Clear and friendly, this in-depth practice manual builds on the nine-stage model of meditation originally articulated by the ancient Indian sage Asanga, crystallizing the entire meditative journey into 10 clearly-defined stages. The book also introduces a new and fascinating model of how the mind works, and uses illustrations and charts to help the reader work through each stage. This manual is an essential read for the beginner to the seasoned veteran of meditation and can be read from front to back, or used as a reference guide, choosing chapters as needed based on the current state of the reader’s practice.

    The amygdala acts as a primal response, and oftentimes, when this part of the brain processes fear, you may not even understand why you are afraid. By comparison, the cortex is the center of “worry.” That is, obsessing, ruminating, and dwelling on things that may or may not happen. In the book, Pittman and Karle make it simple by offering specific examples of how to manage fear by tapping into both of these pathways in the brain. As you read, you’ll gain a greater understanding how anxiety is created in the brain, and as a result, you will feel empowered and motivated to overcome it. The brain is a powerful tool, and the more you work to change the way you respond to fear, the more resilient you will become. Using the practical self-assessments and proven-effective techniques in this book, you will learn to literally “rewire” the brain processes that lie at the root of your fears.

    In Happiness by Design, happiness and behavior expert Paul Dolan combines the latest insights from economics and psychology to illustrate that in order to be happy we must behave happy. Our happiness is experiences of both pleasure and purpose over time and it depends on what we actually pay attention to. Using what Dolan calls deciding, designing, and doing, we can overcome the biases that make us miserable and redesign our environments to make it easier to experience happiness, fulfilment, and even health.  With uncanny wit and keen perception, Dolan reveals what we can do to find our unique optimal balance of pleasure and purpose, offering practical advice on how to organize our lives in happiness-promoting ways and fresh insights into how we feel, including why:• Having kids reduces pleasure but gives us a massive dose of purpose• Gaining weight won’t necessarily make us unhappier, but being too ambitious might• A quiet neighborhood is more important than a big houseVividly rendering intriguing research and lively anecdotal evidence, Happiness by Design offers an absorbing, thought-provoking, new paradigm for readers of Stumbling on Happiness and The How of Happiness.

    In the intervening years, Herman’s volume has changed the way we think about and treat traumatic events and trauma victims. In a new afterword, Herman chronicles the incredible response the book has elicited and explains how the issues surrounding the topic have shifted within the clinical community and the culture at large. Trauma and Recovery brings a new level of understanding to a set of problems usually considered individually. Herman draws on her own cutting-edge research in domestic violence as well as on the vast literature of combat veterans and victims of political terror, to show the parallels between private terrors such as rape and public traumas such as terrorism. The book puts individual experience in a broader political frame, arguing that psychological trauma can be understood only in a social context. Meticulously documented and frequently using the victims’ own words as well as those from classic literary works and prison diaries, Trauma and Recovery is a powerful work that will continue to profoundly impact our thinking.

    Not only providing the answers to these questions and many more, this series of engaging and accessible essays explores each of the central concepts, as well as the arguments of key thinkers. Author Adrian Furnham offers expert and concise introductions to emotional behaviour, cognition, mental conditions - from stress to schizophrenia - rationality and personality development, amongst many others. This is a fascinating introduction to psychology for anyone interested in understanding the human mind.

    From verbalizing chimpanzees to scientific speculations involving machines with souls, from the mesmerizing, maze-like fiction of Borges to the tantalizing, dreamlike fiction of Lem and Princess Ineffable, her circuits glowing read and gold, The Mind's I opens the mind to the Black Box of fantasy, to the windfalls of reflection, to new dimensions of exciting possibilities."Ever since David Hume declared in the 18th century that the Self is only a heap of perceptions, the poor Ego has been in a shaky conditions indeed...Mind and consciousness becomes dispensable items in our accounts of reality, ghosts in the bodily machine...Yet there are indications here and there that the tide may be tuming...and the appearance of The Mind's I, edited by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett, seems a welcome sign of change." William Barrett, The New York Times Book Review

    “Happy childhood” notwithstanding, says Harris, most of us are living out the not ok feelings of a defenseless child wholly dependent on ok others (parents) for stroking and caring. At some stage early in our lives we adopt a “position” about ourselves which very significantly determines how we feel about ourselves, particularly in relation to other people. And for a huge portion of the population, that position is that I’m Not OK-You’re OK. This negative Life Position, shared by successful and unsuccessful people alike, contaminates our rational adult potential, leaving us vulnerable to the inappropriate, emotional reactions of our child and the uncritically learned behavior programmed into our parent. By exploring the four basic “life positions,” we can radically change our lives.

    Join renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman for a journey into the questions at the mysterious heart of our existence. What is reality? Who are “you”? How do you make decisions? Why does your brain need other people? How is technology poised to change what it means to be human?  In the course of his investigations, Eagleman guides us through the world of extreme sports, criminal justice, facial expressions, genocide, brain surgery, gut feelings, robotics, and the search for immortality.  Strap in for a whistle-stop tour into the inner cosmos. In the infinitely dense tangle of billions of brain cells and their trillions of connections, something emerges that you might not have expected to see in there: you.

    He offers his interpretation of how schizophrenia develops, typically in the teens, as an adaptation in the difficult transition to adulthood.  With tenderness, Bollas depicts schizophrenia as an understandable way of responding to our precariousness in a highly unpredictable world.  He celebrates the courage of the children he has worked with and reminds us that the wisdom inherent in human beings—to turn to conversation with others when in distress—is the fundamental foundation of any cure for human conflict.

     Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) is a new, scientifically based psychotherapy that takes a fresh look at why we suffer and even what it means to be mentally healthy. What if pain were a normal, unavoidable part of the human condition, but avoiding or trying to control painful experience were the cause of suffering and long-term problems that can devastate your quality of life? The ACT process hinges on this distinction between pain and suffering. As you work through this book, you’ll learn to let go of your struggle against pain, assess your values, and then commit to acting in ways that further those values.ACT is not about fighting your pain; it’s about developing a willingness to embrace every experience life has to offer. It’s not about resisting your emotions; it’s about feeling them completely and yet not turning your choices over to them. ACT offers you a path out of suffering by helping you choose to live your life based on what matters to you most. If you’re struggling with anxiety, depression, or problem anger, this book can help—clinical trials suggest that ACT is very effective for a whole range of psychological problems. But this is more than a self-help book for a specific complaint—it is a revolutionary approach to living a richer and more rewarding life.Learn why the very nature of human language can cause suffering Escape the trap of avoidance Foster willingness to accept painful experience Practice mindfulness skills to achieve presence in the moment Discover the things you really value most Commit to living a vital, meaningful life This book has been awarded The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Seal of Merit — an award bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.

    We see him at work in times of declining liberalism, devastating war, uneasy peace, the rise of Hitler and the fall of Austria. We watch him devising and revising his epoch-making theories. We are there as he struggles toward his discoveries, haunted by the problems he poses for himself, brooding over his publications, quarreling with his disciples. And we encounter Freud, always energetic, often troubled and sometimes vindictive, as his ideas spread from a small inner circle in Vienna, through Europe, across the ocean to the United States⁠—and the world.Drawing on a vast instructive store of unpublished documents, including hundreds of hitherto unknown or inaccessible letters, Peter Gay probes Freud's mind, uncovers Freud's passions, and follows Freud's astonishing career. He analyzes Freud the psychoanalyst as politician, seeking support for his controversial findings. He discloses for the first time the dimensions of Freud's love for his daughter Anna, and his unorthodox analysis of her. He offers a thoughtful, detailed, fascinating account of Freud's relations with such problematic followers as Jung and Ferenczi. He deals frankly with the controversies that have long swirled around Freud's impassioned friendships, his love life, and his theoretical innovations, which, as Freud himself put it, agitated the sleep of mankind.Perhaps most important and rewarding of all. no previous biography has so securely integrated into Freud's life his case histories, technical papers, speculative aesthetics, and excursions into prehistory and cultural criticism. The sections scattered across this book in which Peter Gay lucidly expounds and explains Freud's theories of dreams and sexuality, development and neurosis, love and hate amount to a comprehensive⁠—and comprehensible⁠—liberal education in psychoanalytic thought, which is far more discussed than it is understood. Fitting as they do into Freud's most intimate concerns and cultural loyalties, these ideas gain a vivid life of their own.The reader will long remember the Freud that Peter Gay reveals here⁠—student, physician, psychologist, lover, husband, father, friend, founder, controversialist, Jew, victim, and victor. This book, brilliantly argued and brilliantly written, evokes an age, and the life and ideas of a man who, in W. H. Auden's phrase, is "no more a person now but a whole climate of opinion.

    In today's world, women have more power, legal recognition, and professional success than ever before. Alongside the evident progress of the women's movement, however, writer and journalist Naomi Wolf is troubled by a different kind of social control, which, she argues, may prove just as restrictive as the traditional image of homemaker and wife. It's the beauty myth, an obsession with physical perfection that traps the modern woman in an endless spiral of hope, self-consciousness, and self-hatred as she tries to fulfill society's impossible definition of "the flawless beauty."

    Research shows that DBT can improve your ability to handle distress without losing control and acting destructively. In order to make use of these techniques, you need to build skills in four key areas-distress tolerance, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness.The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook, a collaborative effort from three esteemed authors, offers straightforward, step-by-step exercises for learning these concepts and putting them to work for real and lasting change. Start by working on the introductory exercises and, after making progress, move on to the advanced-skills chapters. Whether you are a professional or a general reader, whether you use this book to support work done in therapy or as the basis for self-help, you'll benefit from this clear and practical guide to better managing your emotions.This book has been awarded The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Seal of Merit — an award bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.

    Dennett's exposition is nothing short of brilliant." --George Johnson, New York Times Book ReviewConsciousness Explained is a a full-scale exploration of human consciousness. In this landmark book, Daniel Dennett refutes the traditional, commonsense theory of consciousness and presents a new model, based on a wealth of information from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence. Our current theories about conscious life-of people, animal, even robots--are transformed by the new perspectives found in this book.