New Books in Psychology

A young philosopher and Guinness World Record holder in pull-ups argues that the key to happiness is not goal-driven striving but forging a life that integrates self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature.What is the meaning of the good life? In Happiness in Action: A Philosopher's Guide to the Good Life (Harvard UP, 2022), Adam Adatto Sandel draws on ancient and modern thinkers and on two seemingly disparate pursuits of his own, philosophy and fitness, to offer a surprising answer to this age-old human question.Sandel argues that finding fulfillment is not about attaining happiness, conceived as a state of mind, or even about accomplishing one’s greatest goals. Instead, true happiness comes from immersing oneself in activity that is intrinsically rewarding. The source of meaning, he suggests, derives from the integrity or “wholeness” of self that we forge throughout the journey of life.At the heart of Sandel’s account of life as a journey are three virtues that get displaced and distorted by our goal-oriented striving: self-possession, friendship, and engagement with nature. Sandel offers illuminating and counterintuitive accounts of these virtues, revealing how they are essential to a happiness that lasts.To illustrate the struggle of living up to these virtues, Sandel looks to literature, film, and television, and also to his own commitments and adventures. A focal point of his personal narrative is a passion that, at first glance, is as narrow a goal-oriented pursuit as one can imagine: training to set the Guinness World Record for Most Pull-Ups in One Minute. Drawing on his own experiences, Sandel makes philosophy accessible for readers who, in their own infinitely various ways, struggle with the tension between goal-oriented striving and the embrace of life as a journey.Adam Adatto Sandel is a philosopher, Guinness World Record holder for Most Pull-Ups in One Minute, and an award-winning teacher. Author of the critically acclaimed book The Place of Prejudice: A Case for Reasoning within the World, Sandel has taught at Harvard University and is currently an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn.Daniel Moran earned his B.A. and M.A. in English from Rutgers University and his Ph.D. in History from Drew University. The author of Creating Flannery O’Connor: Her Critics, Her Publishers, Her Readers, he teaches research and writing at Rutgers and co-hosts the podcast Fifteen-Minute Film Fanatics, found at https://fifteenminutefilm.podb... and on Twitter @15MinFilm. 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 David Livermore about his book Digital, Diverse & Divided: How to Talk to Racists, Compete with Robots, and Overcome Polarization (Berrett-Koehler, 2022).While the author argues that cultural intelligence (CQ) begins where EQ leaves off, in truth key attributes of EQ like understanding another person’s motivations and figuring out how to address them matter in both cases. Nowadays the challenge of connecting well only becomes harder, of course, given how social media means we often occupy echo chambers that merely reinforce what we already know and believe, as opposed to achieving a better understanding of how a person from a different place, or of a different race, gender, faith or political persuasion might see the matter at hand. This episode delves into how organizations must live up to their espoused values, plus instances where that fails to happen and what the corrective steps might be.David Livermore is the president and cofounder of the Cultural Intelligence Center in East Lansing, Michigan, and a research fellow at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He’s held a variety of leadership positions in nonprofit organizations around the world and taught at numerous universities in addition to being a speaker and advisor to Fortune 500 companies and governments in over 100 countries.Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His newest book is Emotionomics 2.0: The Emotional Dynamics Underlying Key Business Goals. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Suicide has been on the rise in recent years, most frighteningly among young people. Suicide is second leading cause of death for people ages 10-14 and 25-34. Gay, lesbian, and transgender youth are at particular risk.Every year in the U.S., more people die by suicide than in car accidents, and more suicide deaths occur than homicide and AIDS deaths combined.In this episode Renee Garfinkel and Hannah Rothstein discuss the myths and facts about suicide, its warning signs, and how friends and family, teachers and others can help.Hannah Rothstein, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Management at Baruch College, City University of New York, Crisis Counselor for the Trevor Project.If you’re thinking about suicide or you’re in crisis right now,In U.S. call or text 988 or contact 988lifeline.org to talk with someone online.In Israel: call suicide hotline *1201 (press 3 for languages, then select English).Hannah Rothstein, Ph.D. is Professor Emerita of Management at Baruch College, City University of New York, Crisis Counselor for the Trevor Project. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In this podcast episode, Greg Marchildon interviews Erika Dyck on the book she co-authored with Jesse Donaldson on an unusual chapter in Canada’s medical history. Entitled The Acid Room: The Psychedelic Trials and Tribulations of Hollywood Hospital, this book was published by Vancouver’s Anvil Press in 2021. This is a history of a private hospital in greater Vancouver which specialized in treatments for alcoholism, trauma and other conditions using LSD, mescalin and other psychotropic substances from the late 1950s until it shut down in the early 1970s. Erika Dyck is professor of History and Canada Research Chair in the History of Medicine at the University of Saskatchewan.This interview was produced with the support of The Champlain Society. The mission of The Champlain Society is to increase public awareness of, and accessibility to, Canada’s rich store of historical records.Gregory P. Marchildon is the Ontario Research Chair in Health Policy and System Design with the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation at the University of Toronto. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice (Palgrave Macmillan), Merrick D. Pilling urges those invested in social justice for 2SLGBTQ people to interrogate the biomedical model of mental illness beyond the diagnoses that specifically target gender and sexual dissidence. In this first comprehensive application of Mad Studies to queer and trans experiences of mental distress, Pilling advances a broad critique of the biomedical model of mental illness as it pertains to 2SLGBTQ people, arguing that Mad Studies is especially amenable to making sense of queer and trans madness. Based on empirical data from two qualitative research studies, this book includes analyses of inpatient chart documentation from a psychiatric hospital and interviews with those who have experienced distress. Using an intersectional lens, Pilling critically examines what constitutes mental health treatment and the impacts of medical strategies on mad queer and trans people. Ultimately, Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice explores the emancipatory promise of queer and trans madness, advocating for more resources to respond to crisis and distress in ways that are non-coercive, non-carceral, and honour autonomy as well as interdependence within 2SLGBTQ communities.Clayton Jarrard works at the University of Kansas Center for Research, contributing to initiatives that bridge research, policy, and community efforts. His scholarly engagement spans the subject areas of cultural anthropology, queer studies, disability studies, mad studies, and religious studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In this episode of High Theory, Tung-Hui Hu talks with Júlia Irion Martins about Digital Lethargy, as part of our High Theory in STEM series. As a modern ailment, digital lethargy is a societal pathology, like earlier forms of acedia, otium, and neurasthenia, but also a disease of performing selfhood within the disposable identities of contemporary, digital service work. In this episode, Tung-Hui Hu makes the argument that digital lethargy helps us turn away from the demand to constantly “be ourselves” and see the potential of quieter, more ordinary forms of survival in the digital age such as collective inaction.In the episode he discusses Heike Geissler’s Seasonal Associate (Semiotexte/Native Agents, 2018, trans. Katy Derbyshire). He also references the film Sleeping Beauty (dir. Julia Leigh, 2011), Douglas A. Blackmon’s Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (Anchor, 2008), Heike Geissler’s Seasonal Associate (Semiotexte/Native Agents, 2018, trans. Katy Derbyshire), and Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning (Penguin Random House, 2020). Other mentions include the artist Aria Dean and scholar Achille Mbembe.Tung-Hui Hu is a poet and scholar. His new website has the best domain ending: tunghui.hu He is a 2022-23 Rome Prize Fellow in Literature at the American Academy in Rome and an associate professor of English at the University of Michigan. His book on this topic, Digital Lethargy: Dispatches from an Age of Disconnection (MIT Press, 2022), will be published on October 4This week’s image was made by Saronik Bosu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In this podcast Owen Bennett-Jones and psychoanalyst Daniel Pick discuss brainwashing, thought control and group think. In the case of totalitarian political systems, do dissidents prove that brainwashing cannot be guaranteed to work? Or do the techniques used by advertisers and political leaders in fact mean people are being manipulated and can do nothing about it?Pick is the author of Brainwashed: A New History of Thought Control (Wellcome Collection, 2020). Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

The concept of the unconscious has a complicated place in the history of psychology. Many areas of study ignored or outright denied it for a long time, while psychoanalysis claimed it as one of its central tenets. More recently, many non-psychoanalytic researchers have addressed the unconscious, but under different names—automaticity, implicit memory and learning, and heuristics, among others. The result is a lack of consensus in psychology on what the unconscious is and how it bears on psychotherapy processes.In their new book, The Unconscious: Theory, Research, and Clinical Implications (Guilford Press, 2019) authors Joel Weinberger and Valentina Stoycheva undertake to bring together the various lines of study concerning the unconscious in order to arrive at an integrated model of unconscious processes. In our interview, they discuss the urgency for writing this book, what we might learn from various models of unconscious processes, and how psychotherapy might be enhanced by their state-of-the-art findings. This interview will be illuminating and useful for mental health therapists, researchers, and anyone interested in how the mind works.Joel Weinberger, Ph.D., is Professor in the Derner School of Psychology at Adelphi University and a founder of Implicit Strategies, which consults for political campaigns, nonprofits, and businesses.Valentina Stoycheva, Ph.D., is a staff psychologist at Northwell Health in Bay Shore, New York, where she works with military service members, veterans, and their families. She is also a cofounder and director of Stress and Trauma Evaluation and Psychological Services (STEPS), a group practice that focuses on the integrative treatment of trauma.Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in Miami. He treats individuals and couples, with specialties in gender and sexuality, eating and body image problems, and relationship issues. He is a graduate and faculty of William Alanson White Institute in Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis, and Psychology in New York City and former chair of their LGBTQ Study Group; and faculty at Florida Psychoanalytic Institute in Miami. He is also a contributing author to the book Introduction to Contemporary Psychoanalysis: Defining Terms and Building Bridges (2018, Routledge).  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

If you've experienced long-term or repeated trauma--such as childhood abuse or neglect, domestic violence, betrayal, or prolonged emotional abuse--you may struggle with intense feelings of sadness, anger, anxiety, shame, and distrust toward others. You should know that you aren't alone, your pain is real, and there are ways to improve your mental health and begin to heal. This compassionate and evidence-based workbook can help you get started.Tamara McClintock Greenberg's The Complex PTSD Coping Skills Workbook (New Harbinger, 2022) offers an integrative approach for coping with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) using cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), mindfulness, mentalization, and relational therapy. You'll learn the most effective strategies to manage symptoms, overcome painful memories, and build self-confidence. Most importantly, you'll find validation that your feelings aren't "crazy" or "outsized," and discover the skills needed to help you reclaim your life.This empowering workbook will help you: Identify and understand the root cause of your C-PTSD Overcome fear, hypervigilance, and avoidance Balance emotions before they interfere with daily life Seek out and maintain relationships based in equality and respect Eugenio Duarte, Ph.D. is a psychologist and psychoanalyst practicing in Miami. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews co-authors Lara and Stephen Sheehi about their book, Psychoanalysis Under Occupation: Practicing Resistance in Palestine (Routledge, 2021). As they discuss in the interview, the book represents years of research, engagement, and relationship-building with and alongside psychoanalytically oriented Palestinian clinicians working throughout historic Palestine. These relationships and solidarities form the base from which the authors start to think about the intersection of psychoanalysis, decoloniality, and liberatory practice.J.J. Mull is a poet, training clinician, and fellow in the Program for Psychotherapy at Cambridge Health Alliance. Originally from the west coast, he currently lives and bikes in Somerville, MA. He can be reached at: jay.c.mull@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology