
New Books in Psychology
1,286 episodes — Page 15 of 26
Ep 130Aaron J. Jackson, "Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities" (U California Press, 2021)
Vulnerable narratives of fatherhood are few and far between; rarer still is an ethnography that delves into the practical and emotional realities of intensive caregiving. Grounded in the intimate everyday lives of men caring for children with major physical and intellectual disabilities, Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities (U California Press, 2021) undertakes an exploration of how men shape their identities in the context of caregiving. Anthropologist Aaron J. Jackson fuses ethnographic research and creative nonfiction to offer an evocative account of what is required for men to create habitable worlds and find some kind of “normal” when their circumstances are anything but. Combining stories from his fieldwork in North America with reflections on his own experience caring for his severely disabled son, Jackson argues that care has the potential to transform our understanding of who we are and how we relate to others. Aaron J. Jackson is a Lecturer in Anthropology at Victoria University. His research focuses on fatherhood, care, and disability. Alize Arıcan is a Postdoctoral Associate at Rutgers University's Center for Cultural Analysis. She is an anthropologist whose research focuses on urban renewal, futurity, care, and migration in Istanbul, Turkey. Her work has been featured in Current Anthropology, City & Society, Radical Housing Journal, and entanglements: experiments in multimodal ethnography. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 80April Rinne, "Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change" (Berrett-Koehler, 2021)
Today I talked to April Rinne about her new book Flux: 8 Superpowers for Thriving in Constant Change (Berrett-Koehler, 2021) What’s your relationship to change? Do you embrace it, filled with hope for the future? Or are you somebody who’s more cautious, even worried about what change might portend? In this episode, April Rinne offers advice based on her 8 rules for navigating change more adroitly. Part of her advice has to do with slowing down, setting a sustainable pace to avoid burnout in ever more demanding careers. But there’s more. How may higher education change, including MBA programs, in a world where more of more of us will be part of the Gig Economy? And within companies, how can leaders create trust when inequality in pay between executives and rank-and-files members threaten even the possibility of a “we” identity? Listen in for Rinne’s unique perspective. April Rinne is one of the 50 leading female futurists in the world, a Young Global Leader at the World Economic Forum and a Fulbright Scholar. She’s also traveled to over 100 countries as part of having a front-row seat to a world in flux. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 221Lisa Marchiano, "Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself" (Sounds True, 2021)
Today I interview Lisa Marchiano. Marchiano is a mother of two children. She’s also a Jungian analyst and a host of the podcast called This Jungian Life. She brings these experiences together in her new book Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself (Sounds True, 2021). It’s a fascinating and deeply insightful book that draws on the universal wisdom of fairy tales and myths to illuminate how motherhood offers mothers a rich opportunity for psychological exploration and growth. And the wonderful thing about Marchiano’s approach is that she fully recognizes that this opportunity comes amid all sorts of struggles, from spilled juice to adolescent outbursts to the complicated and sometimes ugly feelings that mothers experience. Her book recognizes and names these difficulties and shows how they might, in the end, lead to unexpected riches. Eric LeMay is on the creative writing faculty at Ohio University. He is the author of five books, most recently Remember Me. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 176Joel Whitebook, "Freud: An Intellectual Biography" (Cambridge UP, 2017)
We interview Dr. Joel Whitebook, philosopher and psychoanalyst about his book Freud: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge UP, 2017). Dr. Whitebook works in Critical Theory in the tradition of the Frankfurt School, developing that tradition with his clinical and philosophical knowledge of recent advances in psychoanalytic theory. The life and work of Sigmund Freud continue to fascinate general and professional readers alike. Joel Whitebook here presents the first major biography of Freud since the last century, taking into account recent developments in psychoanalytic theory and practice, gender studies, philosophy, cultural theory, and more. Offering a radically new portrait of the creator of psychoanalysis, this book explores the man in all his complexity alongside an interpretation of his theories that cuts through the stereotypes that surround him. The development of Freud's thinking is addressed not only in the context of his personal life, but also in that of society and culture at large, while the impact of his thinking on subsequent issues of psychoanalysis, philosophy, and social theory is fully examined. Whitebook demonstrates that declarations of Freud's obsolescence are premature, and, with his clear and engaging style, brings this vivid figure to life in compelling and readable fashion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 175Darian Leader, "Jouissance: Sexuality, Suffering and Satisfaction" (Polity Press, 2021)
Although the term 'jouissance' is common currency in psychoanalysis today, how much does it really tell us? While often taken to designate a fusion of sexuality, suffering and satisfaction, the term has fallen into a purely descriptive use that closes down more questions than it opens up. Although assumed to explain the coalescence of pleasure and pain, it tends to cover a range of quite different issues that should be distinguished rather than conflated. By returning to some of its sources in Freud and elaborations in Lacan, Darian Leader's Jouissance: Sexuality, Suffering and Satisfaction (Polity Press, 2021) hopes to stimulate a debate around the relations of pleasure to pain, autoerotism, the links of satisfaction to arousal, the effects of repression, and the place of the body in psychoanalytic theory. Unlike other studies in Lacanian psychoanalysis, it aims to contextualise Lacan's work and encourage dialogue with other analytic traditions. Philip Lance, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Los Angeles. He can be reached at [email protected] . Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 79Nika Kabiri, "Money off the Table: Decision Science and the Secret to Smarter Investing" (Houndstooth Press, 2020)
Today I talked to Nika Kabiri about her new book Money off the Table: Decision Science and the Secret to Smarter Investing (Houndstooth Press, 2020). Adam Smith not only helped to create the field of economics; the guy was also a moral philosopher who readily accepted the role of emotions in decision-making. How surprised he might have been to discover that it took decades upon decades for the field to come back to accepting the role that emotions and biases play in decision-making! My guest this week, Nika Kabiri, has no such blind spot. She knows that the Confirmation Bias is among the most important factors to weigh in helping her clients. Along the way, this conversation takes in the movie The Big Short and Jerome Powell and what may lay ahead for the economy. Five types of investors are also discussed, from the more-is-better investor to the what-has-always-worked investor. Like not to be poor? This episode is therefore worth a listen. Nika Kabiri teaches Decision Science at the University of Washington, and is the founder and owner of Kabiri Consulting LLC, where she uses Decision Science to help businesses grow. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 61Edward Slingerland, "Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization" (Hachette, 2021)
Ever since Noah exited the ark, human beings have been wanting to get drunk and high. Why? Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization (Hachette, 2021) is the latest attempt to answer that question. Drunk elegantly cuts through the tangle of urban legends and anecdotal impressions that surround our notions of intoxication to provide the first rigorous, scientifically-grounded explanation for our love of alcohol. Drawing on evidence from archaeology, history, cognitive neuroscience, psychopharmacology, social psychology, literature, and genetics, Slingerland shows that our taste for chemical intoxicants is not an evolutionary mistake, as we are so often told. In fact, intoxication helps solve several distinctively human challenges: enhancing creativity, alleviating stress, building trust, and pulling off the miracle of getting fiercely tribal primates to cooperate with strangers. Our desire to get drunk, along with the individual and social benefits provided by drunkenness, played a crucial role in sparking the rise of the first large-scale societies. We would not have civilization without intoxication. From marauding Vikings and bacchanalian orgies to sex-starved fruit flies, blind cave fish, and problem-solving crows, Drunk is packed with case studies and science, as well as practical takeaways for individuals and communities. The result is a captivating and long overdue investigation into humanity's oldest indulgence—one that explains not only why we want to get drunk, but also how it might actually be good for us to tie one on now and then. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator and host of The New Books Network’s Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 36Tony Nader, "One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness: Simple Answers to the Big Questions of Life" (Penguin Random House, 2021)
Tony Nader, MD, PhD, a medical doctor trained at Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD in neuroscience) and globally recognized expert in the science of consciousness and human development. His training includes internal medicine, psychiatry, and neurology. He's the successor to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and the head of the Transcendental Meditation organization globally. He was appointed assistant director of clinical research at MIT, and was a clinical research fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He conducted research in neurochemistry and neuroendocrinology; the relationship between diet, age, behavior, mood, seasonal influences, and hormonal activity; and the role of neurotransmitter precursors in medicine. Dr. Nader has shared his expertise at academic institutions such as Harvard Business School on The Neuroscience of Transcendence, Stanford University, where he gave talks in a series entitled “Hacking Consciousness.” as well as the keynote speaker for a conference at the House of Commons, British Parliament where his unique expertise in the knowledge of East and West has also been recognized by the National Health Service. His research has been published in Neurology, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Journal of Gerontology, Progress in Brain Research, and other journals. In his new book, One Unbounded Ocean of Consciousness: Simple Answers to the Big Questions of Life (Penguin Random House, 2021), Dr. Nader comprehensively examines what scientists call the “hard” problem of What is consciousness? He unpacks this abstract question for both a general audience and experts in the field by investigating consciousness in terms of human physiology, quantum mechanics in physics, and the more ancient Vedic science. Dr. Nader is bringing the science of consciousness to new audiences and expanding the understanding of the relationship between mind and body, consciousness, and physiology and the furthest reaches of human potential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 78Michele Wucker, "You Are What You Risk: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World" (Pegasus Books, 2021)
Today I talked to Michele Wucker about her new book You Are What You Risk: The New Art and Science of Navigating an Uncertain World (Pegasus Books, 2021) Your risk fingerprint is a mixture of how personality traits, experiences, and social context have shaped how you approach risk and uncertainty in life. Also crucial is your risk empathy and the degree to which you are risk-savvy, both of which value reading your environment in analyzing the risk you and others face and how people are coping with unknowns. This episode explore risk in terms of a variety of situations and segments of the population. Are millennials risk-averse or risk savvy? Why are white male who are risk-takers people who tend to trust institutions and be anti-egalitarian? How should companies approach mergers and acquisitions when the two companies have very different risk cultures? And finally, which professions tend to be the most prone to over-confidence? In every case, “it depends” is a fair answer but by no means all that you will hear on these and other topics. Michele Wucker has been honored as a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum and a Guggenheim Fellow. Her third book, The Gray Rhino, inspired a popular TED talk and has influenced world markets, government policy and business strategies. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 84Alcino Silva, “Learning and Memory” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Learning and Memory is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Alcino Silva, Distinguished Professor of Neurobiology, Psychiatry and Psychology at the David Geffen School of Medicine and Director of the Integrated Center for Learning and Memory at UCLA. Alcino Silva runs a learning and memory lab at UCLA that is focused on a vast number of topics, from schizophrenia and autism to learning and memory. This fascinating conversation explores how he and his colleagues focus on understanding the specific molecular mechanisms of neurobiology with the goal of being able to intervene and repair these mechanisms when they go awry. Further topics include plasticity of the brain, implanting memories, how cognitive deficits associated with developmental disorders can be reversed, the importance of “research maps” for the field and inspired optimism for the future. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 144Michelle Elman, "The Joy of Being Selfish: Why You Need Boundaries and How to Set Them" (Welbeck Publishing, 2021)
Do you frequently say 'yes' to people and events to keep those around you happy? Do you often find yourself emotionally exhausted and physically drained? Do people describe you as a pushover or 'too nice'? It's time to discover the joy of being selfish and reclaim your life through the art of boundaries! With The Joy of Being Selfish: Why You Need Boundaries and How to Set Them (Welbeck Publishing, 2021), life coach and influencer @scarrednotscared Michelle Elman is here to teach you the practical side of self-love. Creating and upholding strong boundaries will teach others how to treat you, rid your life of drama and toxic relationships and allow you to love yourself and others in the best way you can. Michelle Elman is a five-board accredited life coach, host of the podcast “In All Honesty,” and author of the book Am I Ugly?, which was named a “top read” by Cosmopolitan. Best known for her campaign Scarred Not Scared, she was named one of The Sun’s 50 most inspirational women in the UK. She has appeared on BBC Radio, Fox News, and the Today Show, and has been featured in Women’s Health, People, Teen Vogue, MTV, Buzzfeed, and the Huffington Post. A prolific public speaker whose TedX talk has been viewed more than 60,000 times, she holds a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and lives in London. Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 37Bernard Scott, "Cybernetics for the Social Sciences" (Brill, 2021)
On this episode, I have the great pleasure of finally getting to talk with one of the “unsung heroes” of cybernetics, whose work has finally begun to receive the critical attention it has long deserved, and upon which I have leaned quite heavily in my own work since I entered this field. With Cybernetics for the Social Sciences, out from Brill in 2021, Bernard Scott has met a long-felt need by authoring a book that shows the foundational relevance of cybernetics for such fields as psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Scott provides user-friendly descriptions of the core concepts of cybernetics, with examples of how they can be used in the social sciences, and explains how cybernetics functions as a transdiscipline that unifies other disciplines and a metadiscipline that provides insights about how other disciplines function. He provides an account of how cybernetics emerged as a distinct field, following interdisciplinary meetings in the 1940s, convened to explore feedback and circular causality in biological and social systems and also recounts how encountering cybernetics transformed his thinking and his understanding of life in general. Tom Scholte is a Professor of Directing and Acting in the Department of Theatre and Film at the University of British Columbia located on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional territory of the Musqueam people Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 132Kirsten Powers, "Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts" (Convergent Books, 2021)
Saving Grace: Speak Your Truth, Stay Centered, and Learn to Coexist with People Who Drive You Nuts, by Kirsten Powers was published by Penguin Random House in 2021. In this honest and thought-provoking book, Powers takes us out of the newsroom and into her own process learning and extending grace. For years, New York Times bestselling author Kirsten Powers has been center stage for many of our nation’s most searing political and cultural battles as a columnist, TV analyst, and one-time participant in the thunderdome of Twitter. On a good day, there will be civil disagreement. On a bad day, it’s all-out trench warfare—nothing but a cycle of outrage and self-righteousness. More and more, Powers finds herself wondering, along with countless Americans: How are we to cope with this non-stop madness? In Saving Grace, Powers writes with wit and insight about our country’s poisonous political discourse, chronicling the efforts she’s made to stay grounded and preserve her sanity in a post-truth era that has driven many of us to the edge. She draws on lessons offered by faith leaders, therapists, theologians, social scientists, and activists working for change today. She dismantles the widespread misconception that grace means being nice, letting people get away with harmful behavior, or choosing neutrality in the name of peace. Grace, she argues, is anything but an act of surrender; instead, it is a kinetic and transformative force. Saving Grace offers a template for a different kind of America, one where we can engage with people who hold opposing views without sacrificing our values or our passionate beliefs in the causes we care about. It’s a culture that embraces repentance and repair, a process through which those who have caused harm can take responsibility and work toward righting the wrongs in which they have participated. It’s a place where we’re empowered to see the possibility in other people, even people who are driving us nuts. Provocative, original, and filled with deep wisdom, Saving Grace is an essential read for anyone engaged in the struggle to live compassionately in an era of relentless demonization and division. Meg Gambino is an artist and activist currently working as the Director of Outreach for an addiction recovery center. Her life mission is to creatively empower others by modeling reconciliation between communities of people and people on the margins. Find her work at reconfigureart.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 201Anthony Ianni, "Centered: Autism, Basketball, and One Athlete's Dreams" (Red Lightning Books, 2021)
"They don't know me. They don't know what I'm capable of." Diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder, a form of autism, as a toddler, Anthony Ianni wasn't expected to succeed in school or participate in sports, but he had other ideas. As a child, Ianni told anybody who would listen, including head coach Tom Izzo, that he would one day play for the Michigan State Spartans. Centered: Autism, Basketball, and One Athlete's Dreams is the firsthand account of a young man's social, academic, and athletic struggles and his determination to reach his goals. In this remarkable memoir, Ianni reflects on his experiences with both basketball and the autism spectrum. Centered, an inspirational sports story in the vein of Rudy, reveals Ianni to be unflinching in his honesty, generous in his gratitude, and gracious in his compassion. Sports fans will root for the underdog. Parents, teachers, and coaches will gain insight into the experience of an autistic child. And everyone will triumph in the achievements of Centered. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 81Jonathan Schooler, “Mind-Wandering and Meta-Awareness” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Mind-Wandering & Meta-Awareness is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Jonathan Schooler, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This wide-ranging conversation examines how mind-wandering can serve as a window into the psychological world of meta-awareness. further topics include the nature of consciousness, mindfulness, creativity, free will, verbal overshadowing and more. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 27Steven Nadler and Lawrence Shapiro, "When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People: How Philosophy Can Save Us from Ourselves" (Princeton UP, 2021)
There is an epidemic of bad thinking in the world today. An alarming number of people are embracing crazy, even dangerous ideas. They believe that vaccinations cause autism. They reject the scientific consensus on climate change as a “hoax.” And they blame the spread of COVID-19 on the 5G network or a Chinese cabal. Worse, bad thinking drives bad acting—it even inspired a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol. In this book, Steven Nadler and Lawrence Shapiro argue that the best antidote for bad thinking is the wisdom, insights, and practical skills of philosophy. When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People: How Philosophy Can Save Us from Ourselves (Princeton UP, 2021) provides an engaging tour through the basic principles of logic, argument, evidence, and probability that can make all of us more reasonable and responsible citizens. When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People shows how we can more readily spot and avoid flawed arguments and unreliable information; determine whether evidence supports or contradicts an idea; distinguish between merely believing something and knowing it; and much more. In doing so, the book reveals how epistemology, which addresses the nature of belief and knowledge, and ethics, the study of moral principles that should govern our behavior, can reduce bad thinking. Moreover, the book shows why philosophy’s millennia-old advice about how to lead a good, rational, and examined life is essential for escaping our current predicament. In a world in which irrationality has exploded to deadly effect, When Bad Thinking Happens to Good People is a timely and essential guide for a return to reason. Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 79Elyn Saks, “Mental Health: Policies, Laws and Attitudes” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Mental Health: Policies, Laws and Attitudes is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Elyn Saks, Orrin B. Evans Distinguished Professor of Law, and Professor of Law, Psychology and Psychiatry and the Behavioral Sciences at USC. During this wide-ranging conversation Elyn Saks candidly shares her personal experiences with schizophrenia and discusses the intersection of law, mental health and ethics: the legal and ethical implications surrounding mental health. Further topics include psychotropic medication and the law, criminalization and mental illness, and an exploration of which countries are more progressive with respect to important mental health policies, laws and procedures, and more. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 140Anna Spain Bradley, "Human Choice in International Law" (Cambridge UP, 2021)
Professor Anna Spain Bradley "wrote this book to be accessible to anyone, because international law is for everyone." In this important book, Professor Anna Spain Bradley explores human choice in international law and political decision making. Human Choice in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021) investigates the neurobiological processes which shape human choice in the framework of international law and shows how human choice impacts decisions on peace and security. Professor Spain Bradley charts important decisions in the international human rights framework to show how human choice has affected decisions about genocide, international intervention into armed conflict and nuclear weapons, and human rights. This is an important book which has the potential to change the way we think about human choice in law, and the implications of human choice in the lives of all people, for whom decisions are made. Professor Spain Bradley calls for a rethink about how we understand human choice, especially in relation to what international law does and what it should do. Professor Anna Spain Bradley is Vice Chancellor of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is an award-winning international law scholar, educator and expert specializing in international dispute resolution, international human rights and combatting global racism. Jane Richards is a doctoral student at the University of Hong Kong. You can find her on twitter where she follows all things related to human rights and Hong Kong politics @JaneRichardsHK Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 96Jacki Edry, "Moving Forward: Reflections on Autism, Neurodiversity, Brain Surgery, and Faith" (2021)
Jacki Edry's Moving Forward: Reflections on Autism, Neurodiversity, Brain Surgery, and Faith (2021) is a journey between the worlds of autism, neurodiversity, brain surgery recovery, and faith. It provides a rare glimpse into how sensory and neurological processing affect functioning and thought, through the eyes of a professional, parent, and woman who has experienced them firsthand.This book presents an informative, emotional, and empowering account of the challenges and struggles on the road to recovery ‒ as well as the search for understanding, meaning, and faith. It enables you to step into the shoes of someone who has endured the types of sensory irregularities common in people with neurodiversity; including autism, ADHD, dyslexia, Irlen Syndrome, Auditory Processing Disorder, and more, and to gain understanding as to how to cope with these challenges and to compensate for them.Moving forward will enlighten parents, professionals, and family members to better understand and assist the neurodivergent people whom they work with and love. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 145Jean Hopman, "Surviving Emotional Work for Teachers: Improving Wellbeing and Professional Learning Through Reflexive Practice" (Routledge, 2020)
Jean Hopman’s book Surviving Emotional Work for Teachers: Improving Wellbeing and Professional Learning Through Reflexive Practice (Routledge, 2020), is a guide to improving teachers' wellbeing and practice through support of their emotional workload. The book argues that teachers should be given a formal opportunity to debrief on challenging events, allowing them to reflect on and reframe these experiences in a way that informs future practice to prevent the emotional fatigue that can lead teachers to leave the field altogether. Each chapter opens with a teacher's story, acknowledging the emotional layers present in the scenario and what learnings can be drawn from it. This is valuable reading for teachers at all stages of their career, whether preparing for the complex work ahead or making sense of past and current experiences. This book offers a reflexive process that teachers and schools can implement to facilitate the useful exploration of their emotion, a process vital for the overall wellbeing of any school. Dr Jean Hopman works in Initial Teacher Education at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Her doctoral work explored the emotional aspects of teaching by exploring the underlying layers of a teacher's role. She initially completed a Bachelor of Primary and Secondary Education and a Graduate Diploma in Child Psychotherapy Studies. Since 2000 she has taught and counselled in diverse educational settings, including government schools, private schools, international schools, alternative education settings and universities. Discount for listeners: Save 30% on Surviving Emotional Work for Teachers when you purchase here by entering PBC30at the checkout. Offer valid until the 31 October, 2021. Alice Garner is historian, teacher and performer with a PhD from the University of Melbourne, Australia. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 143Peter Toohey, "Hold On: The Life, Science, and Art of Waiting" (Oxford UP, 2020)
What do you do when you're not asleep and when you're not eating? You're most likely waiting--to finish work, to get home, or maybe even to be seen by your doctor. Hold On is less about how to manage all that staying where one is until a particular time or event (OED) than it is about describing how we experience waiting. Waiting can embrace things like hesitation and curiosity, dithering and procrastination, hunting and being hunted, fearing and being feared, dread and illness, courting and parenting, anticipation and excitement, curiosity, listening to and even performing music, being religious, being happy or unhappy, being bored and being boring. They're all explored here. Waiting is also characterized by brain chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. They can radically alter the way we register the passing of time. Waiting is also the experience that may characterize most interpersonal relations--mismanage it at your own risk. Hold On: The Life, Science, and Art of Waiting (Oxford UP, 2020) contains advice on how to cope with waiting-how to live better-but its main aim is to show how important the experience of waiting is, in popular and highbrow culture, and, sometimes, in history. Detouring into psychology, neurology, ethology, philosophy, film, literature, and especially art, Peter Toohey's illuminates in unexpected ways one of the most common of human experiences. After reading his book, you'll never wait the same way again. Reyes Bertolin is a professor of Classics at the University of Calgary. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 174Steven Knoblauch, "Bodies and Social Rhythms: Navigating Unconscious Vulnerability and Emotional Fluidity" (Routledge, 2020)
Steven Knoblauch's Bodies and Social Rhythms: Navigating Unconscious Vulnerability and Emotional Fluidity (Routledge, 2020) traces the development of an unfolding challenge for psychoanalytic attention, which augments contemporary theoretical lenses focusing on structures of meaning, with an accompanying registration different than and interacting with structural experience. This accompanying registration of experience is given the term ‘fluidity’ in order to characterize it as too fast moving and unformulated to be symbolized with linguistic categorization. Expanding attention from speech meaning to include embodied registrations of rhythm involving tonality, pauses and accents can catalyze additional and often emotionally more significant communications central to the state of the transactional field in any psychoanalytic moment. This perspective is contextualized within recognition of how cultural practices and beliefs are carried along both structural and fluid registrations of experience and can shape emotional turbulence for both interactants in a clinical encounter. Experiences of gender, culture, class and race emerging as sources of conflict and mis-recognition are engaged and illustrated throughout the text. This book, part of the popular "Psychoanalysis in a New Key" book series, will appeal to teaching and practicing psychoanalysts, but also an increasing volume of therapists attending to embodied experience in their practice and drawn to the practical clinical illustrations. Roy Barsness is a Clinical Psychoanalytic Psychologist, Founder and Executive Director of the Post-Graduate Program in Relationally-Focused Psychodynamic Therapy; Professor at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and have been in clinical practice for 30+ years. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 173Hannah Zeavin, "The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy" (MIT Press, 2021)
On this episode, J.J. Mull interviews author Hannah Zeavin about her new book, The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy (MIT Press, 2021). Among Zeavin’s central interventions in the book is to reframe what is normally understood as the “therapeutic dyad” as always already a triad: therapist, patient, and mediating communication technology. Across the book’s chapters, she traces teletherapy’s history from Freud’s epistolary treatments to contemporary algorithmic therapies. Her account of the “distanced intimacy” characteristic of all therapeutic encounters complicates narratives of technologically mediated treatments as somehow inherently “less than.” 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: [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 75Jackie Fast, "Rule Breaker: Rebellious Leadership for the Future of Work" (Kogan Page, 2021)
Today I talked to Jackie Fast about her new book Rule Breaker: Rebellious Leadership for the Future of Work (Kogan Page, 2021). Imagine finding yourself in a career sector, sponsorship, because it’s the way to get a visa and stay in England. Well, that’s what happened to Jackie Fast. And as things turned out, she was very good at sponsorship work. In a few years her ability to put two brands together for a campaign, or more, a kind of temporary Merger and Acquisition, meant she was spending time doing work for Richard Branson on an island he owns in the Caribbean. From the vantage point of her highly successful, entrepreneurial career, what strikes Fast is, indeed, how fast the world is changing. Few if any older executives will manage the transition, she believes, to a world where the internet has democratized big business and where Millennials and Gen Z members favor a values-based approach that puts meaningful work you enjoy front and center in their career aspirations. Jackie Fast is the founder of the venture capital firm Sandbox Studios, which invests in celebrity-owned brands and has worked with The Rolling Stones, Red Bull, Zoom, Formula One, Virgin, Allianz and Universal Music among others. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 172Heinz Weiss, "Trauma, Guilt and Reparation: The Path from Impasse to Development" (Routledge, 2019)
Trauma, Guilt and Reparation: The Path from Impasse to Development (Routledge, 2019) identifies the emotional barriers faced by people who have experienced severe trauma, as well as the emergence of reparative processes which pave the way from impasse to development. The book explores the issue of trauma with particular reference to issues of reparation and guilt. Referencing the original work of Klein and others, it examines how feelings of persistent guilt work to foil attempts at reparation, locking trauma deep within the psyche. It provides a theoretical understanding of the interplay between feelings of neediness with those of fear, wrath, shame and guilt, and offers a route for patients to experience the mourning and forgiveness necessary to come to terms with their own trauma. The book includes a Foreword by John Steiner. Illustrated by clinical examples throughout, it is written by an author whose empathy and experience make him an expert in the field. The book will be of great interest to psychotherapists, social workers and any professional working with traumatized individuals. Heinz Weiss, M.D., is the Head of the Department of Psychosomatic Medicine at the Robert Bosch Hospital in Stuttgart. He is also the head of the Medical Division and member of the directorate of the Sigmund-Freud-Institute, Frankfurt/Main, and Chair of the Education Section of The International Journal of Psychoanalysis Philip Lance, PhD, is a psychoanalyst in Los Angeles. You can contact him at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 171Gillian Straker and Jacqui Winship, "The Talking Cure: Normal People, their Hidden Struggles and the Life-Changing Power of Therapy" (Macmillan, 2019)
Gillian Straker’s name has long been on my radar, particularly for the ways in which she has used psychoanalytic thought to contend with the vicissitudes of apartheid and its aftermath in her home country, South Africa. But she has also made use of what apartheid taught her about the human mind. Indeed, there is much for psychoanalysis to learn from apartheid. For over 20 years, Straker has published, largely in relational journals, about racism, and the ways in which living under the extremes of racist duress take their particular toll. (It is high time for those articles to be collected and published.) Straker begins with trauma and dissociation—and the work of thinkers like Donnell Stern on unformulated experience gird some of her thinking. But she also turns to minds outside the field as well to elaborate certain ideas that pertain to fetishism, morality, mutuality, and perversion—foremost among them Bourdieu, Butler and Bhabha. Straker’s reflections on her own capacity to block from consciousness the damning impact of apartheid provides a guidepost for all her theorizing. This is an author who knows of what she speaks, and to read her is to be immersed in both her vulnerability and her searching intellect. Perhaps her two most eye-opening articles—“Race for Cover: Castrated Whiteness, Perverse Consequences” and “A Crisis in the Subjectivity of the Analyst: The Trauma of Morality”—could perhaps only have been written by someone living under apartheid. And yet, I find them useful for thinking about working in an interracial analytic couple. By the time she wrote her most unique theoretical contribution, “The Anti-Analytic Third”, one feels that she wants to warn white analysts, or heterosexual analysts to avoid taking politically correct positions when working with black or queer patients and to not back off from engaging with pathological conflicts that they may bring into the consulting room. Identity politics (and the patient’s desire to “know” if the analyst is “like” her at the level of social identity) can create a kind of noxious ethos that “opposes analysis.” Indeed, bending the frame for a patient because one feels a guiltiness does more harm than good. An especial contribution of hers is to help analyst’s think about working with difference in politically charged situations. Given that in this moment, at least in the United States, from where I am writing, the psychoanalytic world seems to be attempting a reckoning with its own racism, Straker reminds us that leading with guilt will not help anyone—black or white—to make the best use of the clinical encounter. Gillian Straker has also recently co-authored The Talking Cure: Normal people, their Hidden Struggles and the Life-Changing Power of Therapy (Macmillan, 2019) with Dr. Jacqui Winship, designed to reach a popular audience, enticing them to take to the couch, and serves as the supervisor on a newly created podcast on psychoanalytic supervision titled Three Associating. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 65Martin Monti, “The Limits of Consciousness” (Open Agenda, 2021)
The Limits of Consciousness is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Martin Monti, Associate Professor in Psychology and Neurosurgery, Brain Injury Research Centre, UCLA. This extensive conversation examines Martin Monti’s innovative work with patients who are in a vegetative state or minimally conscious state which has led to some surprising results that might well prove to be integral to our development of a deeper understanding of consciousness. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 170Sheldon George and Derek Hook, "Lacan and Race: Racism, Identity, and Psychoanalytic Theory" (Routledge, 2021)
Derek Hook and Sheldon George's Lacan and Race: Racism, Identity and Psychoanalysis (Routledge, 2021) is a path-breaking edited volume that draws upon Lacanian psychoanalytic theory to examine the conscious and unconscious forces underlying race as a social formation. In my conversation with Derek and Sheldon, touching on the main themes of the volume, we explore the problems with popular psychological conceptualisations of racism, the promises and pitfalls of bringing Lacanian concepts like jouissance to bear on historical phenomena, and the possibility of a Lacanian anti-racist politics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 74Soo Bong Peer, "The Essential Diversity Mindset: How to Cultivate a More Inclusive Culture and Environment" (Career Press, 2021)
Today I talked to Soo Bong Peer about her new book The Essential Diversity Mindset: How to Cultivate a More Inclusive Culture and Environment (Career Press, 2021) In 1967, bans on interracial marriages were finally declared unconstitutional in America. Only a decade earlier than that, merely 4% of Americans endorsed them. Today, the figure is 87% approval. So clearly, progress has been made in a country whose citizens are often multiracial as well as in interracial marriages and relationships. How can the momentum to accepting people as they are and not by dividing us based on race, gender and sexual orientation be reignited in these divisive times? Soo Bong Peer’s suggestions are of both a personal and systemic nature, ranging from practicing greater empathy to having leaders seek to be more open to dialogue with employees with distinctly different perspectives and experiences from theirs. One idea, inspired by this book: to cite Roger Ebert, movies “are like a machine that generates empathy.” So instead of movie night at home or lecture-style, lunch-’n-learn sessions at company headquarters, maybe movies-at-lunch should become a Friday feature! Soo Bong Peer is a strategy consultant and executive coach for Fortune 500 companies. The daughter of a prominent South Korean general and ambassador to Mexico, she has lived in multiple countries, including the U.S. for the past 50 years. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 61Darrin McMahon, “Deconstructing Genius” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Deconstructing Genius is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and intellectual historian Darrin McMahon, Dartmouth College. The word “genius” evokes great figures like Einstein, Leonardo Da Vinci, and Mozart but what quintessential quality unites these individuals? Can we measure it? Can we create it? This thoughtful conversation explores Darrin’s research on the evolution of genius from Plato to Einstein (which led him to write the book Divine Fury: A History of Genius) in an effort to illuminate what our evolving genius mythology reveals about the rest of us. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 87Mathias Clasen, "A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Films about chainsaw killers, demonic possession, and ghostly intruders. Screaming audiences with sleepless nights or sweat-drenched nightmares in their immediate future. Presumably, almost everybody has experience with horror films. Some people would even characterize themselves as horror fans. But what about the others—the ones who are curious about horror films, but also very, very nervous about them? In A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies (Oxford University Press, 2021), Mathias Clasen, Associate Professor of Literature and Media Studies at Aarhus University, delves into the science of horror cinema in an attempt to address common concerns about the genre. He also asks whether horror films can be a force for good—do horror films have health benefits, can they be aesthetically and morally valuable, and might they even have therapeutic psychological and cultural effects? The book addresses these questions in short, readable chapters, peppered with vivid anecdotes and examples and supported by scientific findings. Joel Tscherne is an Adjunct History Professor at Southern New Hampshire University. His Twitter handle is @JoelTscherne. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 264Catarina Dutilh Novaes, "The Dialogical Roots of Deduction: Historical, Cognitive, and Philosophical Perspectives on Reasoning" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
If all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, then it must be that Socrates is mortal. What could be more obvious? Well, sometimes obviousness serves to conceal philosophical difficulties. There’s more going on in this simple deduction than we tend to recognize. For one thing, we are not being asked to assess whether all men are, indeed, mortal. Nor are we asking whether Socrates is indeed a man. Instead, we’re focusing on the logical relation that obtains between those two claims and the third. We claim that the third statement “follows from” the combination of the first two, or that the third is “entailed by” them. But what, exactly, is that? Despite the obviousness of deduction, questions abound. In her new book, The Dialogical Roots of Deduction: Historical, Cognitive, and Philosophical Perspectives on Reasoning (Cambridge University Press 2021), Catarina Dutilh Novaes argues that deduction arises out of social practices of dialogue. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 140Gidi Ifergan, "The Psychology of the Yogas" (Equinox Publishing, 2021)
Gidi Ifergan's new book The Psychology of the Yogas (Equinox Publishing, 2021) explores the dissonance between the promises of the yogic quest and psychological states of crisis. Western practitioners of yoga and meditation who have embarked upon years-long spiritual quests and who have practiced under the guidance of a guru tell of profound and ongoing experiences of love, compassion and clarity: the peaks of spiritual fulfillment. However, after returning to the West, they reported difficulties and crises in different areas of their lives. Why did these practitioners, who had apparently touched the heights of fulfillment, still suffer from these crises? Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 91Sarah Nannery and Larry Nannery, "What to Say Next: Successful Communication in Work, Life, and Love—with Autism Spectrum Disorder" (Simon and Schuster, 2021)
When Sarah Nannery got her first job at a small nonprofit, she thought she knew exactly what it would take to advance. But soon she realized that even with hard work and conscientiousness, she was missing key meanings and messages embedded in her colleagues' everyday requests, feedback, and praise. She had long realized her brain operated differently than others, but now she knew for sure: she had Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). With help from her neurotypical partner--now husband--Larry, mostly in frantic IM chats, Sarah rose to Director of Development at one of the world's largest nonprofits. Together they have tackled challenges in how Sarah navigates personal and professional relationships, how they navigate marriage and parenthood, all of which are differently challenging for someone with ASD. But she wonders, at times, how life would be different if she'd had to figure it all out herself. So, in What to Say Next, she offers advice, empathy, and straightforward strategies from her own tool-kit--not only for others who see the world differently, but for their families, partners and colleagues. In What to Say Next: Successful Communication in Work, Life, and Love—with Autism Spectrum Disorder (Simon and Schuster, 2021), Sarah breaks down everyday situations--the chat in the break room, the last-minute meeting, the unexpected run-in--in granular detail, explaining not only how to understand the goals of others, but also how to frame your own. Larry adds his thoughts from a neurotypical perspective, sharing what was going on in his brain and how he learned to listen and enlighten, while supporting and maintaining Sarah's voice. At a time when more and more people are being diagnosed with ASD--especially women and girls--this book tells important truths about what it takes to make it in a neurotypical world, and still be true to yourself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 57Elizabeth Loftus, “The Malleability of Memory” (Open Agenda, 2021)
The Malleability of Memory is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Elizabeth Loftus, a world-renowned expert on human memory and Distinguished Professor of Psychological Science; Criminology, Law, and Society; Cognitive Science and Law at UC Irvine. This extensive conversation covers her ground-breaking work on the misinformation effect, false memories and her battles with “repressed memory” advocates, the introduction of expert memory testimony into legal proceedings and the effect of DNA evidence on convincing judges of the problematic nature of eyewitness testimony. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 76Giorgio Vallortigara, "Born Knowing: Imprinting and the Origins of Knowledge" (MIT Press, 2021)
Why do newborns show a preference for a face (or something that resembles a face) over a nonface-like object? Why do baby chicks prefer a moving object to an inanimate one? Neither baby human nor baby chick has had time to learn to like faces or movement. In Born Knowing: Imprinting and the Origins of Knowledge (MIT Press, 2021), neuroscientist Giorgio Vallortigara argues that the mind is not a blank slate. Early behavior is biologically predisposed rather than learned, and this instinctive or innate behavior, Vallortigara says, is key to understanding the origins of knowledge. Drawing on research carried out in his own laboratory over several decades, Vallortigara explores what the imprinting process in young chicks, paralleled by the cognitive feats of human newborns, reveals about minds at the onset of life. He explains that a preference for faces or representations of something face-like and animate objects--predispositions he calls "life detectors"--streamlines learning, allowing minds to avoid a confusing multiplicity of objects in the environment, and he considers the possibility that autism spectrum disorders might be linked to a deficit in the preference for the animate. He also demonstrates that animals do not need language to think, and that addition and subtraction can be performed without numbers. The origin of knowledge, Vallortigara argues, is the wisdom that humans and animals possess as basic brain equipment, the product of natural history rather than individual development. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 142Samuel Gershman, "What Makes Us Smart: The Computational Logic of Human Cognition" (Princeton UP, 2021)
At the heart of human intelligence rests a fundamental puzzle: How are we incredibly smart and stupid at the same time? No existing machine can match the power and flexibility of human perception, language, and reasoning. Yet, we routinely commit errors that reveal the failures of our thought processes. What Makes Us Smart: The Computational Logic of Human Cognition (Princeton UP, 2021) makes sense of this paradox by arguing that our cognitive errors are not haphazard. Rather, they are the inevitable consequences of a brain optimized for efficient inference and decision making within the constraints of time, energy, and memory--in other words, data and resource limitations. Framing human intelligence in terms of these constraints, Samuel Gershman shows how a deeper computational logic underpins the "stupid" errors of human cognition. Embarking on a journey across psychology, neuroscience, computer science, linguistics, and economics, Gershman presents unifying principles that govern human intelligence. First, inductive bias: any system that makes inferences based on limited data must constrain its hypotheses in some way before observing data. Second, approximation bias: any system that makes inferences and decisions with limited resources must make approximations. Applying these principles to a range of computational errors made by humans, Gershman demonstrates that intelligent systems designed to meet these constraints yield characteristically human errors. Examining how humans make intelligent and maladaptive decisions, What Makes Us Smart delves into the successes and failures of cognition. Robert Tosswill is a student the Master of Logic (MoL) program at the Institute for Logic, Language, and Computation at the University of Amsterdam. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 212Dan Fox, "Limbo" (Fitzcarraldo, 2019)
In a world that demands faith in progress and growth, Limbo (Fitzcarraldo, 2019) is a companion for the stuck, the isolated, delayed, stranded and those in the dark. Fusing memoir with a meditation on creative block and a cultural history of limbo, Dan Fox considers the role that fallow periods and states of inbetween play in art and life. Limbo is an essay about getting by when you can't get along, employing a cast of artists, ghosts and sailors - including the author's older brother who, in 1985, left England for good to sail the world - to reflect on the creative, emotional and political consequences of being stuck, and its opposites. From the Headington Shark to radical behavioural experiments, from life aboard a container ship to Sun Ra's cosmology, Limbo argues that there can be no growth without stagnancy, no movement without inactivity, and no progress without refusal. Sergio Lopez-Pineiro (Harvard Graduate School of Design) interviews authors on how the portrayal and use of emptiness and allied concepts (such as voids, nothingness, or limbo) in philosophical, political, religious, and social studies are influenced by the imagination and construction of physical space. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 88Allan V. Horwitz, "DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021)
Over the past seventy years, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, has evolved from a virtually unknown and little-used pamphlet to an imposing and comprehensive compendium of mental disorder. Its nearly 300 conditions have become the touchstones for the diagnoses that patients receive, students are taught, researchers study, insurers reimburse, and drug companies promote. Although the manual is portrayed as an authoritative corpus of psychiatric knowledge, it is a product of intense political conflicts, dissension, and factionalism. The manual results from struggles among psychiatric researchers and clinicians, different mental health professions, and a variety of patient, familial, feminist, gay, and veterans' interest groups. The DSM is fundamentally a social document that both reflects and shapes the professional, economic, and cultural forces associated with its use. In DSM: A History of Psychiatry's Bible (Johns Hopkins UP, 2021), Allan V. Horwitz examines how the manual, known colloquially as "psychiatry's bible," has been at the center of thinking about mental health in the United States since its original publication in 1952. The first book to examine its entire history, this volume draws on both archival sources and the literature on modern psychiatry to show how the history of the DSM is more a story of the growing social importance of psychiatric diagnoses than of increasing knowledge about the nature of mental disorder. Despite attempts to replace it, Horwitz argues that the DSM persists because its diagnostic entities are closely intertwined with too many interests that benefit from them. This comprehensive treatment should appeal to not only specialists but also anyone who is interested in how diagnoses of mental illness have evolved over the past seven decades—from unwanted and often imposed labels to resources that lead to valued mental health treatments and social services. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 72Maya Hu-Chan, "Saving Face: How to Preserve Dignity and Build Trust" (Berrett-Koehler, 2020)
Today I talked to Maya Hu-Chan about her new book Saving Face: How to Preserve Dignity and Build Trust (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2020) There are so many sayings that involve the face, but perhaps none is more central to at least Asian culture than “saving face.” That’s because it represents retaining one’s dignity versus being embarrassed or humiliated in front of others. In truth, though, everyone wants nothing more than to be appreciated, as the psychologist William James recognized long ago. In this episode, Maya Hu-Chan puts “faces” into a business context for listeners. In a meeting between Western versus Eastern executives, for instance, how will a long silence be handled? Odds are usually that it’s the Americans who will jump in first, breaking the silence. Given more than 20 years of international business experience, Hu-Chan takes listeners through why regional, company and individual personality differences matter so much. Are you a high-context or low-context person? It’s time to find out by taking in this episode that involves the platinum rule, i.e., treating others they way they wanted to be treated. Maya Hu-Chan is the founder and president of Global Leadership Associates and the co-author of Global Leadership: The Next Generation. She’s trained and coached leaders from Fortune 500 companies to non-profits around the world. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 54Stephen Kosslyn, “Applied Psychology: Thinking Critically” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Applied Psychology: Thinking Critically is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Stephen Kosslyn, a renowned psychologist and Founder, President and Chief Academic Officer of Foundry College.This wide-ranging conversation explores Kosslyn and his colleagues’ extensive analysis of research results on the differences between what the top parts of the brain and the bottom parts of the brain do and what the implications of those results are for everyday life which led to a new theory of personality called the Theory of Cognitive Modes. In addition the discussion covers how pedagogical principles were applied in the real world of learning and teaching by establishing Minerva Schools at KGI. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 14Mark Van Buren on Meditation and Mindfulness Training
This podcast features the wisdom and work of Mark Van Buren, Bergen County's go-to guide for all meditation and mindfulness-based training. With well over a decade of experience in the field, Mark instructs meditation workshops, lectures, professional development days, corporate wellness classes, and silent retreats in a practical, yet accessible way. He offers simple tools and practices that can reduce stress, help with anxiety and depression, manage pain, and transform the many difficult aspects of life. Mark also has a recently published book: Your Life Is Meditation (2020). You can follow Mark on Twitter here: @authormarkvanburen. Find him on Facebook here. Raj Balkaran is a scholar, educator, consultant, and life coach. For information see rajbalkaran.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 101Mathias Clasen, "A Very Nervous Person's Guide to Horror Movies" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Horror fans are attracted to movies designed to scare us, but others shudder already at the thought of the sweat-drenched nightmares that terrifying movies often trigger. The fear of sleepless nights and the widespread beliefs that horror movies can have negative psychological effects and display immorality make some of us very, very nervous about them. In A Very Nervous Person's Guide To Horror Movies (Oxford University Press, 2021) horror expert Mathias Clasen examines the psychological science of horror to address myths and correct misunderstandings surrounding the genre. Clasen addresses questions such as What are the effects of horror films on our mental and physical health? Why do they often cause nightmares? Aren't horror movies immoral and a bad influence on children and adolescents? Shouldn't we be concerned about what the current popularity of horror movies says about society and its values? While media psychologists have demonstrated that horror films indeed have the potential to harm us, Clasen reveals that the scientific evidence also contains a second story that is often overlooked: horror movies can also help us confront and manage fear and often foster prosocial values. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English and Director of English Education at Western Illinois University. Her research focuses on feminism, activism, and literacy practices in youth culture, specifically through zines and music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 141Tina Schermer Sellers, "Shameless Parenting: Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free Confident Kids & Heal Your Shame Too!" (2021)
Shameless Parenting: Everything You Need to Raise Shame-free Confident Kids & Heal Your Shame Too! (2021) is the 21st-century book parents have been asking for! It highlights the trickiest parts of each age (birth to 18) that tend to trigger shame and guides them on how-to provide emotionally for their children while helping them understand the shame that is emerging for them. Shame is what makes us reactive as parents. It is the hardest part of parenting. It is from our own places of shame that we over-react, repeating patterns from our parents that we might otherwise have resisted, and finding ourselves stuck, not knowing what to do. This book has your back! It allows you to feel prepared for each stage of your child’s emotional and sexual development before you get there, and it gives you everything you need before you are caught off guard, including sex ed when that time comes for your child. Now you can enjoy yourself, enjoy your child, heal your shame, and change the legacy. What a powerful gift to give yourself, your child, and your whole family! Dr. Tina is also the founder and medical director of the Northwest Institute on Intimacy which provides training and supervision for therapists, medical providers and clergy in sexual health and confronting sexual bias. Frequently featured on podcasts, TV, documentaries, articles and radio, including Spirituality & Health magazine, Tina travels the country as a keynote speaker for organizations, parents and professionals helping them become competent teaching shame-free relational and sexual health. She can be reached at TinaSchermerSellers.com, and followed on Instagram @DrTinaShameless. Meg Gambino is an artist and activist currently working as the Director of Outreach for an addiction recovery center. Her life mission is to creatively empower others by modeling reconciliation between communities of people and people on the margins. Find her work at reconfigureart.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 83Laura Aguirre, "The Memory Thief: And the Secrets Behind How We Remember--A Medical Mystery" (Pegasus, 2021)
How could you lose your memory overnight, and what would it mean? The day neurologist Jed Barash sees the baffling brain scan of a young patient with devastating amnesia marks the beginning of a quest to answer those questions. First detected in a cluster of stigmatized opioid overdose victims in Massachusetts with severe damage to the hippocampus--the brain's memory center--this rare syndrome reveals how the tragic plight of the unfortunate few can open the door to advances in medical science. After overcoming initial skepticism that investigating the syndrome is worth the effort--and that fentanyl is the likely culprit--Barash and a growing team of dedicated doctors explore the threat that people who take opioids chronically as prescribed to treat severe pain may gradually put their memories at risk. At the same time, they begin to grasp the potential for this syndrome to shed light on the most elusive memory thief of all--Alzheimer's disease. Through the prism of this fascinating story, Aguirre goes on to examine how researchers tease out the fundamental nature of memory and the many mysteries still to be solved. Where do memories live? Why do we forget most of what happens in a day but remember some events with stunning clarity years later? How real are our memories? And what purpose do they actually serve? Perhaps the greatest mystery in The Memory Thief: And the Secrets Behind How We Remember (Pegasus, 2021) is why Alzheimer's has evaded capture for a century even though it afflicts tens of millions around the world and lies in wait for millions more. Aguirre deftly explores this question and reveals promising new strategies and developments that may finally break the long stalemate in the fight against this dreaded disease. But at its core, Aguirre's genre-bending and deeply-reported book is about paying attention to the things that initially don't make sense--like the amnestic syndrome--and how these mysteries can move science closer to an ever-evolving version of the truth. The research and writing of The Memory Thief was supported in part by a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Program in Public Understanding of Science and Technology. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 70Eileen McDargh, "Burnout to Breakthrough: Building Resilience to Refuel, Recharge, and Reclaim What Matters" (Berrett-Koehler, 2020)
Today I talked to Eileen McDargh about her new book Burnout to Breakthrough: Building Resilience to Refuel, Recharge, and Reclaim What Matters (Berrett-Koehler, 2020). What’s another way to frame both living-in-the-moment and respecting colleagues at work: seeing them as human beings as opposed to merely humans doing. That’s but one indication of the energy Eileen brings to this episode. The emphasis here is on shifting from a sense of being without resources – mental, physical, emotional, and otherwise—to finding energy through refocusing on what matters most right then. People need a sense of connectivity to ward off loneliness, and to take stock of their situation without devolving into what Eileen calls “red-ant thinking”: looking for what’s wrong. As Eileen notes, it might sound trivial to take five minutes per staff member in an introductory meeting to share something about yourself, visually. But doing so builds togetherness that will later empower results. To try to stay in your head all the time simply isn’t sustainable, nor productive. Eileen McDargh is the CEO (Chief Energy Officer) at the Resiliency Group. In 2019, Global Gurus International ranked her first among the World’s Top 30 Communication Professionals. She’s also been elected into the CPAE Speaker Hall of Fame, placing her among the top 3% of speakers in America. Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of nine books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His new book is Blah, Blah, Blah: A Snarky Guide to Office Politics. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 44Stephen Hinshaw, “Understanding ADHD” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Understanding ADHD is based on an in-depth, filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Stephen Hinshaw, Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley. Stephen Hinshaw is an expert in the fields of clinical child and adolescent psychology and developmental psychopathology, as well as stigma, preventive interventions and dehumanization related to mental illness. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 140Mary-Jayne Rust, "Towards an Ecopsychotherapy" (Confer Books, 2020)
Towards an Ecopsychotherapy (Confer Books, 2020) provides an overview of ecopsychology and introduces the newly emerging field of ecopsychotherapy, including insightful case examples for practitioners. However, ecopsychotherapy is not simply a technique to be applied in therapy; for practitioner and client, it involves a change in perspective. Rust gives a solid introduction to this evolving work, with a critical eye and a deep awareness of the quickening impacts of climate change. Mary Jayne Rust is an ecopsychologist, art therapist, and Jungian analyst. Her numerous publications include the timely book VItal Signs: Psychological Response to Ecological Crisis. She grew up by the sea and now lives and works overlooking ancient woodlands in North London. Dr. Susan Grelock Yusem is an independent researcher trained in depth psychology, with an emphasis on community, liberation, and eco-psychologies. Her work centers around interconnection and encompasses regenerative food systems, the arts and conservation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 42Jennifer Michael Hecht, “Sheathing the Bodkin: Combating Suicide” (Open Agenda, 2021)
Sheathing the Bodkin: Combating Suicide is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and poet, author and historian Jennifer Michael Hecht. After intriguing details about how she combines writing poetry, doing scholarly history and public writing, this wide-ranging conversation movingly embellishes upon Jennifer Michael Hecht’s book, Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It, which is an intellectual and cultural history of the most persuasive arguments against suicide from the Stoics and the Bible to Dante, Shakespeare, Wittgenstein, and such twentieth-century writers as Albert Camus. Howard Burton is the founder of the Ideas Roadshow, Ideas on Film and host of the Ideas Roadshow Podcast. He can be reached at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology
Ep 57Anil Seth, "Being You: A New Science of Consciousness" (Dutton, 2020)
Anil Seth's quest to understand the biological basis of conscious experience is one of the most exciting contributions to twenty-first-century science. An unprecedented tour of consciousness thanks to new experimental evidence, much of which comes from Anil Seth's own lab. His radical argument is that we do not perceive the world as it objectively is, but rather that we are prediction machines, constantly inventing our world and correcting our mistakes by the microsecond, and that we can now observe the biological mechanisms in the brain that accomplish this process of consciousness. Seth's work has yielded new ways to communicate with patients previously deemed unconscious, as well as promising methods of coping with brain damage and disease. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness (Dutton, 2020) sheds light on the future of AI and virtual/augmented reality, adds empirical evidence to cutting-edge ideas of how the brain works, and ushers in a new age in the study of the mystery of human consciousness. Being You is a life-changing existential insight into being you. Galina Limorenko is a doctoral candidate in Neuroscience with a focus on biochemistry and molecular biology of neurodegenerative diseases at EPFL in Switzerland. To discuss and propose the book for an interview you can reach her at [email protected]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology