New Books in Psychology

Season Two erupts in our ears with a film-noir soundscape—an eerie voice utters strange and disjointed phrases and echoing footsteps lead to sirens and gunshots. What on Earth are we listening to? We unravel the mystery with NYU media professor Mara Mills  who studies the historical relationship between disability and media technologies.In Episode 8, “Test Subjects,” we examine the strange and obscure history of sound’s use as a psychological diagnostic tool. In the late 20th century, while many disabilities were eliminated through medical interventions, a host of new disabilities were invented, especially within the realm of psychology. Mills’s historical work in the audio archives of American Foundation for the Blind reveals how auditory projective testing was used to diagnose blind people with additional psychological disabilities. As we listen to these strange archival sounds, we learn how culture and technology shape the history of human ability and disability.Read Mara Mill’s article on auditory projective tests, “Evocative Object: Auditory Inkblot” and visit NYU’s Center for Disability Studies, which she co-directs with Faye Ginsburg.  Thanks to archivist Helen Selsdon and the American Foundation for the Blind for the use of the auditory projective tests.This episode’s theme music is by Mack Hagood with additional music by Graeme Gibson, Blue Dot Sessions, Claude Debussy, and Duke Ellington. The show was edited by Craig Eley and Mack Hagood. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Did Woodrow Wilson's daddy issues cause World War II? And what might this teach us about our contemporary political plight? Jordan Osserman talks with psychoanalyst Jamieson Webster and historian Patrick Weil about The Madman in the White House: Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt, and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson (Harvard UP, 2023). While conducting research at Yale, Patrick Weil chanced upon the unpublished and unredacted original manuscript of Sigmund Freud and Ambassador William Bullit's notorious psychobiography of former US President Woodrow Wilson - sat in an unlabelled dusty box. Weil's investigation of this incredible and poorly understood Freud-Bullit collaboration led him to radically reconsider Woodrow Wilson's role in the Treaty of Versailles, and the value of psychoanalysis in illuminating a self-sabotage of world historical proportions. Jamieson Webster is a psychoanalyst in New York City. She is the author of the forthcoming On Breathing (Peninsula, 2025), Disorganisation & Sex (Divided, 2022), The Life and Death of Psychoanalysis (Karnac, 2011) and Conversion Disorder (Columbia University Press, 2018); she also co-wrote, with Simon Critchley, Stay, Illusion! The Hamlet Doctrine (Pantheon, 2013). She contributes regularly to Artforum, The New York Times and the New York Review of Books.Patrick Weil is a Visiting Professor of Law at Yale Law School, and a senior research fellow at the French National Research Center in the University of Paris1, Pantheon-Sorbonne. Professor Weil's work focuses on comparative immigration, citizenship, and church-state law and policy. His most recent books are The Madman in the White House. Sigmund Freud, Ambassador Bullitt and the Lost Psychobiography of Woodrow Wilson (Harvard University Press, 2023) and De La Laïcité en France (Grasset, 2021). Weil is also, since 2006, the founder and the chairman of the NGO Libraries Without Borders (Bibliothèques Sans Frontières). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today I talked to Benjamin Breen about his book Tripping on Utopia: Margaret Mead, the Cold War, and the Troubled Birth of Psychedelic Science (Grand Central, 2024).The generation that survived the second World War emerged with a profoundly ambitious sense of social experimentation. In the '40s and '50s, transformative drugs rapidly entered mainstream culture, where they were not only legal, but openly celebrated. American physician John C. Lilly infamously dosed dolphins (and himself) with LSD in a NASA-funded effort to teach dolphins to talk. A tripping Cary Grant mumbled into a Dictaphone about Hegel as astronaut John Glenn returned to Earth.At the centre of this revolution were the pioneering anthropologists - and star-crossed lovers - Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Convinced the world was headed toward certain disaster, Mead and Bateson made it their life's mission to reshape humanity through a new science of consciousness expansion, but soon found themselves at odds with the government bodies who funded their work, whose intentions were less than pure. Mead and Bateson's partnership unlocks an untold chapter in the history of the twentieth century, linking drug researchers with CIA agents, outsider sexologists and the founders of the Information Age. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Patriarchy and Its Discontents: Psychoanalytic Perspectives (Routledge, 2022) joins luminaries in contemporary psychoanalysis with pioneers of feminism to provide a timely analysis of the crushing effects of patriarchy and the role that psychoanalysis can play in moving us into a future defined by mutuality and respect.Departing from the contemporary psychoanalytic view that the socio-political and intrapsychic are inextricably linked, contributors use psychoanalysis as a tool to demystify and even dismantle patriarchy, while also examining how our theories, practices, and institutions have been implicated in it. The issues under examination here include important and often under-theorized topics such as institutional responses to boundary violations, the search for a black-feminist psychoanalytic theory, patriarchal enactments within the trans community, the persistence of patriarchy within contemporary psychoanalysis, and the impacts of patriarchy on diverse patient populations and ways to address this clinically.This book represents the first anthology comprised of voices from both within and outside the psychoanalytic realm, outlining a contemporary feminist psychoanalysis for both an analytic and non-analytic audience. It is invaluable for both psychoanalysts and for those in gender studies wishing to draw on psychoanalytic thinking.About the editors:Jean Petrucelli is a training and supervising analyst, director and co-founder of the Eating Disorders, Compulsions and Addictions Service (EDCAS), a one-year certificate program, and founder and chair of the Conference Advisory Board (CAB) at the William Alanson White Institute.Sarah Schoen is a training and supervising analyst at the William Alanson White Institute, faculty and supervisor at the Eating Disorders, Compulsions and Addictions Program at the William Alanson White Institute, and clinical professor of Psychology at the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.Naomi Snider is a psychoanalyst in New York City and a graduate of the William Alanson White Institute’s Certificate Program in Psychoanalysis.Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Do I Know You? From Faceblindness to Super Recognition (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023), Dr. Sharrona Pearl explores the fascinating category of face recognition and the "the face recognition spectrum," which ranges from face blindness at one end to super recognition at the other. Super recognizers can recall faces from only the briefest exposure, while face blind people lack the capacity to recognize faces at all, including those of their closest loved ones. Informed by archival research, the latest neurological studies, and testimonials from people at both ends of the spectrum, Dr. Pearl tells a nuanced story of how we relate to each other through our faces.The category of face recognition is relatively new despite the importance of faces in how we build relationships and understand our own humanity. Dr. Pearl shows how this most tacit of knowledge came to enter the scientific and diagnostic field despite difficulties with identifying it. She offers a grounded framework for how we evaluate others and draw conclusions about them, with significant implications for race, gender, class, and disability. Dr. Pearl explores the shifting ideas around the face-recognition spectrum, explaining the effects of these diagnoses on real people alongside implications for how facial recognition is studied and understood. Face blindness is framed as a disability, while super recognition is framed as a superpower with no meaningful disadvantages. This superhero rhetoric is tied to the use of super recognizers in criminal detection, prosecution, and other forms of state surveillance. Do I Know You? demonstrates a humanistic approach to the study of the brain, one that offers an entirely new method for examining this fundamental aspect of human interaction.This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Judith Herman is renowned for her groundbreaking work with survivors of trauma, including sexual trauma. Her earlier books include Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror (Basic Books, 2022) and Father-Daughter Incest (Harvard UP, 2000)The #MeToo movement brought worldwide attention to sexual violence, in both domestic and work settings. However, the movement did not address the crime of sexual violence in war, and the use of rape as a weapon of war. In fact, when these historical horrors were brutally used once again in October 2023, the #MeToo movement, and other feminist and anti-rape organizations responded - not with outrage- but with silence.In contrast, high profile, celebrity cases of sexual abuse and harasment in the U.S. and U.K. gained media coverage, with attention focused on the fates of a few notorious predators who were put on trial. We heard far less about the outcomes of those trials for the survivors of their abuse.Professor Herman maintains that conventional retributive process fails to serve most survivors; it was never designed for them. She argues that the first step toward a better form of justice is simply to ask survivors what would make things as right as possible for them.In Truth and Repair: How Trauma Survivors Envision Justice (Basic Books, 2023) she commits the radical act of listening to survivors. Recounting their stories, she offers an alternative vision of justice as healing for survivors and their communities. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Masud Khan (1924-1989), was an eminent and, ultimately, scandalous British psychoanalyst who trained and practised in London during an important period in the development of psychoanalysis. From August 1967 to March 1980, he wrote his 39 volume Work Books, a diary containing observations and reflections on his own life, the world of psychoanalysis, his evolving theoretical formulations, Western culture, and the turbulent social and political developments of the time.In Diary of a Fallen Psychoanalyst: The Work Books of Masud Khan 1967-1972 (Karnac, 2022), readers will find fascinating entries on Khan's colleague and mentor Donald Winnicott and other well-known analysts of the period, including Anna Freud. Also featuring in these pages are leaders in the world of culture and the arts such as Julie Andrews, the Redgraves and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Eric Kandel was born in Vienna in 1929. In 1938 he and his family fled to Brooklyn, where he attended the Yeshiva of Flatbush. He studied history and literature at Harvard, and received an MD from NYU. He is a professor of biochemistry at Columbia University, and won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research on memory.In addition to his science textbooks, Kandel has written several books for a general readership, including In Search of Memory: The Emergence of a New Science of Mind (2007), and The Disordered Mind: What Unusual Brains Tell Us About Ourselves (2018). In 2012 he spoke to the Institute about his book The Age of Insight: The Quest to Understand the Unconscious in Art, Mind, and Brain, from Vienna 1900 to the Present (Random House, 2012).About the book: At the turn of the century, Vienna was the cultural capital of Europe. Artists and scientists met in glittering salons, where they freely exchanged ideas that led to revolutionary breakthroughs in psychology, brain science, literature, and art. Kandel takes us into the world of Vienna to trace, in rich and rewarding detail, the ideas and advances made then, and their enduring influence today.The Vienna School of Medicine led the way with its realization that truth lies hidden beneath the surface. That principle infused Viennese culture and strongly influenced the other pioneers of Vienna 1900. Sigmund Freud shocked the world with his insights into how our everyday unconscious aggressive and erotic desires are repressed and disguised in symbols, dreams, and behavior. Arthur Schnitzler revealed women's unconscious sexuality in his novels through his innovative use of the interior monologue. Gustav Klimt, Oscar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele created startlingly evocative and honest portraits that expressed unconscious lust, desire, anxiety, and the fear of death.Kandel tells the story of how these pioneers--Freud, Schnitzler, Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele--inspired by the Vienna School of Medicine, in turn influenced the founders of the Vienna School of Art History to ask pivotal questions such as What does the viewer bring to a work of art? How does the beholder respond to it? These questions prompted new and ongoing discoveries in psychology and brain biology, leading to revelations about how we see and perceive, how we think and feel, and how we respond to and create works of art. Kandel, one of the leading scientific thinkers of our time, places these five innovators in the context of today's cutting-edge science and gives us a new understanding of the modernist art of Klimt, Kokoschka, and Schiele, as well as the school of thought of Freud and Schnitzler. Reinvigorating the intellectual enquiry that began in Vienna 1900, The Age of Insight is a wonderfully written, superbly researched, and beautifully illustrated book that also provides a foundation for future work in neuroscience and the humanities. It is an extraordinary book from an international leader in neuroscience and intellectual history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In An Autobiography of Trauma: A Healing Journey (Park Street Press, 2024), renowned developer of Somatic Experiencing Peter A. Levine shares his personal journey to heal his own severe childhood trauma offering profound insights into the evolution of his innovative trauma healing method.Casting himself as a modern-day Chiron, the wounded healer of Greek mythology, Dr. Levine describes, in graphic detail, the violence of his childhood juxtaposed with specific happy and exuberant memories, which helped him prepare for coming to terms with his horrifying experiences. He shares his inner experience of being guided through Somatic Experiencing (SE) to illuminate and untangle his traumatic wounds and describes the mysterious and unexpected dreams and visions that have guided him through his life’s work. Exploring his dream visitations from Albert Einstein in depth, he explains how he came to view Einstein as his personal spirit guide and mentor and how he later discovered his own personal and profound real-life connection to him through his mother.Describing his breakthroughs in developing Somatic Experiencing, the author details how he helped thousands of others before resolving his own trauma years later with the support of his method. He explains how the SE method is derived from his studies of wild animals in their natural environments, neurobiology, and more than 50 years of clinical observations. He describes his education and career as well as his encounters with noteworthy figures such as somaticists Charlotte Selver and Ida Rolf, ethological zoologist Nikolaas Tinbergen, and autism pioneer Mira Rothenberg.Unveiling the inner story of the man who changed the way psychologists, doctors, and healers understand and treat the wounds of trauma and abuse, this autobiography reveals how anyone suffering from trauma has a valuable story to tell. And by telling our stories, we can catalyze the return of hope, dignity, and wholeness.Peter A. Levine, Ph.D., holds a doctorate in Medical and Biological Physics from the University of California at Berkeley and a doctorate in Psychology from International University. The recipient of four lifetime achievement awards, he is the author of several books, including An Autobiography of Trauma and Waking the Tiger, which has now been printed in 33 countries and has sold over a million copies.Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Heather White brings two decades of environmental advocacy work and national nonprofit leadership to life with her joyful and practical books on tackling eco-anxiety, 60 Days to a Greener Life: Ease Eco-Anxiety through Joyful Daily Action (Harper Horizon, 2024) and One Green Thing: Discover Your Hidden Power to Help Save the Planet (Harper Horizon, 2022).The CEO & Founder of the nonprofit OneGreenThing, Heather was named "One of the Top 15 Women Leaders in Sustainability" by Green Building & Design Magazine and "100 Women to Watch in Wellness" by mindbodygreen. Her trademark intelligence and accessibility on climate and environmental issues has been featured on Good Morning America, CBS, PBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News, and cited in The Washington Post, New York Times, and Teen Vogue. White's two decades of experience include serving as a presidential campaign staffer for Al Gore, the environmental counsel to a US Senator, and the executive director of three national environmental nonprofits.In her books, Heather weaves together research-backed strategies for personal climate action with stories from her childhood in East Tennessee, career in Washington, DC and Yellowstone, and life with her family - including two GenZ daughters - in Bozeman, Montana. Her goal each day - through seminars, leadership training, consulting, social media, and now in her books - is to create culture change that will lead to climate policy solutions. She helps individuals address "climate anxiety" - the overwhelm of the climate crisis -- through identity & action. Her Service Superpower is Philanthropist-Wonk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology