New Books in Psychology

Shame is a complex social emotion that has a particularly negative valence; in the West it is associated with failure, inappropriateness, dishonor, disgrace. But within the Confucian tradition, there is in addition a distinct, positive variety of moral shame a virtue that, as Bongrae Seok writes, “is not for losers but for self-reflective moral leaders”. In Moral Psychology of Confucian Shame: Shame of Shamelessness (Rowman and Littlefield), Seok draws on textual evidence from Confucius, Mencius, and Xunzi, as well as contemporary moral psychology, anthropology, biology, linguistics, and ancient Greek philosophy, to illuminate one aspect of the rich Confucian tradition in moral psychology. Seok, who is associate professor of philosophy at Alvernia University, explains how moral shame involves the whole self’s sensitivity to moral ideals and supports the Confucian virtues of self-cultivation, self-reflection and learning.     Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Most psychology books are written by experts with knowledge deriving from professional experience–for which we are grateful. Occasionally, a psychologist ventures to write a book that draws from intimate personal experience to illuminate important psychological phenomena. Such is the case with our guest this week, Shelvy Haywood Keglar. In his book Underdog to Top Dog: An Improbable Rise (published in 2017 in association with IBJ Book Publishing), Dr. Keglar describes his journey from poverty and rural life, through racism and segregation, to the fulfillment and success he enjoys now. He talks with me about what inspired him to document his personal journey and the hard-earned lessons he imparts to young Black men in search of hope and guidance. To the extent that dreaming is a basic human enterprise, Dr. Keglar’s experiences and wisdom strike universal chords. Shelvy Haywood Keglar is a psychologist, and founder and president of Midwest Psychological Center, Inc. He also serves as staff member at Community Hospital and Fairbanks Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has taught at Indiana University Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry. Prior publications have been in the areas of personality assessment, addictions, and adolescent psychology. Listen to the interview by clicking below. To subscribe to the New Books in Psychology podcast, click here. Eugenio Duarte is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating and body image problems, and relationship problems. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

The book discussed here is entitled The Calculus of Happiness: How a Mathematical Approach to Life Adds Up to Health, Wealth, and Love (Princeton University Press, 2017) by Oscar Fernandez. If the thought of calculus makes you nervous, don’t worry, you won’t need calculus to enjoy and appreciate this book. Its actually an intriguing way to introduce some of the precalculus topics that will later be needed in a calculus class, through the examination of some of the basic mathematical ideas that can be used to analyze the problems of how to attain relationship bliss, live long, and prosper and all without being a Vulcan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

We may think we see the world as it is, but neuroscience proves otherwise. Which is a good thing, according to neuroscientist and author Beau Lotto. In his new book Deviate: The Science of Seeing Differently (Hatchette Books, 2017), Lotto explains the mechanisms underlying our difficulty apprehending the world accurately, their implications for our relationships with one another and the world, and the creative potential that is unleashed when we embrace uncertainty and doubt. These issues come to life in our interview, as we discuss his discoveries in and out of the lab and their application to everyday experiences. Beau Lotto is a neuroscientist specializing in the biology and psychology of perception with more than 25 years experience conducting research on human perception and behavior and over 60 publications. He is Professor at University of London (Goldsmiths) and visiting scholar at New York University, as well as founder and CEO of the Lab of Misfits, a creative agency grounded in principles of perception. Follow Beau on Twitter. Listen to the interview by clicking below. To subscribe to the New Books in Psychology podcast, click here. Eugenio Duarte is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating and body image problems, and relationship problems. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

There are many fronts in the argument against the existence of a god or gods and veracity of religious narratives. Some familiar approaches are to critique the philosophical underpinnings of religious ideology or to make a case from the perspective of scientific evidence and the physical laws of reality. Inventing God: Psychology of Belief and the Rise of Secular Spirituality (Routledge, 2016), written by Dr. Jon Mills, argues from the perspective of psychology and posits that god is a psychological creation signifying ultimate ideality. In other words, He is the ultimate wish fulfillment, the forgiving all-powerful father you always wanted, the absolution of all your fears, the antidote to death. Mills writes that the conception of god is the manifestation of humanity’s denial and response to natural deprivation. He promotes secular humanism and a personal search for the numinous as a positive, life-affirming alternative. Dr. Jon Mills is a philosopher, psychoanalyst, active clinical psychologist, as well as Professor of Psychology & Psychoanalysis at the Adler Graduate Professional School in Toronto. He is the author and editor of many books and recipient of awards, including the the Otto Weininger Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in 2015, given by the Canadian Psychological Association. Carrie Lynn Evans is a PhD student at Universite Laval in Quebec City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

For many cognitive scientists, psychologists, and philosophers of mind, the best current theory of cognition holds that thinking is in some sense computation “in some sense,” because that core idea can and has been elaborated in a number of different ways that are or at least seem to be incompatible in at least some respects. In Unifying the Mind: Cognitive Representations as Graphical Models (MIT Press, 2014), David Danks proposes a version of this basic theory that links the mind closely with the computational framework used in machine learning: the idea that thinking involves manipulation of symbols encoded as graphical models. Danks, who is Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, argues that graphical models provide a unifying explanation of why we are able to move smoothly between different cognitive processes and why we are able to focus on features of situations that are relevant to our goals. While the book includes the mathematics behind graphical models, Danks explains his proposal in accessible yet precise terms for the non-mathematically trained reader. He discusses how graphical models work in causal reasoning, categorization, and other processes, how his view is related to more familiar cognitive frameworks, and some implications of his view for modularity and other traditional debates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Psychoanalysis has a reputation for insularity, often limiting its interest and scope to events in the consulting room. But the origins of Freud’s notion of free speech bear meaningful similarities to the Founding Fathers’ conception of free speech, sparking curiosity about how psychoanalysis and democracy might speak to one another. In her recent book, Feminine Law: Freud, Free Speech, and the Voice of Desire (Karnac, 2016), author Jill Gentile starts up such a conversation and makes a cogent argument for how psychoanalysis might contribute to a truly free and robust democratic political system. In our interview, we discuss how she stumbled upon the ever-evolving journey of documenting these links and how the feminine body is the missing piece in understanding what free speech truly means. Jill Gentile, Ph.D. is faculty at NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and training and supervising analyst at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity. Her essays, describing a semiotic and phenomenological trajectory of agency, desire, and symbolic life, have been published in many psychoanalytic journals. She is founding member of the DreamTank collective, dedicated to the application of psychoanalysis to democracy and to the public sphere. She is also a practicing psychoanalyst in Manhattan, NY and Highland Park, NJ. Follow her on Twitter. Listen to the interview by clicking below. To subscribe to the New Books in Psychology podcast, click here. Eugenio Duarte is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating and body image problems, and relationship problems. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Most books on the psychology of love relationships emphasize feelings, but Michael and Sarah Bennett‘s new book F*ck Love: One Shrink’s Sensible Advice for Finding a Lasting Relationship (Touchstone, 2017) takes a uniquely business-like approach to the topic. In so doing, these authors make a compelling argument for why long-lasting relationships depend more on quality of partnership than romance, and they offer concrete, practical guidelines for establishing and maintaining solid partnership. The book is humorous in tone but serious in purpose, as you’ll hear in our interview. They talk with me about the clinical work and personal experiences which inspired their approach and offer sage advice about relationships. Listen to the interview by clicking below. To subscribe to the New Books in Psychology podcast, click here. Eugenio Duarte is a licensed psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in New York City. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in LGBTQ issues, eating and body image problems, and relationship problems. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Carrie Jenkins‘ new book is a model for what public philosophy can be. Beautifully written, thoughtful, and compellingly and carefully argued, What Love Is: And What it Could Be (Basic Books, 2017) invites us to think openly and critically about romantic love: what it is, what it could be, and why it is crucial for us to ask these questions and come to our own answers. Engaging the work of bell hooks, Bertrand Russell, Simone de Beauvoir, and more, Jenkins argues that love has a dual nature both social and biological and the book develops that position while offering a critical perspective on the arguments and evidence proposed by scientists, philosophers, and other interlocutors on whose work Jenkins builds. Romantic love is in the process of changing, suggests Jenkins, and the norm of monogamy could be one of the features in flux. The work offers a critique of amatonormativity including the assumed norm of monogamous dyads as the basis of romantic relationships while leaving readers with a take-home message that is simultaneously generous, bold, and inspiring: think about love for yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In her book, Dr. Joyce Brothers: The Founding Mother of TV Psychology (Rowman and Littlefield, 2016), Kathleen Collins presents an extensive history of the woman who is arguably the most famous television psychologist. Starting with Brothers’ appearance as a boxing expert on the $64,000 Question in the 1950s, and bringing readers through her decades-long career in television and radio, Collins argues that Brothers created the personal approach to psychology that became the norm for television other popular media. Collins examines the different ways that Brothers created a career for herself for over 50 years, looking at her role as psychologist, as well as her roles as guest star, actor, and media celebrity. She looks at the ways Brothers used her savvy business sense to create a multilayered career that made vital contributions to psychology, television, and U.S. cultural history. Collins uses Brothers’ personal papers and her published interviews as well as her own interviews with Brothers’ daughter and colleagues to create a well-researched and informative exploration into this television icon. Rebekah Buchanan is an Assistant Professor of English at Western Illinois University. Her work examines the role of narrative–both analog and digital–in people’s lives. She is interested in how personal narratives produced in alternative spaces create sites that challenge traditionally accepted public narratives. She researches zines, zine writers and the influence of music subcultures and fandom on writers and narratives. You can find more about her on her website, follow her on Twitter @rj_buchanan or email her at rj-buchanan@wiu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology