This book brings together into one edited volume the most compelling rationales for literary reading and health, the best current practices in this area and state of the art research methodologies. It consolidates the findings and insights of this burgeoning field of enquiry across diverse disciplines and groups: psychologists, neurologists, and social scientists; literary scholars, writers and philosophers; medical researchers and practitioners; reading charities and arts organisations. Following introductory chapters on the literary-historical background to reading and health, the book is divided into four key sections. The first part focuses on Practices, showcasing reading interventions and cultures in clinical and community mental health care and in secure settings. This is followed by Research Methodologies, featuring innovative qualitative and quantitative approaches, and by a section covering Theory, with chapters from eminent thinkers in psychiatry, psychology and psychoanalysis. The final part is concerned with Implementation, incorporating perspectives from health professionals, commissioners and reading practitioners. This innovate work explains why reading matters in health and wellbeing, and offers a foundational text to future scholars in the field and to health professionals and policy-makers in relation to the embedding of reading practices in professional health care.

This book proposes a novel method of combining the current approaches to counselling and psychotherapy into one coherent framework. The authors argue that the cognitive behavioural tradition (largely focused on thought patterns) and the psychodynamic approach (centred on the client's experience and relationships), can be successfully integrated with insights from cognitive neuroscience, to form a fruitful synthesis. In doing so they provide a perspective that will enable practitioners to more fully appreciate each client's unique inner world, based on their individual history and environment. The authors point towards the brain's innate ability to understand and learn from experience so as to direct the growth of that inner world. This book elaborates a method of tapping into this innate growth potential, so as to help clients move forward when they have become trapped in non-productive patterns or mental stalemates. It will provide fresh insights and a valuable resource for counselling psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists, as well as for academics and students in these fields.

This volume offers insights into contemporary trends and perspectives in psychobiographical research. It applys new theoretical and methodological frameworks and presents discourses on psychobiography from transdisciplinary backgrounds and various socio-cultural contexts, displaying the new state-of-the-art, new trends and themes in psychobiography. The book outlines psychobiography's outstanding contribution to psychology from 36 internationally reputable authors. It also presents the ideas of five outstanding psychobiographers through interview excerpts. This book is a must for researchers, lecturers and practitioners in the field of psychology and social sciences interested in the use of new psychological theories and methodologies in life-span research.

A friendly and accessible, one-of-a-kind guide to psychological research methods, Your A to Z of Research Methods and Statistics in Psychology covers over 500 key terms and explores the concepts you need to navigate quantitative and qualitative methods in psychology with ease. From a priori comparisons to z scores, it forms the perfect companion to your core research methods and statistics textbook, and is an indispensable revision guide. Terms are clearly and engagingly defined, and the authors use a selection of helpful student tips, research examples, and eye-catching figures to enrich the text. You can also refer to a comprehensive decision chart to choose the most appropriate statistical test for your analysis, and consult a range of essential tables at the back of the text.

This timely and applied textbook brings together leading scientists to illustrate how key theories and concepts in social psychology help to predict and explain behavior, and can be successfully applied to benefit social and practical problems. It focuses on robust theories and models known for their successful applications and covers a diverse range of settings-spanning classroom interventions, health behavior, financial decision making, climate change and much more. Each chapter comprises of a theoretical section to define the key concepts and summarize the theory, providing evidence for its reliability and limitations from basic research, as well as an application section that summarizes research in an applied context and provides details about a particular study including the respective application setting. The textbook expertly shows how theory can make meaningful predictions for real world contexts, and isn't afraid to explain the potential hurdles and pitfalls when applying a theory and its underlying set of concepts in a certain context. Crucially, this format moves towards theory testing in applied contexts, enabling a closer examination of why and under what circumstances interventions may be successful in obtaining a desired behavioral or psychological end-state. Among the topics explored: Mindset theory of action phases and if-then planning Quality of motivation in self-determination theory The focus theory of normative conduct Social identity theory and intergroup contact theory Intergroup forgiveness Social Psychology in Action is a critical resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in social and cultural psychology, as well as students of behavioral economics seeking to develop a deeper understanding of major theories and applications of the fields. Practitioners working in the areas of organizational behavior and management, health communication, social work, and educational science and pedagogy will also find the volume pertinent to their work.

This book explores how philosophical realisms relate to psychoanalytical conceptions of the Real, and in turn how the Lacanian framework challenges basic philosophical notions of object and reality. The author examines how contemporary psychoanalysis might respond to the question of ontology by taking advantage of the recent revitalization of realism in its speculative form. While the philosophical side of the debate makes a plea for an independent ontological consistency of the Real, this book proposes a Lacanian reassessment of the definition of the Real as 'what is foreign to subjectivity itself'. In doing so, it reframes the question of the Real in terms of what is already there beneath the supposedly linguistic constitution of subjectivity. The book then goes on to engage the problem of cognition in the realm of Nature qua materiality, focusing on the centrality of the body as a linguistic-material hybrid. It argues that it is possible to re-establish the theoretical dignity of Ricoeur's notion of 'suspicion', by building a dialogue between Lacanian psychoanalysis and three main domains of inquiry: desire, objects and bodily enjoyment. Borrowing from Piera Aulagnier's theory of the Other as a word-bearer, it considers the genesis of desire and sense of reality both explainable through a hybrid framework which comprises psychoanalytical insights and material dynamics in a comprehensive account. This created theoretical space is an opportunity for both philosophers and psychoanalysts to rethink key Lacanian insights in light of the problem of the Real.

This edited volume seeks to critically engage with the diversity of feminist and post-colonial theory to counter hegemonic Western knowledge in mainstream community psychology. In doing so, it situates paradigms of thought and representation that capture the lived experiences of those in the global South. Specifically, the book takes an intersectional approach towards its reshaping of community psychology, centering African, black, postcolonial, and decolonial feminist critiques in its 1) critique of existing hegemonic Euro-American community psychology concepts, theories, and practice, 2) proposal of new feminist, indigenous, and decolonial methodological approaches, and 3) real-life examples of engagement, research, dialogue, and reflexive qualitative psychology practice. The book concludes with an agenda for theorization and research for future practice in postcolonial contexts. The volume is relevant to researchers, practitioners, and students in psychology, anthropology, sociology, public health, development studies, social work, urban studies, and women's and gender studies across global contexts.

This book provides a detailed examination of argumentative interactions in families with young children during mealtimes. It explores both the restrictions and the opportunities family mealtimes present and the types of issues addressed through argumentative discussions. Antonio Bova puts forward an in depth analysis of how both parents and children contribute to the inception and development of an argumentative discussion, and the categories of argument adopted most often by the two groups. Drawing upon a wealth of qualitative data from the recorded mealtime conversations of Italian and Swiss-Italian middle-class families, the author examines the crucial importance of argumentative interactions between parents and children during mealtimes. This book builds on recent advances in the study of the psychology of social interaction and sheds new light on the importance of argumentation at all stages of life.

This book presents the conceptual and mathematical basis and the implementation of both electroencephalogram (EEG) and EEG signal processing in a comprehensive, simple, and easy-to-understand manner. EEG records the electrical activity generated by the firing of neurons within human brain at the scalp. They are widely used in clinical neuroscience, psychology, and neural engineering, and a series of EEG signal-processing techniques have been developed. Intended for cognitive neuroscientists, psychologists and other interested readers, the book discusses a range of current mainstream EEG signal-processing and feature-extraction techniques in depth, and includes chapters on the principles and implementation strategies.

This book provides the first comparative analysis of the three major streams of contemporary narrative psychology as they have been developed in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand. Interrogating the historical and cultural conditions in which this important movement in psychology has emerged, the book presents clear, well-structured comparisons and critique of the key theories of narrative psychology pioneered across the globe. Examples include Dan McAdams in the US and his followers, who have developed a distinctive approach to self and identity as a life story over the past two decades; in the Netherlands by Hubert Hermans, whose research on the 'dialogical self' has made the University of Nijmegen a centre of narrative psychological research in Europe; and in Australia and New Zealand, where the collaborative efforts of Michael White and David Epston helped to launch the narrative movement in psychotherapy in the late 1980s.

Psychosocial studies in the UK is a diverse area of work characterised by innovation in theory and empirical research. Its extraordinary liveliness is demonstrated in this book, which showcases research undertaken at the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, highlighting three domains central to the discipline - psychoanalysis, ethics and reflexivity, and resistance. The book engages psychosocially with a wide variety of topics, from social critiques of psychoanalysis through postcolonial and queer theory to studies of mental health and resistance to discrimination. These 'New Voices in Psychosocial Studies' offer a coherent yet wide-ranging account of research that has taken place in one 'dialect' of the new terrain of psychosocial studies and an agenda-setting manifesto for some of the kinds of work that might ensure the continued creativity of psychosocial studies into the next generation. This book demonstrates the ongoing development of psychosocial studies as an innovative, critical force and will inspire both new and established researchers from across the fields that influence its transdisciplinary approach, including: critical psychology and radical sociology, feminist, queer and postcolonial theory, critical anthropology and ethnography and phenomenology.

This posthumous publication attempts to answer the question of what moral code is the most reasonable. Philosophers often turn to consequentialism or deontological ethics to address this issue. As the author points out, each has valid arguments but each is unable to get the other side to agree. To rectify this, he proposes a third way. Inside, readers will discover a theory that tries to do justice to both sides. The author first details consequentialism and deontological ethics. He also explains their fundamental conflict. One holds the view that you should do what has the best consequences. The other believes that there are actions which are wrong to do even if they have the best consequences. Next, the volume considers various ways to solve this conflict. Would rejecting one theory work? Or, is it possible to somehow reconcile them. The author shows why these solutions fail. He then goes on to present his own. The resulting contractual theory brings together the two opposing ethical convictions. It proposes that what is right and wrong depends on what norms people would agree to. Throughout, coverage explores the psychological, sociological, and historical background of the moral theories discussed. The reason is that moral theories are embedded in social and psychological contexts. They are better understood when the contexts are explicit. This key feature distinguishes the volume from other works in moral philosophy. At the time of his death in July 2011, Jan OEsterberg was close to completing this manuscript. It was taken up and fully completed by Erik Carlson and Ryszard Sliwinski, both of Uppsala University.

This brief serves to educate readers about the sovereign citizen movement, presenting relevant case studies and offering suggestions for measures to address problems caused by this movement. Sovereign citizens are considered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to be a prominent domestic terrorist threat in the United States, and are broadly defined as a loosely-afflicted anti-government group who believes that the United States government and its laws are invalid and fraudulent. Because they consider themselves to be immune to the consequences of American law, members identifying with this group often engage in criminal activities such as tax fraud, "paper terrorism", and in more extreme cases, attempted murder or other acts of violence. Sovereign Citizens is one of the first scholarly works to explicitly focus on the sovereign citizen movement by explaining the movement's origin, interactions with the criminal justice system, and ideology.

Open Learning Units offer a very flexible approach to the teaching of psychology. They are designed to be more than sufficient for the purposes of A/S and A-Level psychology, and the applied emphasis will appeal to various vocational courses such as those offered by BTEC and also to mature students on Access courses.
Their primary use will be in the classroom with a tutor's guidance, but the interactive style makes them equally appropriate for the purposes of self-study. More advanced students might want to use the Units to learn at their own pace, and in all cases, the careful structure of the writing and the extensive use of Examples, Open Questions and Self-Assessment Questions make them ideal revision guides.

This brief presents the case study of a hill in Czech Republic (Rip) and its region, and contributes to theorization in sociocultural psychology on three points, along three current debates. First, it contributes to the exploration of the mutual constitution of the lifecourse and of history, uses a distinction between socio-, micro- and ontogenesis, and argues that a focus on a delimited geographical space enables to better observe the processes by which history, daily situated interactions and courses of life shape each other. Second, in doing so, it sketches an understanding of the role of the material, spatial and semiotic specificities of landscapes in human development. Especially, it identifies some of the processes by which redundant dynamic patterns present in the environment may participate to the guidance of human experience. Third, it expands the reflection on case study construction and generalization. On the one side, it participates to a current debate in cultural psychology on the dynamics of generalization from single cases; on the other, it also dialogues with a more general reflection in the social sciences on social dynamics at the scale of small regions. Altogether, this brief is a first attempt to examine jointly these questions at the scale of a small region, a unique natural laboratory of social and psychological change. It will be of interest to researchers as well as graduate students in the fields of cultural and sociocultural psychology, cognitive psychology, and the social sciences.

This book applies a range of ideas about scientific discovery found in contemporary philosophy of science to psychology and related behavioral sciences. In doing so, it aims to advance our understanding of a host of important methodological ideas as they apply to those sciences. A philosophy of local scientific realism is adopted in favor of traditional accounts that are thought to apply to all sciences. As part of this philosophy, the implications of a commitment to philosophical naturalism are spelt out, and a correspondence theory of truth is defended by showing how it helps explain various features of scientific practice. The central chapter of the book presents a broad theory of scientific method that comprises the detection of empirical phenomena and their subsequent understanding by constructing explanatory theories through the use of abductive methods. This theory of scientific method is then used as a framework to reconstruct the well-known qualitative method of grounded theory, and to present a systematic perspective on clinical reasoning and case formulation. Relatedly, an abductive or explanationist understanding of methods is employed to evaluate the knowledge credentials of evolutionary psychology. In addition, the conceptual and methodological foundations of a variety of quantitative methods are examined. Exploratory factor analysis and tests of statistical significance are given special attention.

This Open Access Brief analyzes the dynamics in which children's selves emerge through their everyday activities of meaning construction, both in their relationships with family and within school education. It begins with a discussion of new psychological inquiries into children's selves and builds upon the innovative theoretical notion of the Presentational Self, developed by the author over the last decade. The book illustrates how the observation of children's meaning construction in their everyday lives becomes a starting point for theoretical and empirical inquiries into child development and gives a framework that promotes new inquiries in this area. The book describes the Presentational Self Theory as a sense of how the notion of the Self is being worked upon in everyday life encounters. Chapters feature in-depth analyses of exchanges between adults and children in the Japanese cultural context. Meaning-Making for Living will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in the fields of cognitive, social, developmental, educational, and cultural psychology.

Recognizing Frantz Fanon's remarkable legacy to applied mental health and therapeutic practices which decolonize, humanize, and empower marginalized populations, this text serves as a timely call for research, education, and clinical work to establish and further develop Fanonian approaches and practices. As the first collection to focus on contemporary clinical applications of Fanon's research and practice, this volume adopts a transnational lens through which to capture the global reach of Fanon's work. Contributors from Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America offer nuanced insight into historical and theoretical methods, clinical case studies, and community-based innovations to place Fanon's research and practice in context. Organized into four key areas, including the Historical Significance of Fanon's Clinical Work; Theory and Fanonian Praxis; Psychotherapeutic and Community Applications; and Action Research, each section of the book reflects an impressive diversity of practices around the world, and considers the role of political and socioeconomic context, structures of gender oppression, racial identities, and their intersection within those practices. A unique manifesto to the ground-breaking and immensely relevant work of Frantz Fanon, this book will be of great interest to graduate and post graduate students, researchers, academics and professionals in counselling psychology, mental health research, and psychotherapy.

This unique resource provides findings and insights regarding the multiple impacts of military duty on service members and veterans, specifically from a family standpoint. Broad areas of coverage include marital and family relationships, parenting issues, family effects of war injuries, and family concerns of single service members. The book's diverse contents highlight understudied populations and topics gaining wider interest while examining the immediate and long-term impact of service on family functioning. In addition to raising awareness of issues, chapters point to potential solutions including science-based pre- and post-deployment programs, more responsive training for practitioners, and more focused research and policy directions. Among the topics covered: * Deployment and divorce: an in-depth analysis by relevant demographic and military characteristics. * Military couples and posttraumatic stress: interpersonally based behaviors and cognitions as mechanisms of individual and couple distress. * Warfare and parent care: armed conflict and the social logic of child and national protection. * Understanding the experiences of women and LGBT veterans in Department of Veterans Affairs care. * Risk and resilience factors in combat military health care providers. * Tangible, instrumental, and emotional support among homeless veterans. War and Family Life offers up-to-date understanding for mental health professionals who serve military families, both in the U.S. and abroad.

This book describes a way of sharing dreams in a group, called 'social dreaming'. It explores how the sharing of real, night time dreams, in a group, can offer information on and insight into ourselves and the worlds we live in and share. It investigates how we can turn dream images, and ideas and feelings that arise from these images, into conscious thought, before describing the ways in which these can be used. Using a background of the psychosocial combined with a philosophical lens influenced by the work of Gilles Deleuze, Julian Manley shows how social dreaming can be understood as a Deleuzian 'rhizome of affects', a web or a root design where things interconnect in a random and spontaneous fashion rather than in a sequential or linear way. He illustrates how social dreaming can link dreams together into a collage of images, and compares this to the rhizome, where clusters of emotional intensity - which emerge from the dream images - weave and interconnect with other clusters, forming a web of interlinked dream images and emotions. From the basis of this rhizome emerges an interpretation of social dreaming as a 'body without organs' and the social dreaming matrix as a 'smooth space' where meanings emerge from the way these images form connections, and come and go according to our emotions at any particular moment.

This edited volume presents examples of social science research projects that employ new methods of quantitative analysis and mathematical modeling of social processes. This book presents the fascinating areas of empirical and theoretical investigations that use formal mathematics in a way that is accessible for individuals lacking extensive expertise but still desiring to expand their scope of research methodology and add to their data analysis toolbox. Mathematical Modeling of Social Relationships professes how mathematical modeling can help us understand the fundamental, compelling, and yet sometimes complicated concepts that arise in the social sciences. This volume will appeal to upper-level students and researchers in a broad area of fields within the social sciences, as well as the disciplines of social psychology, complex systems, and applied mathematics.

"[A] fascinating read... Contrary to what the title might suggest, this is an upbeat exploration of suicide with a positive message." --Jeanine Connor, Therapy Today, December, 2018 This thought-provoking volume offers a distinctly human evolutionary analysis of a distinctly human phenomenon: suicide. Its 'pain and brain' model posits animal adaptations as the motivator for suicidal escape, and specific human cognitive adaptations as supplying the means , while also providing a plausible explanation for why only a relatively small number of humans actually take their own lives. The author hypothesizes two types of anti-suicide responses, active and reactive mechanisms prompted by the brain as suicide deterrents. Proposed as well is the intriguing prospect that mental disorders such as depression and addiction, long associated with suicidality, may serve as survival measures. Among the topics covered: * Suicide as an evolutionary puzzle. * The protection against suicide afforded to animals and young children. * Suicide as a by-product of pain and human cognition. * Why psychodynamic defenses regulate the experiencing of painful events. * Links between suicidality and positive psychology. * The anti-suicide role of spiritual and religious belief. In raising and considering key questions regarding this most controversial act, The Evolution of Suicide will appeal to researchers across a range of behavioral science disciplines. At the same time, the book's implications for clinical intervention and prevention will make it useful among mental health professionals and those involved with mental health policy.

Behavioral, biobehavioral, and biomedical interventions are programs with the objective of improving and maintaining human health and well-being, broadly defined, in individuals, families, schools, organizations, or communities. These interventions may be aimed at, for example, preventing or treating disease, promoting physical and mental health, preventing violence, or improving academic achievement. This book provides additional information on a principled empirical framework for developing interventions that are more effective, efficient, economical, and scalable. This framework is introduced in the monograph, "Optimization of Behavioral, Biobehavioral, and Biomedical Interventions: The Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST)" by Linda M. Collins (Springer, 2018). The present book is focused on advanced topics related to MOST. The chapters, all written by experts, are devoted to topics ranging from experimental design and data analysis to development of a conceptual model and implementation of a complex experiment in the field. Intervention scientists who are preparing to apply MOST will find this book an important reference and guide for their research. Fields to which this work pertains include public health (medicine, nursing, health economics, implementation sciences), behavioral sciences (psychology, criminal justice), statistics, and education.

Horrified by the Holocaust, social psychologist Stanley Milgram wondered if he could recreate the Holocaust in the laboratory setting. Unabated for more than half a century, his (in)famous results have continued to intrigue scholars. Based on unpublished archival data from Milgram's personal collection, volume one of this two-volume set introduces readers to a behind the scenes account showing how during Milgram's unpublished pilot studies he step-by-step invented his official experimental procedure-how he gradually learnt to transform most ordinary people into willing inflictors of harm. Volume two then illustrates how certain innovators within the Nazi regime used the very same Milgram-like learning techniques that with increasing effectiveness gradually enabled them to also transform most ordinary people into increasingly capable executioners of other men, women, and children. Volume two effectively attempts to capture how step-by-step these Nazi innovators attempted to transform the Fuhrer's wish of a Jewish-free Europe into a frightening reality. By the books' end the reader will gain an insight into how the seemingly undoable can become increasingly doable.

This book explores the practice and transmission of Lacanian and Freudian theory. It discusses the pure versus applied analysis of Lacanian and Freudian theory in practice; and the hierarchical versus circular transmissions within psychoanalytic organizations. Underpinned by extensive practical knowledge of the clinic, this work examines the differences between Freud and Lacan in their understanding of the subject and the unconscious and pushes them in new directions. The book also offers an analysis and commentary of several key Lacanian texts including an accessible study of the notoriously challenging text L'etourdit. Offering both divergent and reinforcing takes on Lacan, the author explores the traits that separate out the psychoanalyst from other twentieth-century thinkers and theorists. This book offers a clear clinical picture of where Lacanian psychoanalysis is today, both in the US and internationally.