also the story of a complicated friendship between two young and ambitious men, a universe apart.

    Markus and Conner also demonstrate how clashes between independence and interdependence fuel many of today’s most pressing conflicts, including tensions between East and West, the Global North and Global South, men and women, blacks and whites, conservative and liberal, religious groups, rich and poor, and businesses, governments, and nonprofits. Rather than lamenting our multicultural worlds, Hazel Rose Markus and Alana Conner reveal how we can leverage our differences to mend the rifts in our workplaces, schools, and relationships, as well as on the global stage.Provocative, witty, and painstakingly researched, Clash! not only explains who we are, it also envisions who we could become.

    It is our cultures and not our genes that determine which foods we eat, which languages we speak, which people we love and marry, and which people we kill in war. But how did our species develop a mind that is hardwired for culture—and why?Evolutionary biologist Mark Pagel tracks this intriguing question through the last 80,000 years of human evolution, revealing how an innate propensity to contribute and conform to the culture of our birth not only enabled human survival and progress in the past but also continues to influence our behavior today. Shedding light on our species’ defining attributes—from art, morality, and altruism to self-interest, deception, and prejudice—Wired for Culture offers surprising new insights into what it means to be human.

    What is it that persuades us to camp outside Apple stores to be the first to buy an iPhone? Why is it that a generation ago a typewriter might have lasted someone a lifetime, but now we write on computers that we upgrade every couple of years to shinier, faster, sleeker models? Why do the clicks of some car doors sound “expensive”? Deyan Sudjic charts our relationship—both innocent and knowing—with all things designed. From the opulent excesses of the catwalk to the playfulness of an Alessi jam jar, he shows how we can be manipulated and seduced by our possessions. With scintillating wit he addresses these questions and more, exploring the reasons why every designer yearns to put a personal stamp on a chair or an adjustable lamp, and where design ends and art begins. 71 black-and-white and 5 color illustrations.

    Etcoff, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School and a practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, skewers the enduring myth that the pursuit of beauty is a learned behavior.Etcoff puts forth that beauty is neither a cultural construction, an invention of the fashion industry, nor a backlash against feminism, but instead is in our biology. It's an essential and ineradicable part of human nature that is revered and ferociously pursued in nearly every civilizatoin--and for good reason. Those features to which we are most attracted are often signals of fertility and fecundity. When seen in the context of a Darwinian struggle for survival, our sometimes extreme attempts to attain beauty--both to become beautiful ourselves and to acquire an attractive partner--become understandable. Moreover, if we come to understand how the desire for beauty is innate, then we can begin to work in our interests, and not soley for the interests of our genetic tendencies.

    It's bad for society, especially now. . . . Call me crotchety, but I can't help asking, whatever happened to the social contract?'The get-rich-quick exuberance of the late nineties may have temporarily blinded us to how dependent we are on one another. Subsequent events serve as reminders that the strength of our economy and the security of our society rest on the bonds that connect us. But what, specifically, are these bonds? What do we owe one another as members of the same society?With his characteristic humor, humanity, and candor, one of the nation's most distinguished public leaders and thinkers delivers a fresh vision of politics by returning to basic American values: workers should share in the success of their companies; those who work should not have to live in poverty; and everyone should have access to an education that will better their chances in life.An insider who knows how the economy and government really work, Reich combines realistic solutions with democratic ideals. Businesses do have civic responsibilities, and government must stem a widening income gap that threatens to stratify our nation. And everyone must get involved to help return us to a society that works for everyone.