It explores the cultural origins and psychological aspects of body identity disorders. It discusses the influence of contemporary virtual and cyberspace imagery on self-image. Draws on author's professional experience largely dedicated to exploring disorders where in body identity is the chosen field for communication and exchange. It re-examines such illnesses as anorexia, bulimia, body dysmorphic disorder, and others.

Through proper engagement, identity-based conflict enhances and develops identity as a vehicle to promote creative collaboration between individuals, the groups they constitute and the systems they forge. This handbook describes the specific model that has been developed as well as various approaches and applications to identity-conflict used throughout the world.

This book is concerned with the human individual and her relationship with the communities of which she is a member. It argues against the traditional atomistic view that individuals are essentially independent of the social relations into which they enter, and instead argues for the holistic view that we are essentially social beings who cannot exist apart from normative communities. Matthew Whittingham engages in a sustained exploration and criticism of the classic Western picture of epistemology. He argues instead that communities ground the possibility of our forming a conception of the world and ourselves, that those social relations open up a range of affective responses and forms of action that would otherwise be impossible, they enable us to know and reason about the world, and they make possible the daily struggles for freedom and self-realization that are familiar to us all and find their most powerful expression in major social movements.

World-renowned neuroscientist and author of Healthy Brain, Happy Life has developed an “absolute game-changer” (Conscious Conversations podcast) for managing unwarranted anxiety and turning it into a powerful asset.

We are living in the age of anxiety, a situation that often makes us feel as if we are locked into an endless cycle of stress, sleeplessness, and worry. But what if we had a way to leverage our anxiety to help us solve problems and fortify our well-being? What if, instead of seeing anxiety as a curse, we could recognize it for the unique gift that it is?

As a neuroscientist, Dr. Wendy Suzuki has discovered a paradigm-shifting truth about anxiety: yes, it is uncomfortable, but it is also essential for our survival. In fact, anxiety is a key component of our ability to live optimally. Every emotion we experience has an evolutionary purpose, and anxiety is designed to draw our attention to a number of negative emotions. If we simply approach anxiety as something to avoid, get rid of, or dampen, we actually miss an opportunity to not only manage the symptoms of anxiety better but also discover ways to improve our lives. Listening to our worries from a place of curiosity, instead of fear, can actually guide us onto a path that leads to joy.

The Psychology of Stalking is the first scholarly book on stalking ever published. Virtually every serious writer and researcher in this area of criminal psychopathology has contributed a chapter. These chapters explore stalking from social, psychiatric, psychological and behavioral perspectives. New thinking and data are presented on threats, pursuit characteristics, psychiatric diagnoses, offender-victim typologies, cyberstalking, false victimization syndrome, erotomania, stalking and domestic violence, the stalking of public figures, and many other aspects of stalking, as well as legal issues. This landmark text is of interest to both professionals and other thoughtful individuals who recognize the serious nature of this ominous social behavior.
Key Features:
*First scholarly book on stalking ever published
* Contributions from virtually all major researchers in field
* Discussion of what to do when being stalked
* Uses examples from recent publicized cases

This book explores humanising practice within higher education (HE). It provides a fresh perspective by bringing together expert voices with empirical experience of humanising theory and practice in various areas of higher education, in order to influence and improve the way in which universities work. The book draws on Todres et. al's humanisation framework, as well other relevant theories such as positive organisational scholarship, Vygotsky's socio-cultural theory and socio-emotional intelligence. Topics include micro elements of humanisation such as transitions and the student experience, and macro elements such as the policy impact of humanising HE and sustainability. The authors demonstrate how a humanising approach can provide the catalyst for wider change and help to improve wellbeing in the community. This book offers an invaluable resource for scholars interested in teaching and learning in HE, and for HE practitioners and policy makers keen to develop a more human practice.

This book is a theoretical and practical guide in the field of social skills and social competence, based on decades of experience gained by the authors as researchers and professionals in psychology. The book was written for students and professionals who are involved in some way improving individuals social skills in different contexts, such as clinical, educational, organizational and community settings. The authors present the conceptual foundations, procedures, techniques, strategies and practical guidelines for planning and conducting effective programs aimed to social skills and social competence. In the first part of the book, key concepts and fundamentals on the area are presented, as well as the basic behavioral classes of social skills and their non-verbal and paralinguistic components. The authors also propose a portfolio for the assessment of clients' social skills deficits and strengths to thereby define the aims and procedures of interventions.The second part focuses on guidelines to select and use procedures and techniques for promoting social skills and social competence. The authors present experiential activities that they created in previous interventions and that were tested in their research, showing evidence of effectiveness. Suggestions on how to evaluate participants' repertoires and how to use these ideas in intervention planning are also described. Finally, in the third part of the book, the authors go further presenting practical guidelines for planning and conducting programs and sessions to promote social skills and social competence, in either group or individual settings.

The purpose of this book is to initiate a new discussion on liberty focusing on the infinite realms of space. The discussion of the nature of liberty and what it means for a human to be free has occupied the minds of thinkers since the Enlightenment. However, without exception, every one of these discussions has focused on the character of liberty on the Earth. The emergence of human space exploration programs in the last 40-50 years raise a fundamental and new question: what will be the future of liberty in space? This book takes the discussion of liberty into the extraterrestrial environment. In this book, new questions will be addressed such as: Can a person be free when the oxygen the individual breathes is the result of a manufacturing process controlled by someone else? Will the interdependence required to survive in the extremities of the extraterrestrial environment destroy individualism? What are the obligations of the individual to the extraterrestrial state? How can we talk of extraterrestrial liberty when everyone is dependent on survival systems?

In this insightful book, the author vividly takes the reader inside the minds of people who are paranoid: experiencing delusions of persecution ranging from thinking others are "out to get" them to falsely believing they have physical illness. Kantor also explains to us other facets of the Paranoid Personality, including suspiciousness, hypersensitivity, extreme vigilance, simmering anger, and a tendency to blame others for and absolve oneself of almost everything. How does such paranoia affect one's life? Whether one is a paranoiac wanting to recover from the emotional disorder, or a person looking for the best way to deal with a paranoid husband, wife, friend, boss, or acquaintance, this book offers understanding and guidance. As Kantor explains, the term "paranoid" should not be used as a hurtful epithet. "Paranoid individuals are no more or less evil than persons with any other emotional disorder, or for that matter, persons with a physical disorder. Paranoia is a disorder of the mind, not a flaw of character," says Kantor. Paranoid individuals are not invariably social misfits. They are found in all walks of life and in all professions, suffering from this disorder that distorts behavior and affects those with whom they come in contact, often in devastating ways. Politicians who write attack ads, spouses who beat or kill their partners, people in road or supermarket rage incidents are all among the possibly paranoid, as are students who perpetrate violence at their schools and fired employees who wreak violence at their former workplaces. Recognizing and treating paranoid behaviors can prevent or reduce antisocial activity and violence against individuals and society.

Attachment theory has massively influenced contemporary psychology. While intended to be general, this western theory harbors a number of culturally biased assumptions and is devoted to decontextualized experimental procedures that fail to challenge this ethnocentrism. The chapters in this volume rethink attachment theory by examining it in the context of local cultural meanings, including the meanings of childrearing practices, the cultural models of virtue that shape those practices, and the translation of shared childhood experience into adult cultural understandings through developmental and psychodynamic processes. The current volume is not only a challenge to attachment theorists, but also an object lesson for psychologists of many other stripes.

The Psychology of Social Status outlines the foundational insights, key advances, and developments that have been made in the field thus far. The goal of this volume is to provide an in-depth exploration of the psychology of human status, by reviewing each of the major lines of theoretical and empirical work that have been conducted in this vein. Organized thematically, the volume covers the following areas: - An overview of several prominent overarching theoretical perspectives that have shaped much of the current research on social status. - Examination of the personality, demographic, situational, emotional, and cultural underpinnings of status attainment, addressing questions about why and how people attain status. - Identification of the intra- and inter-personal benefits and costs of possessing and lacking status. - Emerging research on the biological and bodily manifestation of status attainment - A broad review of available research methods for measuring and experimentally manipulating social status A key component of this volume is its interdisciplinary focus. Research on social status cuts across a variety of academic fields, including psychology, sociology, anthropology, organizational science others; thus the chapter authors are drawn from a similarly wide-range of disciplines. Encompassing the current state of knowledge in a thriving and proliferating field, The Psychology of Social Status is a fascinating and comprehensive resource for researchers, students, policy-makers, and others interested in learning about the complex nature of social status, hierarchy, dominance, and power.

This timely collection explores trust research from many angles while ably demonstrating the potential of cross-discipline collaboration to deepen our understanding of institutional trust. Citing, among other things, current breakdowns of trust in prominent institutions, the book presents a multilevel model identifying universal aspects of trust as well as domain- and context-specific variations deserving further study. Contributors analyze similarities and differences in trust across public domains from politics and policing to medicine and science, and across languages and nations. Innovative strategies for measuring and assessing trust also shed new light on this essentially human behavior. Highlights of the coverage: Consensus on conceptualizations and definitions of trust: are we there yet? Differentiating between trust and legitimacy in public attitudes towards legal authority. Examining the relationship between interpersonal and institutional trust in political and health care contexts. Trust as a multilevel phenomenon across contexts. Institutional trust across cultures. The "dark side" of institutional trust. With its stimulating array of concepts and applications, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Trust will attract a varied audience, among them experts in political science, criminal justice, psychology, law, economics, healthcare, sociology, public administration, cross-cultural studies, and business administration.

What are we exactly, when we are said to be our brain? This question leads Jan De Vos to examine the different metamorphoses of the brain: the educated brain, the material brain, the iconographic brain, the sexual brain, the celebrated brain and, finally, the political brain. This first, protracted and sustained argument on neurologisation, which lays bare its lineage with psychologisation, should be taken seriously by psychologists, educationalists, sociologists, students of cultural studies, policy makers and, above all, neuroscientists themselves.

People have strong moral beliefs about right and wrong, yet commonly act contrary to those beliefs. Most of us, at some time or another, have crossed a moral line and yet still view ourselves as moral and have a clean conscience. From intimate relationships to national politics, we define ourselves in large part by how we - and our friends, family, and members of our social groups - draw moral lines around our actions, thoughts, and intentions. While philosophers have weighed in on these issues for thousands of years, social scientists often underplay social life's moral dimension. "Moral Selves, Evil "Selves highlights our individual sense of moral coherence and develops a theory of the development and maintenance of this sense in an ambiguous and complicated social world. By conceptualizing a social psychology of conscience, this book explains how we can properly include individual and societal notions of morality into understanding the self across time and situation.

This welcome resource traces the evolution of self-concept clarity and brings together diverse strands of research on this important and still-developing construct. Locating self-concept clarity within current models of personality, identity, and the self, expert contributors define the construct and its critical roles in both individual and collective identity and functioning. The book examines commonly-used measures for assessing clarity, particularly in relation to the more widely understood concept of self-esteem, with recommendations for best practices in assessment. In addition, a wealth of current data highlights the links between self-concept clarity and major areas of mental wellness and dysfunction, from adaptation and leadership to body image issues and schizophrenia. Along the way, it outlines important future directions in research on self-concept clarity. Included in the coverage: Situating self-concept clarity in the landscape of personality. Development of self-concept clarity across the lifespan. Self-concept clarity and romantic relationships. Who am I and why does it matter? Linking personal identity and self-concept clarity. Consequences of self-concept clarity for well-being and motivation. Self-concept clarity and psychopathology. Self-Concept Clarity fills varied theoretical, empirical, and practical needs across mental health fields, and will enhance the work of academics, psychologists interested in the construct as an area of research, and clinicians working with clients struggling with developing and improving their self-concept clarity.

This second edition of the" Handbook of the Sociology of Mental Health" features theory-driven reviews of recent research with a comprehensive approach to the investigation of the ways in which society shapes the mental health of its members and the lives of those who have been diagnosed as having a mental illness

The award-winning Handbook is distinctive in its focus on how the organization and functioning of society influences the occurrence of mental disorder and its consequences. A core issue that runs throughout the text concerns the differential distribution of mental illness across various social strata, defined by status characteristics such as gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and age. The contributions to this volume shed light on the social, cultural, and economic factors that explain why some social groups have an elevated risk of disorder. They also address the social repercussions of mental disorder for individuals, including stigmatization within the larger society, and for their families and social networks.

The second edition of this seminal volume includes substantial updates to previous chapters, as well as seven new chapters on: -The Individual's Experience of Mental Illness.--The Medicalization of Mental Illness.---Age, Aging, and Mental Health.- -Religion and Mental Health.- -Neighborhoods and Mental Health.- -Mental Health and the Law-and Public Beliefs about Mental Illness.

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This collection brings together leading scholars to explore the doing and making of identities. Drawing on the highly innovative ESRC Identities and Social Action Programme, the chapters take core social actions such as performing, excluding, mixing, bonding and demonstrate how social practices and identities unfold together.

This book offers readers a comprehensive introduction to the economy of attention from the perspective of the basic motive of the pursuit of attention: self-esteem. As a jumping-off point, it states the stark equation at the heart of this economy- that the self-esteem one can afford depends on one's income of appreciative attention. The information markets in which participants compete to play a role in the consciousness of others are described as 'vanity fairs'. Since the pursuit of self-esteem is highly effective when it comes to mobilizing human energies, vanity fairs are not just playgrounds of individual passions, but have been utilized by society since time immemorial as markets for particularly challenging demands. Starting with an analysis of the interface that connects the social economy of attention with the intra-psychic economy of self-esteem, the book then examines two main cases in point: modern science and the post-modern media culture. On the one hand we have scientists working for a 'wage of fame', who invest their own attention into getting the attention of others. On the other, today's dominant media have left the sale of information behind to focus solely on the attraction of attention, which is sold as a service to the advertising industry. In each case the use of attention as a means of payment is key to its phenomenal success. But success comes at a price: the dark side of this monetization of attention is a kind of 'climate change' in the collective mental sphere which threatens the very existence of our social fabric.

This edited volume has been compiled to present the latest developments in the field of social dilemma research. Social dilemmas are situations when there is a conflict between self-interest and collective interest. Research in this area has gained interest in the last twenty years in disciplines such as sociology, psychology, and economics. It also has wide applications to numerous real-world issues such as environmental degradation, organizational management, and societal public good. The main aim of this work was to investigate under what circumstances people make decisions that are inline with the collective interest as well as investigating what can increase the likelihood of cooperation. There will be three man sections mirroring the different levels of analysis: individual, group, and societal.

This book discusses a range of interventions that can be implemented in schools to prevent radicalization and violent extremism. The book advocates for primary prevention by strengthening social and citizenship competences of youth. It combines perspectives of citizenship education, school psychology, positive psychology, peace psychology and social-emotional learning to highlight the spectrum of approaches that practitioners can consider adopting or advocating for. Mechanisms of radicalization the approaches may relate to are also discussed making it useful not only for practitioners and policy makers developing and implementing preventive interventions at schools, but also for academics studying radicalization and students of education, youth work and educational psychology. The authors discuss relevant concepts such as identity development, perspective taking, political self-efficacy, citizenship competences and youth empowerment, mindfulness and self-regulation.

This book addresses three key questions: "Why is there psychoanalysis in Japan?," "What do we learn about Japan from its own forms of analysis?," and "What do we learn about ourselves from Japan?" The book is about the development of psychoanalysis and modern subjectivity in Japan. It shows how forms of individual selfhood amenable to therapeutic intervention emerged as Japanese culture has opened up to the West. It is also about how approaches to analysing the self have encountered Japan and how analysts tried to make sense of a culture that once seemed at odds with the aims of psychotherapy.

This work explores the function of both divisive and uniting symbols in various conflict settings around the world. It takes a fairly broad perspective on what constitutes a symbol, to include objects such as flags, signs, language, and monuments, all of which convey conflicting meanings in a society affected by conflict. In addition, the authors include commemorations and other dynamic events that serve as a means for groups or individuals to connect with past generations, celebrate a heritage, and possibly express religiosity. In order to provide context for the nuances surrounding the symbols, there are brief historical overviews for each conflict featured in the volume. In each chapter, three issues are emphasized: the particular symbols that are divisive in the specific culture; how these symbols were used to perpetuate conflict; and how these symbols can be used or modified to bring unification. Contributions come from authors from around the world that have conducted empirical studies on intergroup relationships or have provided significant academic contributions in the area of symbols and collective memories represented in theoretical publications. Taken together, the contents of the volume provide a rich tapestry of intellectual analyses to the diverse selection of conflict settings from around the globe. In addition to the nine case studies, there is an introductory chapter, which grounds the discussion in current peace psychology literature as well as provides future directions. This volume is a valuable resource to many, as the focus on symbols can span many disciplines such as political science, anthropology, sociology, psychology, and art. Furthermore, it is of significant interest to all scholars and peace activists studying these various countries and their conflicts.