In his exciting and original view of the universe, Itzhak Bentov has provided a new perspective on human consciousness and its limitless possibilities. Widely known and loved for his delightful humor and imagination, Bentov explains the familiar world of phenomena with perceptions that are as lucid as they are thrilling. He gives us a provocative picture of ourselves in an expanded, conscious, holistic universe.

What am I referring to when I say 'I'? This little word is so easy to use in daily life, yet it has become the focus of intense theoretical debate. Where does my sense of self come from? Does it arise spontaneously or is it created by the media or society? Do I really know myself? This concern with the self, with our subjectivity, is now our main point of reference in Western societies. How has it come to be so important? What are the different ways in which we can approach subjectivity?Nick Mansfield explores how our understanding of our subjectivity has developed over the past century. He looks at the work of key modern and postmodern theorists, including Freud, Foucault, Nietzsche, Lacan, Kristeva, Deleuze and Guattari, and he shows how subjectivity is central to debates in contemporary culture, including gender, sexuality, ethnicity, postmodernism and technology.I am who? No topic is more crucial to contemporary cultural theory than subjectivity, and Nick Mansfield has written what has long been lacking-a lucid, smart introduction to work in the field.Professor Simon During, University of MelbourneEffortlessly and with humour, passion and panache, Mansfield offers the reader a telling, trenchantly articulate d account of the complex enigma of the self, without resorting to reductively simple critical cliches. This book, in its graceful movements between disciplines, ideas, and areas of interest, deserves to become a benchmark for all such student introductions for some time to come.Julian Wolfreys, University of FloridaNick Mansfield is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Critical and Cultural Studies at Macquarie University. He is co-author of Cultural Studies and the New Humanities (Oxford 1997) and author of Masochism: The art of power (Praeger 1997).

Empathic Attunement captures the essence of Kohut's contributions to self psychology and the mental health field. Straightforward, accurate, and practical, the authors introduce student and experienced clinician alike to the synthesis of Kohut's major concepts and their clinical applications. The authors highlight Kohut's emphasis on the empathic mode of data gathering from within the patient's experiences. Kohut considers empathy--the capacity to think and feel oneself into the inner life of another person--to be the major tool of therapy.

This is the third book in a series of Across the Life Span volumes that has come from the Biennial Life Span Development Conferences. The authors--well known in their fields--present theoretical and research issues important for the understanding of temperament in infancy and childhood, as well as personality in adolescence and adulthood. Current findings placed within theoretical and historical contexts make each chapter distinctive.
The chapter authors focus on their work and its implications for temperament and personality issues across the life span. In addition, they include summaries of research by other investigators and theorists, placing their work and that of others in a lifespan perspective.

Building on the author's previous published work, this book focuses on the relationship between identity and perception in early Buddhism, drawing out and explaining the way they relate in terms of experience. It presents a coherent picture of these issues in the context of Buddhist teachings as a whole and suggests that they represent the heart of what the Buddha taught. This book will be of primary interest to scholars working within all fields of Buddhist studies.

New interpretations of the central teachings of early Buddhism, mainly the relationship between identity and perception in early Buddhism.

This book describes in detail how to effectively treat severely ill but not psychotic patients, by careful psychotherapeutic work on the defenses and the superego. Diverging widely from Kernberg's and Kohut's work with the same broad spectrum of patients, Leon Wurmser demonstrates his flexible and individualized method with clinical material taken directly from actual patient therapist interaction. The core of the therapeutic work focuses on trauma; forms of defense; conflicts within the superego; and the related affects of guilt, shame, depression, and resentment. Appreciating the complex and individual nature of each case, the author uses the familiar concepts of masochism, aggression, narcissism, and repetition compulsion as descriptions, not explanations, of clinical observations. There are no shortcuts; a genuine understanding that results in real change for the patient requires an in-depth exploration of the material in a nonjudgmental atmosphere. Observing that categories, while necessary, tend to be slowly transformed into words of devaluation, Dr. Wurmser addresses the implicit, and often quite explicit, judgmental spirit directed toward severely ill patients, and cautions clinicians to avoid falling into the role of a judging authority. This is an eloquent accounting of a master therapist's successes and failures, valuable especially for offering effective and decisive interventions in treating traditionally untreatable patients."

Most people now accept that human beings are the product of millions of years of mammalian evolution and, more recently, primate evolution. This landmark book explores the implications of our evolutionary history for theories and therapies of depression. In particular, the focus is on how social conflict has shaped various behavioral and psychophysiological systems. Special attention is given to the evolved mechanisms for dealing with social defeat and subordination in both animals and humans. By linking human depression to the activation of ancient psychobiological programs for dealing with social conflict, one is able to understand the function of depression within groups, family systems, and between individuals and begin to distinguish depressions that may have adaptive functions from those that are the result of maladaptive feedback systems.
Although many acknowledge the need for an integrated, biopsychosocial theory of psychopathology, there continue to be great divisions among social, psychological, and biological approaches. Sloman and Gilbert have brought together leading scientists and clinicians representing different disciplines and schools to present a provocative new evolutionary model of depression. This model illuminates old problems in new ways, links a common disabling condition to evolved mental mechanisms, and points to potential new approaches to prevention and intervention. The book will be of compelling interest to all those who study or treat mood disorders.

This special issue provides a view of the past, present, and future of the field of personality and social psychology as an interdisciplinary endeavor. Collectively, the articles illustrate the vital contributions that can be made pursuing the reciprocal connections between personality/social psychology and psychobiology; developmental psychology; comparative psychology and evolutionary biology; clinical and health psychology; communication studies; organizational studies and systems theory; and cultural anthropology. The papers reflect the collective past and present of the field and set an agenda for a collective future.

This book introduces psychosocial studies of idol worship in Chinese societies. It reviews how idol worship is perceived in Chinese culture, history, and philosophy as well as how it differs from the concept of celebrity worship that is more dominant in Western literature. Using a pioneering hexagonal model of idol worship, this book explains how idol worship is affected by various demographic and dispositional variables as well as the cognitive and social functions of idols and idol worship. Finally, it discusses idol worship from a contemporary Chinese perspective, including emotional, interpersonal, and social learning aspects, and ends with a discussion of moral development perspective.

In Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies contributions by well-known international scholars from different disciplines address the sites, practices, and narratives in which belonging is imagined, enacted and constrained, negotiated and contested. Belonging is viewed from the perspectives of both migrants and refugees in their host countries as well as from people who are ostensibly 'at home' and yet may experience various degrees of alienation in their countries of origin. The book focuses on three particular dimensions of belonging: belonging as space (neighbourhood, workplace, home), as practice (virtual, physical, cultural), and as biography (life stories, group narratives). What role do physical, digital, transnational and in-between spaces play and how are they used in order to create/contest belonging? Which practices do people engage in in order to gain/foster/invent a certain/new sense of belonging? What can the biographies and narratives of people reveal about their complicated and contested experiences of belonging? Contested Belonging: Spaces, Practices, Biographies convincingly shows how individual and collective struggles for belonging are not only associated with exclusion and 'othering', but also lead to surprising and inspiring forms of social action and transformation, suggesting that there may be more reason for hope than for despair.

Volume 15 of Progress in Self Psychology conveys the rich pluralism of contemporary self psychology with respect to a central theoretical and clinical issue: the nature of the self and the manner in which is can best be studied. This topic is initially addressed through a series of papers reassessing selfobject transferences (Rowe; Siegel) and the selfobject function of interpretation (Buirski & Haglund). It is then approached via the theory of psychoanalytic technique, with papers that focus on boundaries and intimacy (Gehrie) and on Surface, Depth, and the Isolated Mind (Magid). And it culminates in two case studies (Levinson & Atwood; Kindler) that elicit animated discussion delineating different perspectives - intersubjective (Stolorow), motivational systems (Fosshage), and self-selfobject (P. Ornstein) - on the self in relation to the therapeutic process. Two studies comparing Melanie Klein and Heinz Kohut (Grotstein; Powell); a discussion of how current cultural attitudes affect parenting (A. Ornstein); a relational view of the therapeutic partnership (Brothers & Lewinberg); and an integration of Silvan Tomkin's affect theory with self psychology add breadth to this timely and provocative collection. Volume 15 includes additional letters from the Kohut Archives and a moving account of Kohut's struggle with his own impending death (Strozier).

Sunday Times Bestseller From the author of the phenomenal multi-million copy bestseller The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down "Hearing the words 'be good to yourself first, then to others' was like being struck by lightning." Many of us respond to the pressures of life by turning inwards and ignoring problems, sometimes resulting in anxiety or depression. Others react by working harder at work, at school or at home, hoping that this will make ourselves and the people we love happier. But what if being yourself is enough? Just as we are advised on airplanes to take our own oxygen first before helping others, we must first be at peace with ourselves before we can be at peace with the world around us. In this beautiful follow-up to his international bestseller The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, Buddhist monk Haemin Sunim turns his trademark wisdom and kindness to self-care, arguing that only by accepting yourself - and the flaws which make you who you are - can you have compassionate and fulfilling relationships with your partner, family and friends. "Even products labelled 'limited edition' are made on a production line with hundreds that are exactly the same. But there is only one you in the world." *** "Haemin writes beautifully and simply... these vital life lessons resonate deeply and easily" Miranda Hart "The world could surely use a little more love, a little more compassion, and a little more wisdom. In Love for Imperfect Things, Haemin Sunim shows us how to cultivate all three, and to find beauty in the most imperfect of things-including your very own self" Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet "Heartwarming, calming and simple. But also filled with wisdom and powerful truths that will teach us to love ourselves first in order to transform our relationships with our loved ones" Hector Garcia, author of IKIGAI - The Japanese secret to a long and happy life "A wonderful book to accompany The Things You Can See... page by page, he shows you how to reclaim your freedom and your life" Professor Mark Williams, author of the bestselling Mindfulness "A real treasure. It teaches us that compassion is at the heart of healing . . . starting with ourselves. I highly recommend this book" Christiane Northrup, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom "You can be the most amazing human being in the world and everyone sees rays of light, love, and genius when they look at you, but if you yourself don't know it, all of that external admiration doesn't matter one bit. Haemin Sunim teaches you ways to love yourself first, instead of loving the idea of other people loving you. It makes a world of difference" Marc and Angel Chernoff, New York Times bestselling authors of Getting Back to Happy

Self and Others is addressed to students and practitioners of psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Its 19 chapters are divided into five evenly balanced parts. The first rubric, "Self, Others, and Ego," introduces us to the units of the intersubjective constitution we have come to know as object relations theory. The second rubric, "Developing Object Relations," is a confluence of lessons derived from infant studies and the psychotherapeutic process, specifically from the work of Mahler and Kernberg. Third, Hamilton integrates into an "Object Relations Continuum" Mahler's developmental stages and organizational series with nosological entities and levels of personality organization. Under the penultimate rubric, "Treatment," levels of object relatedness and types of psychopathology are grounded in considerations of technique in treatment, and generous clinical vignettes are provided to illustrate the technical issues cited. Last, the rubric of "Broader Contexts" takes object relations theory out of the consulting room into application areas that include folklore, myth, and transformative themes on the self, small and large groups, applications of object relations theory outside psychoanalysis, and the evolutionary history and politics of object relations theory. This volume thus presents an integrative theory of object relations that links theory with practice. But, more than that, Hamilton accomplishes his objective of delineating an integrative theory that is quite free of rivalry between schools of thought. An indispensable contribution to beginning psychoanalytic candidates and other practitioners as well as those who wish to see the application of object relations theories to fields outside of psychoanalysis. -Psychoanalytic Books: A Quarterly Journal of Reviews A Jason Aronson Book

Personality Development is a comprehensive overview of infant observation and personality development. It starts at inter-utero life and goes through to adulthood, focusing on the emotional tasks involved at each stage of development and the interplay of internal processes and external circumstances.
Contents include:
* intra-uterine life and the experience of birth
* babyhood: becoming a person in the family
* the toddler and the wider world
* the latency period.
Using clinical and observational material, it will be of interest to those teaching personality development courses, as well as mental health and child care professionals.

Series Information:
Critical Geographies

From long before the Trojan War to the ethnic cleansings of our own century, people have often used their potential to treat other human beings as things. It is this treatment of another person as a thing rather than as a human being that the eminent psychoanalyst, Dr. Sheldon Bach, sees as a perversion of object relationships and that forms the background of this powerful book. Perversion is a lack of capacity for whole object love, and while this includes the sexual perversions it also includes certain character perversions, character disorders and psychotic conditions. Dr. Bach's clinical work has led him to conclude that sexual perversions are generally inconsistent with whole object love. Therapeutic experience suggests that the pathways to object love may be strewn with outgrown and discarded sexual perversions. But whether a sexual perversion per se exists or not, the issue of how it happens that one person can degrade another to the status of a thing is an issue of importance not only for the psychoanalysis of character but for our larger understanding of human nature as well. Perversions are attempts to simplistically resolve or defend against some of the central paradoxes of human existence. How is it possible for us to be born of someone's flesh yet be separate from them, or to live in one's own experience yet observe oneself from the outside? How are we able to deal with feelings of being both male and female, child and adult, or to negotiate between the worlds of internal and external stimulation? People with perversions have special difficulty in dealing with the ambiguity of human relationships. They have not developed the transitional psychic space that would allow them to contain paradox, making it difficult for them to recognize the reality and legitimacy of multiple points of view. Thus they tend to think in either/or dichotomies, to search for dominant/submissive relationships and to perceive the world from idiosyncratically subjective or coldly objective perspectives. In this

How does the sense of basic fairness--or selflessness versus selfishness--arise? How is it exhibited behaviorally? How is it maintained? Few topics hold more contemporary significance or have proved more elusive to specification in precise scientific terms. Current research perspectives on altruism, narcissism, and comity by distinguished behavioral scientists from around the world were brought together in a special issue of Current Psychology (Summer 1998) and are offered here in a useful compendium.

Chapters and contributors include: "Equity, Justice, and Altruism" by Graham F. Wagstaff; "Reactions to the Fate of One's Brainchild After Its Disclosure" by Sidney Rosen and Shannon Wheatman; "Need Norm, Demographic Influence, Social Role, and Justice Judgment" by Helen E. Linkey and Sheldon Alexander; "Adaptive and Maladaptive Narcissism" by Robert W. Hill and Greg Yousey; "Perceptions of Self-Oriented and Other-Oriented Help-Providers" by Mark A. Barnett, Guy D. Vitaglione, Jeffrey S. Bartel, Birgit S. Valdez, Lee Ann Steadman, and Kimberly K. G. Harper; and "Pathological Narcissism and Serial Homicide" by Louis B. Schlesinger. Altruism, Narcissism, Comity will benefit students, researchers, and practitioners in the psychological sciences, sociology, political science, philosophy, law, and other disciplines concerned with the nature of selflessness, heroism, justice, and their variants.

This book analyses Muslim-origin immigrant communities in Europe, and the problematic nature of their labelling by both their home and host countries. The author challenges the ways in which both sending and receiving countries encapsulate these migrants within the religiously defined closed box of "Muslim" and/or "Islam". Transcending binary oppositions of East and West, European and Muslim, local and newcomer, Kaya presents the multiple identities of Muslim-origin immigrants by interrogating the third space paradigm. Turkish Origin Migrants and Their Descendants analyses the complexity of the hyphenated identities of the Turkish-origin community with their intricate religious, ethnic, cultural, ideological and personal elements. This insight into the life-worlds of transnational individuals and local communities will be of interest to students and scholars of the social sciences, migration studies, and political science, especially those concerned with Islamization of radicalism, populism, and Islamophobia in a European context.

The chapters collected in this volume represent the "state-of-the-art" of research on the development of intentional action and intentional understanding--topics that are at the intersection of current research on imitation, early understanding of mental states, goal-directed behavior in nonhuman animals, executive function, language acquisition, and narrative understanding, to name just a few of the relevant foci. Collectively, the contributors demonstrate that intentionality is a key issue in the cognitive and social sciences. Moreover, in a way that was anticipated more than a century ago by the seminal work of J. Mark Baldwin, they are beginning to reveal how the control of action is related in development to children's emerging self-conscious and their increasingly sophisticated appreciation of other people's perspectives.
This volume brings together the world's leading researchers on early social and cognitive development in an in-depth exploration of children's understanding of themselves and others.

Anxiety sensitivity (AS) is the fear of anxiety sensations which arises from beliefs that these sensations have harmful somatic, social, or psychological consequences. Over the past decade, AS has attracted a great deal of attention from researchers and clinicians with more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles published. In addition, AS has been the subject of numerous symposia, papers, and posters at professional conventions.
Why this growing interest?
Theory and research suggest that AS plays an important role in the etiology and maintenance of many forms of psychopathology, including anxiety disorders, depression, chronic pain, and substance abuse.
Bringing together experts from a variety of different areas, this volume offers the first comprehensive state-of-the-art review of AS--its conceptual foundations, assessment, causes, consequences, and treatment--and points new directions for future work. It will prove to be an invaluable resource for clinicians, researchers, students, and trainees in all mental health professions.

Ben Lazare Mijuskovic has spent 40 years researching theories of consciousness in relation to human loneliness, using an interdisciplinary and "history of ideas" approach. In this book, Mijuskovic combines Kant's theory of reflexive self-consciousness with Husserl's transcendent principle of intentionality to describe the distinctive philosophical, psychological, and sociological roots of loneliness and intimacy. He argues that loneliness is innate, unavoidable, and constituted by the structure of self-consciousness itself.

This volume contains 23 articles, grouped under six themes: values and national identity; immigration and acculturation; personality and social behaviour across cultures; organizational and work psychology; educational and developmental psychology; and conceptual and methodological ideas.

This text presents a wide-ranging discussion of the body image by looking at the individual's immediate apprehension toward his or her body and bodily capabilities. In a philosophical treatment of the role played by the body image in our everyday experience, Gail Weiss returns to the seminal contributions of the phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty and the psychoanalyst Paul Schilder, which reveal the complex physiological, social and physical structure of the body image.

Neither human nature nor personality can be independent of culture. Human beings share certain social norms or rules within their cultural groups. Over 2000 years ago, Aristotle held that man is by nature a social animal. Similarly, Xun Kuang (298-238 B.C.), a Chinese philosopher, pointed out that humans in social groups can not function without shared guidance or rules.
This book is designed to provide readers with a perspective on how people are different from, and similar to, each other --both within and across cultures. One of its goals is to offer a practical guide for people preparing to interact with those whose cultural background is different from their own.