Alain Badiou has claimed that Quentin Meillassoux's book After Finitude (Bloomsbury, 2008) "opened up a new path in the history of philosophy." And so, whether you agree or disagree with the speculative realism movement, it has to be addressed. Lacanian Realism does just that. This book reconstructs Lacanian dogma from the ground up: first, by unearthing a new reading of the Lacanian category of the real; second, by demonstrating the political and cultural ingenuity of Lacan's concept of the real, and by positioning this against the more reductive analyses of the concept by Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou, Saul Newman, Todd May, Joan Copjec, Jacques Ranciere, and others, and; third, by arguing that the subject exists intimately within the real. Lacanian Realism is an imaginative and timely exploration of the relationship between Lacanian psychoanalysis and contemporary continental philosophy.

The book provides a new theory of well-being designed to integrate many disparate concepts of well-being, such as subjective well-being, personal happiness, mental well-being, emotional well-being, psychological well-being, hedonic well-being, social well-being, life satisfaction, domain satisfaction, and eudaimonia. It lays the foundation for a new a theory of mental well-being based on a hierarchical perspective of positive mental health and guided by the concept of positive balance. Written by a well-known expert in the field, this book addresses the issue of positive balance related to physiological, emotional, cognitive, meta-cognitive, developmental and social-ecological levels of an individual and analyses the factors at each level that contribute to an individual's positive mental health experience. It discusses in detail the effects of neurochemicals such as dopamine, serotonin, or cortisol; positive and negative affect; satisfaction in salient and multiple life domains vis-a-vis dissatisfaction in life domains; positive versus negative evaluations about one's life using certain standards of comparison; positive psychological traits of personal growth and intrinsic motivation, etc. vis-a-vis negative traits like pessimism and impulsiveness; and perceived social resources like social contribution and social actualization vis-a-vis perceived constraints like exclusion and ostracism. This original work is of interest to students, researchers and practitioners of quality of life and wellbeing studies, positive psychology, developmental psychology and mental health..

Fear grips those who doubt that their existence has meaning, and the prevailing notion that humans are situated on a dot in the middle of a dark, cold universe leaves people shivering in cosmic insignificance. Many would argue that science and technology have separated individuals from God while others would say that people have lost their faith, and some would assert that God is dead. Many simply do not know what to believe. Today's self-help industry is a testament to the search for meaning in an age of uncertainty and faltering religious structures. The truth is that technology and science now answer many of the questions that used to be left to God. This development has confounded people's ability to integrate what is known today with what was once thought. The disparity between past and present beliefs may be observed in the concept of the angel. There are many who claim that any lingering belief in angels is merely the residue of imaginary or wishful thinking, and there are others who hold that angels (wings, halos, and harps) literally exist. How is one to reconcile such contradictory beliefs? C. G. Jung's theory of synchronicity (meaningful coincidence) provides a vehicle for the exploration and possible reconciliation of such questions. Rather than echoing the skeptic who says angels cannot exist or the religious enthusiast who affirms their immanence, one might reframe the entire discussion. Like the biblical concept of annunciation, in which an angel delivers a heavenly message to an earthly individual, synchronicity defines the moment at which the eternal touches the temporal.

This book explores the trace of the emotional undercurrent stirred by money from its beginnings in childhood to its consolidation into adult life, through love and work, for individuals and society alike, and with an emphasis on ordinary development, rather than on pathology.

There are no atheists in foxholes; or so we hear. The thought that the fear of death motivates religious belief has been around since the earliest speculations about the origins of religion. There are hints of this idea in the ancient world, but the theory achieves prominence in the works of Enlightenment critics and Victorian theorists of religion, and has been further developed by contemporary cognitive scientists. Why do people believe in gods? Because they fear death. Yet despite the abiding appeal of this simple hypothesis, there has not been a systematic attempt to evaluate its central claims and the assumptions underlying them. Do human beings fear death? If so, who fears death more, religious or nonreligious people? Do reminders of our mortality really motivate religious belief? Do religious beliefs actually provide comfort against the inevitability of death? In Death Anxiety and Religious Belief, Jonathan Jong and Jamin Halberstadt begin to answer these questions, drawing on the extensive literature on the psychology of death anxiety and religious belief, from childhood to the point of death, as well as their own experimental research on conscious and unconscious fear and faith. In the course of their investigations, they consider the history of ideas about religion's origins, challenges of psychological measurement, and the very nature of emotion and belief.

This book brings pragmatic theory and praxis into dialogue with contemporary psychodynamic ideas, practitioners, and clinical issues. Generally considered as a historical footnote to psychoanalysis, the chapters in this volume demonstrate pragmatism's continued relevance for contemporary thought. Not only does pragmatism share many of the values and sensibilities of contemporary psychodynamics, its rich philosophical and theoretical emphasis on active meaning making and agentic being in the world complements and extends current thinking about the social nature of self and mind, how we occupy space in the world, non-linear development, and processes of communication.

This book draws on existential theory and original research to present the conceptual framework for an understanding of existential authenticity and demonstrates how this approach might be adopted in practice. The authors explore how a non-mediated connection with authentic lived experience might be established and introduced into everyday living. Drs. Jonathan Davidov and Pninit Russo-Netzer begin by introducing readers to the core theoretical concepts before illustrating how this might be applied in a therapeutic practice. It appeals to scholars and practitioners with an interest in existential psychology, phenomenology, and their broad implications.

Publisher's note on this book: This book is a radical leap into the apex of philosophy, psychology, and the science of seeing what's real for oneself. Written in a dense and penetrating style that is designed to induce deep thinking and thoughtful reflection, the book explains how to attain lucidity, a type of acute, profound awareness that serves as the fundamental base for Gnosis, individual illumination. It may not be an easy read the first time through, but it will be well worth it. The book is meant to be studied and reflected upon many times. This book is impeccable, more of an experience than just a book with profound information. It is a potent toolshed of ideas that will be of interest to psychologists, philosophers, social scientists, meditators, contemplatives, or anyone who wants to know what's really going on and how to SEE in a very clear and luminous way.

This volume brings together trends and their prospects to understand the complexity of metacognitive phenomena, with emphasis on the interactions of metacognition with affect. It discusses the three perspectives in understanding these interactions: the possible mechanisms underlying them, the manifestation of interactions of metacognition with affect in self- and co-regulation in social and educational contexts, and changes during development in young children and older adults. This volume is a tribute to Professor Emerita Anastasia Efklides, who was among the pioneers to investigate and argue the importance of the interactions between metacognition and affect. It serves as a dedication to her contribution in the widening of the scope of research in metacognition and self-regulated learning.