'The most important book of 2022.' Dr. Robert Malone Desmet's work on mass formation theory was brought to the world's attention on The Joe Rogan Experience and in major alternative news outlets around the globe. Read this book to get beyond the sound bites! In The Psychology of Totalitarianism, world-renowned Professor of Clinical Psychology Mattias Desmet deconstructs the societal conditions that allow collective hypnosis to take hold. By analysing the global pandemic, he identifies the phenomenon of 'mass formation' and illustrates how humanity is being forcibly, unconsciously led into a reality of technocratic totalitarianism, which aggressively excludes alternative views and relies on destructive groupthink, vilifying non-conformist thought as 'dissident.' Building on Hannah Arendt's essential work on totalitarianism, The Origins of Totalitarianism, Desmet offers a sharp critique of the cultural 'groupthink' that existed pre-pandemic but has steadily and inexorably advanced during the Covid crisis. He cautions against the dangers of our current societal landscape, media consumption, and reliance on manipulative technologies, offering simple solutions - both individual and collective - to prevent the willing sacrifice of our ability to think critically. The Psychology of Totalitarianism serves as an indispensable and fundamental guide to understanding this key moment in history. 'Mattias Desmet's [theory of mass formation hypnosis] is great. . . . Once I kind of started to look for it, I saw it everywhere.' Eric Clapton

Have you ever wondered why a trumpeter of family values would suddenly turn around and cheat on his wife? Why jealousy would send an otherwise level-headed person into a violent rage? What could drive a person to blow a family fortune at the blackjack tables?
Or have you ever pondered what might make Mr. Right leave his beloved at the altar, why hypocrisy seems to be rampant, or even why, every once in awhile, even "you" are secretly tempted, to lie, cheat, or steal (or, conversely, help someone you never even met)?
This book answers these questions and more, and in doing so, turns the prevailing wisdom about who we are upside down. Our character, argue psychologists DeSteno and Valdesolo, isn't a stable set of traits, but rather a shifting state that is subject to the constant push and pull of hidden mechanisms in our mind. And it's the battle between these dueling psychological forces that determine how we act at any given point in time.
Drawing on the surprising results of the clever experiments concocted in their own laboratory, DeSteno and Valdesolo shed new scientific light on so many of the puzzling behaviors that regularly grace the headlines. For example, you'll learn:
- Why Tiger Woods just couldn't resist the allure of his mistresses even though he had a picture-perfect family at home. And why no one, including those who knew him best, ever saw it coming.
- Why even the shrewdest of investors can be tempted to gamble their fortunes away (and why risky financial behavior is driven by the same mechanisms that compel us to root for the underdog in sports).
- Why Eliot Spitzer, who made a career of crusading against prostitution, turned out to be one of the most famous johns of all time.
- Why Mel Gibson, a noted philanthropist and devout Catholic, has been repeatedly caught spewing racist rants, even though close friends say he doesn't have a racist bone in his body.
- And why any of us is capable of doing the same, whether we believe it or not

A surprising look at the hidden forces driving the saint and sinner lurking in us all, "Out of Character" reveals why human behavior is so much more unpredictable than we ever realized.

"From the Hardcover edition."

In Feeling Strong, noted psychoanalyst Ethel S. Person redefines the notion of power. The stigma of evil we associate with the subject of power comes from this one conception of power -- the drive for dominance over other people, or, in its most extreme form, an overriding and often ruthless lust for total command. But this is far too limited a definition.

Pointing to a more fulfilling sense of self-empowerment than is being touted in pop-psychology manuals of our time, Feeling Strong shows us that power is really our ability to produce an effect, to make something we want to happen actually take place. Power is a desire and a drive, and it is central in our lives, dictating much of our behavior and consuming much of our interior lives.

Drawing from her expertise honed in clinical practice, as well as from examples in literature and true-life vignettes, Person shows how you can achieve authentic power to find something that matters; to feel inner certainty; to find a personality of your own and effectively plot your life story.

Finding Your Way with Your Baby explores the emotional experience of the baby in the first year and that of the mother, father and other significant adults. This updated edition is informed by latest research in neuroscience, psychoanalysis and infant observation and decades of clinical experience. It also includes important new findings about how the mother's brain undergoes massive restructuring during the transition to parenthood, a phenomenon that has been named 'matrescence.' The authors engage with the difficult emotional experiences that are often glossed over in parenting books - such as bonding, ambivalence about the baby, depression and the emotional turmoil of being a new parent. Acknowledgement and understanding of this darker side of family life offer a sense of relief that can allow parents to harness the power of knowing, owning and sharing feelings to transform situations and break negative cycles and old ways of relating. With real-life examples, the book remains a helpful resource for parents, as well as professionals interested in ideas from psychoanalytic clinical practice including health visitors, midwives, social workers, general practitioners, paediatricians and childcare workers.

Sexology: The Basics is the contemporary manual of human sexuality, eroticism, and intimate relationships. It takes you to every corner of the human erotic mind and physiological arousal response for a thorough understanding of all the functional parts of our sexualities, including how we bond, love and have sex from a broad perspective of diversities in sex, gender, and relationships, from monogamy to polyamory, Vanilla to Kink. This book bridges the gaps in our knowledge of sex education. It is the ultimate guide to answering all the questions you never dared to ask, whether you are a student or a professional, or want to make sense of our often confusing erotic world.

A timely and important new book that challenges everything we think we know about cultivating true belonging in our communities, organizations, and culture, from the #1 bestselling author of Rising Strong, Daring Greatly, and The Gifts of Imperfection.

‘True belonging doesn't require us to change who we are. It requires us to be who we are.’ Social scientist Brené Brown, PhD, LMSW has sparked a global conversation about the experiences that bring meaning to our lives – experiences of courage, vulnerability, love, belonging, shame and empathy. In Braving the Wilderness, Brown redefines what it means to truly belong in an age of increased polarisation. With her trademark mix of research, storytelling and honesty, Brown will again change the cultural conversation while mapping out a clear path to true belonging.

Brown argues that what we're experiencing today is a spiritual crisis of disconnection, and introduces four practices of true belonging that challenge everything we believe about ourselves and each other. She writes, ‘True belonging requires us to believe in and belong to ourselves so fully that we can find sacredness both in both being a part of something, and in standing alone when necessary. But in a culture that's rife with perfectionism and pleasing, and with the erosion of civility, it's easy to stay quiet, hide in our ideological bunkers, or fit in rather than show up as our true selves and brave the wilderness of uncertainty and criticism. But true belonging is not something we negotiate or accomplish with others; it's a daily practice that demands integrity and authenticity. It's a personal commitment that we carry in our hearts.’ Brown offers us the clarity and courage we need to find our way back to ourselves and to each other. And that path cuts right through the wilderness. Brown writes, ‘The wilderness is an untamed, unpredictable place of solitude and searching. It is a place as dangerous as it is breathtaking, a place as sought after as it is feared. But it turns out to be the place of true belonging, and it's the bravest and most sacred place you will ever stand.’

Enriching the balance and meaning of life by better understanding stress and creating your own self-care protocol, Bounce shows you how to live life to the fullest. People are naturally drawn to information on how to improve self-care, create a richer circle of friends, develop and maintain a healthy perspective, and, especially now, the importance of seeing "alone-time" not simply as forced isolation but a venue for new personality development. This aids self-awareness and understanding and improves emotional intellect so we don't react but instead pause to reflect and process life as it unfolds. The original edition of Bounce addressed these areas but then came Covid-19, intense political strife, and increased divisiveness within countries, families, communities, and even faith traditions. The need to greet, successfully adjust to, and even benefit from, such unexpected and broad-reaching change, personally threatening challenges, and stress is of even greater importance now. In addition, styles of living which were taken for granted, such as adults going to work and children educated in an actual classroom, were also radically impacted. As a result, adults were also expected to quickly adapt in order to deal with the questions raised by the young about their own security and hoped-for normalcy. With updated information and a new chapter on post-traumatic growth (PTG), the second edition of Bounce is designed to enhance the search for balance and new meaning to live life to the fullest.

Further Along the Road Less Traveled takes the lectures of Dr. Peck and presents his profound insights into the issues that confront and challenge all of us today: spirituality, forgiveness, relationships, and growing up. In this aid for living less simplistically, you will learn not to look for the easy answers but to think multidimensionally. You will learn to reach for the "ultimate step," which brings you face to face with your personal spirituality. It will be this that helps you appreciate the complexity that is life.

Continue the journey of personal and spiritual growth with this wise and insightful book.

From Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times bestselling author Robert Shiller, a groundbreaking account of how stories help drive economic events-and why financial panics can spread like epidemic viruses Stories people tell-about financial confidence or panic, housing booms, or Bitcoin-can go viral and powerfully affect economies, but such narratives have traditionally been ignored in economics and finance because they seem anecdotal and unscientific. In this groundbreaking book, Robert Shiller explains why we ignore these stories at our peril-and how we can begin to take them seriously. Using a rich array of examples and data, Shiller argues that studying popular stories that influence individual and collective economic behavior-what he calls "narrative economics"-may vastly improve our ability to predict, prepare for, and lessen the damage of financial crises and other major economic events. The result is nothing less than a new way to think about the economy, economic change, and economics. In a new preface, Shiller reflects on some of the challenges facing narrative economics, discusses the connection between disease epidemics and economic epidemics, and suggests why epidemiology may hold lessons for fighting economic contagions.

Over the last few years, it has been impossible to ignore the steady resurgence of xenophobia. The European migrant crisis and immigration from Central America to the United States have placed Western advocates of globalization on the defensive, and a 'New Xenophobia' seems to have emerged out of nowhere. In this fascinating study, George Makari traces the history of xenophobia from its origins to the present day. Often perceived as an ancient word for a timeless problem, 'xenophobia' was in fact only coined a century ago, tied to heated and formative Western debates over nationalism, globalization, race and immigration. From Richard Wright to Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, writers and thinkers have long grappled with this most dangerous of phobias. Drawing on their work, Makari demonstrates how we can better understand the problem that is so crucial to our troubled times.

How to Calm Your Mind offers a toolkit of accessible, science-backed strategies that reveal how the path to a less anxious life, and even greater productivity, runs directly through calm. When productivity expert Chris Bailey discovered that he had become stressed and burnt out because he was pushing himself too hard, he realized that he had no right to be giving advice on productivity without learning when and how to rein things in and take a break. Productivity advice works - and we need it now more than ever - but it's just as important that we also develop our capacity for calm. By finding calm and overcoming anxiety, we don't just feel more comfortable in our own skin, we invest in the missing piece that leads our efforts to become sustainable over time. We build a deeper, more expansive reservoir of energy to draw from throughout the day, and have greater mental resources at our disposal not only to do good work, but also to live a good life. Among the topics How to Calm Your Mind covers are: - How analogue and digital worlds affect calm and anxiety in different ways; - How our desire for dopamine breeds anxiety; - How hidden sources of stress can be tamed by a 'stimulation fast'; - How 'busyness' is as much a state of mind as it is an actual state of life. The pursuit of calm ultimately leads us to become more engaged, focused and deliberate - while making us more productive and satisfied with our lives overall. In an anxious world, achieving calm is the best lifehack around.

One of the most groundbreaking sociology texts of the 20th century, Howard S. Becker's Outsiders revolutionized the study of social deviance. Howard S. Becker's Outsiders broke new ground in the early 1960s-and the ideas it proposed and problems it raised are still argued about and inspiring research internationally. In this new edition, Becker includes two lengthy essays, unpublished until now, that add fresh material for thought and discussion. "Why Was Outsiders a Hit? Why Is It Still a Hit?" explains the historical background that made the book interesting to a new generation coming of age in the 60s and makes it of continuing interest today. "Why I Should Get No Credit For Legalizing Marijuana" examines the road to decriminalization and presents new ideas for the sociological study of public opinion.

From the author of THE PERFECT STORM and WAR comes a book about why men miss war, why Londoners missed the Blitz, and what we can all learn from American Indian captives who refused to go home. Tribe is a look at post-traumatic stress disorder and the challenges veterans face returning to society. Using his background in anthropology, Sebastian Junger argues that the problem lies not with vets or with the trauma they've suffered, but with the society to which they are trying to return. One of the most puzzling things about veterans who experience PTSD is that the majority never even saw combat-and yet they feel deeply alienated and out of place back home. The reason may lie in our natural inclination, as a species, to live in groups of thirty to fifty people who are entirely reliant on one another for safety, comfort and a sense of meaning: in short, the life of a soldier. It is one of the ironies of the modern age that as affluence rises in a society, so do rates of suicide, depression and of course PTSD. In a wealthy society people don't need to cooperate with one another, so they often lead much lonelier lives that lead to psychological distress. There is a way for modern society to reverse this trend, however, and studying how veterans react to coming home may provide a clue to how to do it. But it won't be easy.

When The Dance of Deception was published, Lerner discovered that women were not eager to identify with the subject. "Well, I don't do deception" was a common resonse.

We all "do deception", often with the intention to protect ourselves and the relationships we depend on. The Dance of Deception unravels the ways (and whys) that women show the false and hide the real -- even to our own selves. We see how relationships are affected by lying and faking, by silence and pretending and by brave -- but misguided -- efforts to tell the truth.

Truth-telling is at the heart of what is most central in women's lives. It is at the foundation of authenticity and creativity, intimacy and joy. Yet in the name of "honesty", we can bludgeon each other. We can approach a difficult issue with such a poor sense of timing and tact that we can actually shut down the lines of communication rather than widening the path of truth-telling.

Sometimes Lerner's advice takes a surprising turn -- for example, when she asks us to engage in a bold act of pretending in order to discover something "more real"; or when she tells us not to parachute down on our family to bring up a "hot issue" without laying the necessary groundwork first.

Whether the subject is affairs, family secrets, sexual faking or the challenge of "being oneself", Lerner helps us to discover, speak and live our own truths.

In this book, originally published in Britain in 1971, and reissued here with a new preface, Eleanor Hamilton provides an enlightened and practical guide to the problems of sex and love for the increasing number of young men and women who wanted to enjoy a full and rich relationship before marriage, still frowned upon at the time. Following in the footsteps of pioneers like Eustace Chesser and Alfred Kinsey, Dr Hamilton presents facts and ideas in a warm, open-minded and sympathetic way. Simply and clearly, she explains the art and techniques of lovemaking (coital and non-coital), sexual development in childhood and adolescence, birth control, personal and emotional problems, how to handle accidental pregnancy and how to understand sexual difficulties and so-called deviations. This book is a re-issue originally published in 1969. The language used and views portrayed are a reflection of its era and no offence is meant by the Publishers to any reader by this re-publication.

Complete with exercises, reflections, and specially selected tasks, this workbook is written for those suffering from heartbreak (and their therapists) to support them in navigating and managing the pain of breakups. The authors help them learn from their experiences, grow stronger from their suffering, and create healthy and fulfilling relationships. Kathryn Rheem and Clare Rosoman bring their experiences as relationship therapists and devotees of attachment science to offer informed support and encouragement to the broken hearted by providing practical strategies to help readers make sense of and grow from their experiences. Mirroring the therapy process, the book is structured so that readers actively participate in their own healing process with activities that guide their journey session by session. Chapters address attachment strategies, facing fear, riding waves of anger, processing grief and loss, forgiveness, and trusting yourself again. This book will help the reader create a future in which they can know and accept themselves as the perfectly imperfect human they are and create secure bonds with the special people in their life. This workbook is for people who have experienced the loss of a close relationship and are struggling to heal and move forward in their lives, as well as therapists assisting clients in their recovery from relationship loss.

'In a time when too many minds seem closed, this is a masterful analysis of what it takes to open them' Adam Grant, author of the bestselling Think Again 'Optimistic, illuminating and even inspiring' Guardian As the world is increasingly polarised, it feels impossible to change the mind of someone with a conflicting view. But this book shows that you could be one conversation away from changing someone's mind about something, maybe a lot of things. Self-delusion expert and psychology nerd David McRaney sets out to discover not just what it takes to influence others, but why we believe in the first place. Along the way he meets a former Westboro Baptist Church member who was deradicalised on Twitter, goes deep canvassing to see how quickly people will surrender their character-defining views, finds a 9/11 Truther who turns his back on it all, and reveals how, within a few years, half a country can go from opposing the 'gay agenda' to happily attending same-sex weddings. Distilling the latest research in psychology and neuroscience, How Minds Change reveals how beliefs take hold, not over hundreds of years, but in less than a generation, in less than a decade, and sometimes in an instant.

This edited volume affords conceptual and analytical convergence in the study of political incivility by bringing together theoretical and empirical work of scholars from various (sub)disciplines studying political incivility within European countries and the USA. It addresses the needs and challenges of comparative research, adding to a more generic theory on political incivility. Recent years have witnessed growing attention to issues of political incivility in the parliamentary, electoral and media arenas, with rudeness, hostility and vulgarity being highly prevalent in interactions between politicians, journalists and citizens. This book analyses what constitutes this political incivility, its occurrence, causes and effects in these various arenas, using several country-specific contexts, and presenting a cohesive edifice of knowledge on political incivility. This book will be of key interest to scholars and students of parliamentary studies, political behaviour, political communication and political psychology, as well as more broadly to political science, communication science, media studies, psychology, sociology and to (non-) governmental institutions and those that are concerned about the quality of democracy or public debate.