Who are we? Where is the boundary between us and everything else? Are we all multiple personalities? And how can we control who we become? From distinguished psychologist Robert Levine comes this provocative and entertaining scientific exploration of the most personal and important of all landscapes: the physical and psychological entity we call our self. Using a combination of case studies and cutting-edge research in psychology, biology, neuroscience, virtual reality and many other fields, Levine challenges cherished beliefs about the unity and stability of the self - but also suggests that we are more capable of change than we know. Transformation, Levine shows, is the human condition at virtually every level. Physically, our cells are unrecognizable from one moment to the next. Cognitively, our self-perceptions are equally changeable: A single glitch can make us lose track of a body part or our entire body, or to confuse our very self with that of another person. Psychologically, we switch back and forth like quicksilver between incongruent, sometimes adversarial sub-selves. Socially, we appear to be little more than an ever-changing troupe of actors. And, culturally, the boundaries of the self vary wildly around the world - from the confines of one's body to an entire village. The self, in short, is a fiction: vague, arbitrary, and utterly intangible. But it is also interminably fluid. And this unleashes a world of potential. Engaging, informative, and ultimately liberating, Stranger in the Mirror will change forever how you think about your self - and what you might become.

Just as DNA determines the genetic makeup of every individual, a motif determines individual bio-psycho-social, emotional, and spiritual behaviors and attitudes. This epigenetic theory of individuality describes the motif as a unique artistry of organizing principles. The author uses the concept of motif to explain physiology, behavior, and attitude and to show how each person has his or her own unique system of motifs that comprises the fabric of every level of personality. Case studies exemplify the way in which motifs manifest the self and how the core personality is understood once the individual's motif is revealed.

Of interest to graduate students in psychology and clinicians and counselors in the field of humanistic and clinical psychology, holistic medicine, wellness and mind-body healing, psycho-biology, and spirituality this book will bring new understanding to personality and behavior studies.

The book examines how coevolved intraspecific aggression and appeasement gestures can give rise to complex social, cultural, and psychopathological phenomena. It argues that the individual's need regulate narcissistic supplies and maintain feelings of safety is the overriding determinant of human conduct and thought in mental health and illness.

Borderline personality disorder accounts for almost 25 percent of psychiatric hospitalizations in this country. Lost in the Mirror takes readers behind the erratic behavior of this puzzling disorder, examining its underlying causes and revealing the unimaginable pain and fear beneath its surface.

This timely and thought-provoking collection explores the ways in which psychological science interacts with and addresses gender across varied subdisciplines in the field, from a feminist viewpoint. A particular aim of this volume is to move the conversation of gender in psychology beyond a difference-only paradigm. Veteran and emerging feminist scholars survey the handling of sex and gender issues across psychology, and describe how feminist perspectives and methodologies can and should be applied to enhance the field itself, but also in the service of social justice in the various cultures of corporations, academia, and the global stage. Contributions span theoretical advances, latest empirical findings, and real-world advocacy, with instructive and illuminating first-person accounts detailing challenges and rewards of feminist scholarship and practice in psychology. Throughout the volume, chapters document a dynamic field in its evolution from the traditional, two-dimensional study of gender-based differences to concerted multidisciplinary approaches, to cutting edge feminist theoretical and methodological advances such as intersectionality to understand gender in context. The volume is divided into three distinct sections. The first covers current theory and research in psychological science that considers gender beyond a difference-only paradigm. Then, leading feminist scholars reflect upon their own experiences in their respective subdisciplines. Finally, the third section explores innovative best practices and applications for feminist psychological science. Highlights of the coverage: * Beyond difference: Gender as a quality of social settings. * Adventures in feminist health psychology: Teaching about and conducting feminist psychological science. * Mind the thigh gap? Bringing feminist psychological science to the masses. * Feminist psychologists and institutional change in universities. With its stimulating compilation of theories, research, and applications, Feminist Perspectives On Building A Better Psychological Science of Gender is one of the most forward-thinking and innovative treatments of the field in recent years. It is a significant and important text for all psychologists, women's and gender studies specialists, social science researchers, and all those interested in using evidence-based psychological science to create a more just and equitable world.

In 1996, representatives from 27 different countries met in Jerusalem to share ideas about traumatic stress and its impact. For many, this represented the first dialogue that they had ever had with a mental health professional from another country. Many of the attendees had themselves been exposed to either personal trauma or traumatizing stories involving their patients, and represented countries that were embroiled in conflicts with each other. Listening to one another became possible because of the humbling humanity of each participant, and the accuracy and objectivity of the data presented. Understanding human traumatization had thus become a common denomi nator, binding together all attendees. This book tries to capture the spirit of the Jerusalem World Conference on Traumatic Stress, bringing forward the diversities and commonalties of its constructive discourse. In trying to structure the various themes that arose, it was all too obvious that paradigms of different ways of conceiving of traumatic stress should be addressed first. In fact, the very idea that psychological trauma can result in mental health symptoms that should be treated has not yet gained universal acceptability. Even within medicine and mental health, competing approaches about the impact of trauma and the origins of symptoms abound. Part I discusses how the current paradigm of traumatic stress disorder developed within the historical, social, and process contexts. It also grapples with some of the difficulties that are presented by this paradigm from anthropologic, ethical, and scientific perspectives."

Drawing on the non-individualistic perspective of social representations theory, this title presents an alternative view of social identity by articulating the inseparable dynamic relationships that exist between content, process and power relations when social identity is embedded in social knowledge.

What is "too fat?" "Too thin"? Interpretations of body weight vary widely across and within cultures. Meeting weight expectations is a major concern for many people because failing to do so may incur dire social consequences, such as difficulty in finding a romantic partner or even in locating adequate employment. Without these social and cultural pressures, body weight would be only a health issue. While socially constructed standards of body weight may seem immutable, they are continuously re-created through social interactions that perpetuate or transform expectations about fatness and thinness. Understanding social constructions of body weight requires insight regarding how people develop and use constructions in their daily lives. While structural conditions and cultural environments make important contributions to weight constructions, the chapters in this book focus on the "social processes" in which people engage while they interpret, negotiate, resist, and transform cultural definitions and expectations. As such, most of the chapters in this volume borrow from and contribute to a symbolic interactionist perspective. Written by sociologists, psychologists, and nutritionists, all of the chapters in "Interpreting Weight" focus on how people construct fatness and thinness. The contributors examine different strategies used to interpret body weight, such as negotiating weight identities, reinterpreting weight, and becoming involved in weight-related organizations. Together, these chapters emphasize the many ways that people actively define, construct, and enact their fatness and thinness in a variety of settings and situations.

I have long been awe-struck by authors' claims that their books had been in the making for 5, or 10, or even 15 years. I now have a better appreciation ofthe work involved in bringing a book to press. The seeds of this project have had a long germination. The impetus for this book began more than 10 years ago when I was a graduate student in clinical psychology. Having an interest in human sexuality-and in theories on the forms of sexual attraction specifically-I was perplexed by various perspectives on this subject. Disciplines of thought that I encountered medicine, evolutionary biology, developmental psychology, gay/lesbian theory, social constructionism, anthropology, Marxism, Christianity, and others-perceived the issue so differently, so strongly, with almost no overlap. I was fascinated that the question ofhow and why one is attracted to either one or both sexes could elicit such conviction and divergent points of view. There seemed to be no easy way to resolve these differences. Still, what frustrated me most in my readings were several conceptual problems among the two prominent proponents of contemporary sexuality theory scientists and social constructionists. One ofmy first frustrations with biomedical and social scientists who write about sexuality was that they often define sexual attraction in strict behavioral terms, as completed observable sexual acts--observable in the sense that such acts or their consequences are seen by others."

Is the Ego nothing but our brain? Are our mental and psychological states nothing but neuronal states of our brain? Though Sigmund Freud rejected a neuroscientific foundation for psychoanalysis, recent knowledge in neuroscience has provided novel insights into the brain and its neuronal mechanisms. This has also shed light on how the brain itself contributes to the differentiation between neuronal and psychological states.
In Neuropsychoanalysis in Practice, Georg Northoff discusses the various neuronal mechanisms that may enable the transformation of neuronal into psychological states, looking at how these processes are altered in psychiatric disorders like depression and schizophrenia. He focuses specifically on how the brain is organized and how this organization enables the brain to differentiate between neuronal and psychodynamic states, that is, the brain and the psyche. This leads him to discuss not only empirical issues but also conceptual problems, for instance, the concept of the brain. Neuropsychoanalysis in Practice applies these concepts and mechanisms to explain the various symptoms observed in psychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia. In addition to the empirical issues, he also discusses various conceptual and methodological issues that are relevant in linking neuroscience and psychoanalysis, developing a novel transdisciplinary framework for linking neuroscience, psychoanalysis and philosophy.
This highly original new book will help foster new dialogues between neuroscience, psychoanalysis, and philosophy, and will be fascinating reading for anyone in these disciplines.

When an accident involves many people and when its consequences are many and serious, we speak of a disaster. Disasters have the same causal fac tors as accidents: they differ from accidents by the gravity of consequences, not by causes. The action of a single individual may result in thousands of deaths and huge financial losses. The metal fatigue of a screw may, by a chain of events, cause an explosion killing hundreds or lead to a break in a dam and a devastating flood. The fact that minor and unpredictable acts can lead to disasters is im portant because it allows us to predict that the years to come will bring with them more disasters with ever more severe consequences. The density ofhu man populations is growing. By the year 2025 some four fifths of the world's population will be living in urban settings. An explosion or a gas leak in a densely populated area will cause incomparably more damage than a simi lar event in a rural area. Modern technology is immensely powerful (and its power is continuing to grow) and can be used in a disastrous manner. Ag gression is just as possible now as it was in the past, but the tools of aggression are vastly more dangerous than ever before. This book, edited by Johan M. Havenaar, Julie G. Cwikel, and Evelyn J. Bromet, is therefore very timely."

The blush is a ubiquitous, but little understood, phenomenon that presents many puzzles. It involves a visible, involuntary and uncontrollable change in the face that can express feelings, reveal character, influence others and, for those individuals who fear blushing, cause intense anxiety. Ray W. Crozier provides a scholarly, yet accessible, synthesis of research, and new findings, locating blushing within the context of the 'social emotions' of embarrassment, shame and shyness.

Scholarship on the psychology of peace has been accumulating for decades. The approach employed has been predominantly centered on addressing and preventing conflict and violence and less on the conditions associated with promoting peace. Concerns around nuclear annihilation, enemy images, discrimination, denial of basic human needs, terrorism and torture have been the focal points of most research. The Psychological Components of a Sustainable Peace moves beyond a prevention-orientation to the study of the conditions for increasing the probabilities for sustainable, cooperative peace. Such a view combines preventative scholarship with a promotive-orientation to the study of peaceful situations and societies. The contributors to this volume examine the components of various psychological theories that contribute to the promotion of a harmonious, sustainable peace. Underlying this orientation is the belief that promoting the ideas and actions which can lead to a sustainable, harmonious peace will not only contribute to the prevention of war, but will also lead to more positive, constructive relations among people and nations and to a more sustainable planet. The Psychological Components of a Sustainable Peace is valuable and stimulating reading for researchers in peace psychology, political psychology, and conflict resolution as well as others who are interested in developing a sustainable, harmonious world.

The life of Holocaust survivor Dr. Heinz Hartmann is a fascinating one indeed, from escaping Hitler's concentration camps as a young man to making house-calls as a general practitioner in America. As chronicled in his compelling 1986 autobiography, "Once a Doctor, Always a Doctor: The Memories of a German-Jewish Immigrant Physician", Hartmann completed his medical studies in the 1930s, when the Nazis were in power. Just two weeks after his wedding to the beautiful Herta, a young nurse, Hartmann and scores of other Jewish men were taken by the Nazis to Buchenwald. It was these horrifying experiences that he drew upon when interviewed by Steven Spielberg's Shoah Foundation in its research for the movie "Schindler's List" as well as for libraries internationally.In this touching new book, Hartmann recounts his and Herta's escape from Nazi Germany, their loving relationship, and her fatal struggle with pancreatic cancer. He also examines the many years of love and care-giving he devoted to his physically and mentally retarded son, Michael, who was born healthy but experienced a crippling reaction to a vaccination at only five and a half months of age. This enlightening and tremendously personal memoir also offers the doctor's thoughts on the future of medicine, what it means to be Jewish in modern society, and special thoughts about the people who have influenced his life.

Sociologists and anthropologists have had a long interest in studying the ways in which cultures shaped different patterns of health, disease, and mortality. Social scientists have documented low rates of chronic disease and disability in non-Western societies and have suggested that social stability, cultural homogeneity and social cohesion may play a part in explaining these low rates. On the other hand, in studies of Western societies, social scientists have found that disease and mortality assume different patterns among various ethnic, cultural and social-economic groups. The role of stress, social change and a low degree of cohesion have been suggested, along with other factors as contributing to the variable rates among different social groups.

Social cohesion has been implicated in the cause and recovery from both physical and psychological illnesses. Although there has been a large amount of work established the beneficial effects of cohesion on health and well-being, relatively little work has focused on HOW increased social cohesion sustains or improves health. This work is based on the premise that there are risk factors, including social cohesion that regulate health and disease in groups. One of the challenges is how to measure social cohesion - it can be readily observed and experienced but difficult to quantify. A better understanding of how social cohesion works will be valuable to improving group-level interventions.

Jan De Vos starts where other critiques on psychology end, presenting the argument that psychology is psychologization.This fresh and pioneering approach asks what it means to become the psychologist of one's own life. If something is not working in our education, in our marriage, in our work and in society in general we turn to the psy-sciences. But is the latter's paradigm precisely not relying on feeding psychological theories into the field of research and action?This book traces psychologization from the Enlightenment to Late-Modernity, engaging with seminal thinkers such as La Mettrie, Husserl, Lasch and Agamben, whereby Jan De Vos teases out the possibilities and the limits of using psychoanalytic theory as a critical tool. Offering challenging and thought-provoking insights into how the modern human came to adopt a psychological gaze on itself and the world, this book will appeal to psychologists, sociologists and studies of culture.

This edited volume presents selected papers focusing on Ronald Fisher's cumulative contributions to understanding destructive intergroup conflicts from a social-psychological perspective, and to the development and assessment of small group, interactive methods for resolving them. Highlights include schematic models of third party consultations, intergroup conflicts, and a contingency approach to third party intervention. Overall, the selected texts offer a comprehensive description and clear rationale for interactive conflict resolution and its unique contributions to peacemaking.

Based on a unique research study, this volume examines the later life development of Holocaust survivors from Israel and the US. Through systematic interviews, the authors a" noted researchers and clinicians a" collected data about the lives of these survivors and how they compared to peers who did not share this experience. The orientation of the book synthesizes several conceptual approaches a" gerontological and life span development, stress research, and traumatology, and also reflects the varied disciplines of the authors, spanning psychology, social work, and sociology. The result is a multi-faceted view of their subject with an understanding of the individual, society, and the interaction of the two, tempered by the authorsa (TM) own Holocaust experiences. Chapters cover a range of areas including stress and coping of these survivors, reviews of their heath and mental health, an examination of their social integration, as well as a review of the multiple predictors of psychological well-being and adaptation to aging. This book will be of interest to psychologists, social workers, sociologists, psychiatrists, and all those who study both trauma and aging.

Reflexive Religion: The New Age in Brazil and Beyond examines the rise of alternative spiritualities in contemporary Brazil. Masterfully combining late modern theory with multi-site ethnographies of the New Age, it explains how traditional religion is being transformed by processes of reflexivity, globalization and individualism. The book unveils how the New Age has entered Brazil, was adapted to local Catholic, Spiritist and psychology cultures, and more recently how the Brazilian Nova Era re-enters transnational circuits of spiritual practice. It closely examines Paulo Coelho (spiritualist novels), Projectiology (astral projection) and Santo Daime (neo-shamanism) to understand the broader "new agerization" of Christianity and Spiritualism. Reflexive Religion offers a compelling account of how the religious field is being updated under late modern conditions.

All traits were not created equal. -WORCHEL AND COOPER (1983, p. 180) This book reports the findings from extensive cross-cultural studies of the relative importance ofdifferent psychological traits in 20 countries and the relative favorability of these traits in a subset of 10 countries. While the work is devoted primarily to professionals and advanced students in the social sciences, the relatively nontechnical style - ployed should make the book comprehensible to anyone with a general grasp of the concepts and strategies ofempirical behavioral science. The project grew out of discussions between the first author and third author while the latter was a graduate student at Wake Forest University, U.S.A., in 1990. The third author, a native of Chile, was studying person-descriptive adjectives composing the stereotypes - sociatedwiththe Chilean aboriginal minority knownas Mapuche (Saiz &Williams, 1992). Asweexaminedthe adjectives usedinthisstudy, it was clear that they differed in favorability and also on another dim- sionwhichwe latertermed "psychologicalimportance," i.e., the degree to which adjectives reflected more "central," as opposed to more "- ripheral,"personality characteristics. More important descriptors were those which seemed more informative or diagnostic ofwhat a person "wasreally like"and, hence, might be ofgreater significance in und- standing and predicting an individual's behavior.

This early work of psychology is both expensive and hard to find in its first edition. It contains Lewin s theories on the structure of the mind, child behaviour, education for reality and other factors involved in personality. This is a fascinating work and is thoroughly recommended for anyone with an interest in the history of psychology. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The meaning of selfhood has become an urgent question, largely in reaction to the radical individualism in which many modern Western notions of selfhood have been cast. The 11 contributors to "Selves, People, and Persons" aim to reshape fundamental ideas of the self in such varied fields as theology, biology, psychoanalysis and political philosophy. Nearly all of them agree that selves are always to be understood in relation to the communities of which they are a part. The first section of the book focuses on basic issues in the philosophy of selfhood. Erazim Kohak's title essay explores American personalism while Harold H. Oliver argues that a self is always in the act of relation to some other. Lawrence E. Cahoone counters with reflections on the limits of this social and rational notion of selfhood and Edward W. James sketches a holistic view of the self in which the "either/or" of dualism can be transformed by a "both/and". The second group deals with selfhood in various cultures, beginning with Eliot Deutsch's exploration of how each tradition can enlarge its understanding of selfhood by incorporating elements from other traditions. John B. Carman examines the role of the self in Hindu "Bhakti", and Livia Kohn explores the role of spontaneity in Chinese views of selfhood. The problem of selfhood in theology, biology, psychoanlaysis and political theory comprises the final section: Krister Stendahl discusses the idea that our selfhood is understood primarily in terms of God's selfhood; Alfred I. Tauber examines biological ideas of organism in the work of Elie Metchnikoff; John E. Mack proposes that a spiritual point of view is now required in order to fully understand the psyche; and Bhikhu Parekh examines how the issue of violence is formulated and debated in liberal democracies.