Nancy was four years old. As one of eleven children in a prominent Boston family, Nancy struggled to come to terms with the reasons why her mother took her own life. After years spent interviewing family and friends, Rappaport uncovers the story of a conflicted and troubled activist, socialite, and community leader. Drawing on court depositions, her mother’s unpublished novel, newspapers, and her own experiences, she highlights heartbreaking stories of a complicated life that played out in the public eye. Inspiring, honest, and engaging, Rappaport’s story sheds light on the agonizing nature of loss and healing, and reveals the permeable boundaries between therapists and the patients they treat.

    Shad Helmstetter’s latest book, “365 Days of Positive Self-Talk,” is wonderfully uplifting as a daily inspirational guide, with positive selftalk messages for every day of the year. Along with the powerfully motivational self-talk messages, the book includes dozens of helpful and informative “Self-Talk Tips” throughout the book, giving readers a clear understanding of how self-talk works, and how to apply it in every area of their lives. (This book is a perfect gift for yourself, and for everyone you care about.)

    Memories have the power to move us, often when we least expect it, a sign of the complex neural process that continues in the background of our everyday lives. This process shapes us: filtering the world around us, informing our behavior and feeding our imagination.Psychiatrist Veronica O’Keane has spent many years observing how memory and experience are interwoven. In this rich, fascinating exploration, she asks, among other things: Why can memories feel so real? How are our sensations and perceptions connected with them? Why is place so important in memory? Are there such things as “true” and “false” memories? And, above all, what happens when the process of memory is disrupted by mental illness? O’Keane uses the broken memories of psychosis to illuminate the integrated human brain, offering a new way of thinking about our own personal experiences.Drawing on poignant accounts that include her own experiences, as well as what we can learn from insights in literature and fairytales and the latest neuroscientific research, O’Keane reframes our understanding of the extraordinary puzzle that is the human brain and how it changes during its growth from birth to adolescence and old age. By elucidating this process, she exposes the way that the formation of memory in the brain is vital to the creation of our sense of self.

    Each generation of therapists can boast of only a few writers like Deborah Luepnitz, whose sympathy and wit shine in her fine, luminous prose. In Schopenhauer's Porcupines, she recounts five true stories from her practice, stories of patients who range from the super-rich to the destitute, who grapple with panic attacks, psychosomatic illness, marital despair, and sexual recklessness. Intimate, original, and triumphantly funny, Schopenhauer's Porcupines goes further than any other book in illuminating "how talking helps."

    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.

    “We are all taking part in a giant experiment in dealing with time,” Klein writes-and his aim with this book is to help us each to understand “the degree to which our experience of time hinges on our outlook on life.” With his journalist’s unerring eye for the telling detail, Stefan Klein effortlessly combines original investigation and reportage, personal revelation, and a wide-ranging, commanding presentation of scientific research among disciplines including brain physiology, social psychology, philosophy, and Einsteinian physics-with the goal of guiding us not only to better master time but also to understand why we so often fail to do so. Woven into his narrative are dozens of practical ways to make sense of and gain control over time, including: How not to lose your head when a deadline is quickly approaching How the present becomes a memory-and vice versa How to attune to your inner clock for more productive, satisfying days How to avoid becoming worn out by the fast tempo of modern life Popular science at its very best, The Secret Pulse of Time awakens us to and empowers us with the idea that time is far more at our disposal than we have ever before realized.

    Drawing on extensive clinical and epidemiological evidence, as well as personal experience. Thomas Joiner brings a comprehensive understanding to seemingly incomprehensible behaviour. Among the many people who have considered, attempted, or died by suicide, he finds three factors that mark those most at risk of death: the feeling of being a burden on loved ones; the sense of isolation; and, chillingly, the learned ability to hurt oneself

    Though incidence of these conditions is skyrocketing, for the past four decades standard treatment hasn't much changed, and success rates in treating them have barely improved, either. Meanwhile, the stigma of the "mental illness" label--damaging and devastating on its own--can often prevent sufferers from getting the help they need.Brain specialist and bestselling author Dr. Daniel Amen is on the forefront of a new movement within medicine and related disciplines that aims to change all that. In The End of Mental Illness, Dr. Amen draws on the latest findings of neuroscience to challenge an outdated psychiatric paradigm and help readers take control and improve the health of their own brain, minimizing or reversing conditions that may be preventing them from living a full and emotionally healthy life.The End of Mental Illness will help you discover:Why labeling someone as having a "mental illness" is not only inaccurate but harmful.Why standard treatment may not have helped you or a loved one--and why diagnosing and treating you based on your symptoms alone so often misses the true cause of those symptoms and results in poor outcomesAt least 100 simple things you can do yourself to heal your brain and prevent or reverse the problems that are making you feel sad, mad, or badHow to identify your "brain type" and what you can do to optimize your particular typeWhere to find the kind of health provider who understands and uses the new paradigm of brain health

    Instead of seeing each person as a single personality, Carter argues that we all consist of multiple characters, each one with its own viewpoint, emotions and ambitions. The mother who feeds breakfast to her children, for example, has quite different concerns and opinions from the woman taking part in a boardroom discussion two hours later, and from the woman she will be with her husband that night. Yet all three may share the same body, and none is any more "authentic" than another. Personality changes in a person are conventionally frowned upon, but Carter shows that in today's world our ability to switch from one personality to another according to what is demanded of us is a huge strength, providing one's personalities work together as a team rather than against each other. In addition to its groundbreaking scientific thesis, Multiplicity contains extensive exercises designed to help readers achieve this harmony.

    Such experiences are best understood not only through the straightforward acquisition of facts but through a process of discovering where and why conscious understanding and memory fail. Literature, according to Cathy Caruth and others, opens a window on traumatic experience because it teaches readers to listen to what can be told only in indirect and surprising ways. Sociology, film, and political activism can also provide new ways of thinking about and responding to the experience of trauma.In Trauma and Memory, a distinguished group of analysts and critics offer a compelling look at what literature and the new approaches of a variety of clinical and theoretical disciplines bring to the understanding of traumatic experience. Combining two highly-acclaimed special issues of American Imago edited by Caruth, this interdisciplinary collection of essays and interviews will be of interest to analysts and critics concerned with the notion of trauma and the problem of interpretation and, more generally, to those interested in current discussions of subjects such as child abuse, AIDS, and the effects of historical atrocities such as the Holocaust.Contributions by: Georges Bataille, Harold Bloom, Laura Brown, Cathy Caruth, Kai Erikson, Shoshana Felman, Henry Krystal, Claude Lanzmann, Dori Laub, Kevin Newmark, Onno van der Hart, and Bessel van der Kolk. Interviews with: Robert Jay Lifton, Gregg Bordowitz, Douglas Crimp, and Laura Pinsky

    In its groundbreaking analysis of childhood trauma and dissociation and their far-reaching implications in adult life, it reveals that moderate dissociation is a normal mental reaction to pain and that even the most extreme dissociative reaction-multiple personality-is more common than we think. Through astonishing stories of people whose lives have been shattered by trauma and then remade, The Myth of Sanity shows us how to recognize these altered mental states in friends and family, even in ourselves."We only think we're sane, says this Harvard psychologist... The befuddled, normally sane masses can learn a lot from the victims of grave psychological abuse." -Dallas Morning Star

    We are now beginning to learn that many forms of psychotherapy, developed in the absence of any scientific understanding of the brain, are supported by neuroscientific findings.Louis Cozolino's The Neuroscience of Psychotherapy illustrates in a clearly written and accessible way how the brain's architecture is related to the problems, passions, and aspirations of human beings. As Cozolino so eloquently argues, all forms of psychotherapy-from psychoanalysis to behavioral interventions-are successful to the extent to which they enhance change in relevant neural circuits.Beginning with an overview of the intersecting fields of neuroscience and psychotherapy, this book delves into the brain's inner workings, from basic neuronal building blocks to complex systems of memory, language, and the organization of experience. It continues by explaining the development and organization of the healthy brain and the unhealthy brain. Common problems such as anxiety, trauma, and codependency are discussed from a scientific and clinical perspective. Cozolino concludes by introducing the emerging paradigm of the psychotherapist-as-neuroscientist and presents some practical applications of neuroscience to psychotherapy. Throughout the book, the science behind the brain's workings is applied to day-to-day experience and clinical practice.Written for psychotherapists and others interested in the relationship between brain and behavior, this book encourages us to consider the brain when attempting to understand human development, mental illness, and psychological health.

    Lisa Wimberger experienced the power of neuroplasticity firsthand. When conventional medicine offered no answers for her deadly seizures, she created her own regimen of meditation and life practices to heal herself. Today, Lisa has successfully taught her Neurosculpting® method to veterans, first responders, and clients in the most stressful occupations. With Neurosculpting, she brings readers a complete guide to this life-changing process, featuring transformative insights and techniques for:• Engaging the mind-body connection to shape our neural pathways with positive choices and intentions• Disarming stress triggers, healing trauma, rewriting limiting beliefs, and liberating yourself from unhealthy habits• Whole-brained meditation—bringing your brain’s left and right hemispheres into harmony to awaken your full potential• Integrating lifestyle, diet, exercise, and spiritual practice to create the ideal environment for healing and happiness• Putting it all together—practical guidance for personalizing your own approach to Neurosculpting"If you could learn to squeeze the vibrancy and beauty out of each moment of your life," writes Wimberger, "would you say yes to a practice that could get you there?" With an engaging, layman-friendly style that encompasses cutting-edge neuroscience and our human capacity for hope, free will, love, and spirituality, she offers a breakthrough guide for taking charge of our health, happiness, and personal growth.

    Porges’s decades of research. A leading expert in developmental psychophysiology and developmental behavioral neuroscience, Porges is the mind behind the groundbreaking Polyvagal Theory, which has startling implications for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and autism. Adopted by clinicians around the world, the Polyvagal Theory has provided exciting new insights into the way our autonomic nervous system unconsciously mediates social engagement, trust, and intimacy.

    Short, clear discussions on the mechanical workings of the brain are offered and the details of brain science are covered in an accessible style. Explanations of the more familiar implications of the brain's actions, such as memories, perceptions, and motor control are integrated throughout the book. It has chapters on brain processes and the causes of "altered mental states," as well as a final chapter that discusses possible future developments in neuroscience, touching on artificial intelligence, gene therapy, the importance of the Human Genome Project, drugs by design, and transplants. Up-to-date coverage of the newest developments in brain research and suggestions for future research on the brain are also included. About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.