New Understandings of Twin Relationships takes an experience-based approach to exploring how twin attachment and estrangement are critical to understanding the push and pull of closely entwined personal relationships. Based on the research expertise of each of the authors (all identical twins in their own right), and vignettes from twins across the globe, this book describes the inner workings of the twin-world, showing how the twin-world creates experiences that are often more intense and intricately textured than those in the singleton-world. Chapters debunk myths surrounding twinship and analyze the developmental stages of the twin relationship as well as the effect of being a twin on one's mental health from different perspectives. The authors articulate how attachment, separation anxiety, loneliness, estrangement, and the subjective experience of the twin and non-twin "other" impact behavior, thinking, and feeling. Through its careful study of the many psychological challenges that twins face throughout their lifetime, this text will help psychologists, scholars, clinicians, and twins themselves attain a deeper understanding of all interpersonal relationships.

New Understandings of Twin Relationships takes an experience-based approach to exploring how twin attachment and estrangement are critical to understanding the push and pull of closely entwined personal relationships. Based on the research expertise of each of the authors (all identical twins in their own right), and vignettes from twins across the globe, this book describes the inner workings of the twin-world, showing how the twin-world creates experiences that are often more intense and intricately textured than those in the singleton-world. Chapters debunk myths surrounding twinship and analyze the developmental stages of the twin relationship as well as the effect of being a twin on one's mental health from different perspectives. The authors articulate how attachment, separation anxiety, loneliness, estrangement, and the subjective experience of the twin and non-twin "other" impact behavior, thinking, and feeling. Through its careful study of the many psychological challenges that twins face throughout their lifetime, this text will help psychologists, scholars, clinicians, and twins themselves attain a deeper understanding of all interpersonal relationships.

Communicative Sexualities: Queer and Feminist Theories in Practice, by Jacqueline M. Martinez, provides an argument for and illustration of how to pursue the direct study of students' lived-experiences of sexuality in a classroom or academic setting. It illustrates how communicology, and its methodological practice of semiotic phenomenology, allows for a sustained and rigorous study of the meaningfulness of sexual experience as it becomes manifest in the immediate, concrete, and embodied realities in the lives of those taking up such a study. The generous use of extended examples from actual classroom experience allows for a detailed consideration of the applied research methodology, as well as the ethical issues involved in making students' lived-experience of sexuality the main subject matter of the course. A major concern of Communicative Sexualities is to make explicit the many presuppositions about sex, gender, and sexuality that students and professors bring into the classroom. Martinez's text features detailed discussions of how to study lived-experience sexuality as the subject matter of research. It considers the steps necessary in suspending presuppositions regarding sexuality and gender, and focuses particular attention on the many presuppositions associated with the heterosexual-homosexual binary. Sexuality is understood as inherently good, yet also capable of becoming a means of perpetuating human isolation and degradation as much as an experience of tremendously shared human intimacy and mutual recognition. Discussions of historical context, the fact of temporality, and the intersection of person and culture provide a basis for explicit discussions of semiotics and phenomenology in communicology. As an introductory text, Communicative Sexualities: Queer and Feminist Theories in Practice, by Jacqueline M. Martinez, is an excellent primer for the advanced study of communicology and semiotic phenomenology. It one of very few texts that provides both a theoretical or philosophical discussion of phenomenology with the study of sexuality and gender as an explicit subject matter.

Communicative Sexualities: A Communicology of Sexual Experience, by Jacqueline M. Martinez, provides an argument for and illustration of how to pursue the direct study of students' lived-experiences of sexuality in a classroom or academic setting. It illustrates how communicology, and its methodological practice of semiotic phenomenology, allows for a sustained and rigorous study of the meaningfulness of sexual experience as it manifests in the immediate, concrete, and embodied realities in the lives of those taking up such a study. Examples from actual classroom experience allows for a detailed consideration of the applied research methodology, as well as the ethical issues involved in making students' experience of sexuality the main subject of the course. Martinez's text features detailed discussions of how to study the lived-experience of sexuality as the subject matter of research. It considers the steps necessary in suspending presuppositions regarding sexuality and gender, particularly those associated with the heterosexual-homosexual binary. Sexuality is understood as inherently good, yet also capable of becoming a means of perpetuating human isolation and degradation as much as an experience of tremendously shared human intimacy and mutual recognition. As an introductory text, Jacqueline M. Martinez's Communicative Sexualities: A Communicology of Sexual Experience is an excellent primer for the advanced study of communicology and semiotic phenomenology as related to the lived-experiences of sexuality and gender.

Women of color remain arguably the most economically, politically, and socially marginalized group in the United States and the Third World. In Spoils of War, a diverse group of distinguished contributors suggest that acts of aggression resulting from the racism and sexism inherent in social institutions can be viewed as a sort of 'war, ' experienced daily by women of color.

Using narrative descriptions of the author's own lived-experience of her ethnic heritage, Martinez offers a systematic interrogation of the social and cultural norms by which certain aspects of her Mexican-American cultural heritage are both retained and lost over generations of assimilation. Combining semiotic and existential phenomenology with Chicana feminism, the author charts new terrain where anti-racist, anti-sexist, and anti-homophobic work may be pursued.

Alone in the Mirror: Twins in Therapy chronicles the triumphs and struggles of twins as they separate from one another and find their individuality in a world of non twins. The text is grounded in issues of attachment and intimacy, and is highlighted by Dr. Barbara Klein s scholarly research, clinical experiences with twins in therapy, and her own identity struggles as a twin, all of which allow her to present insights into the rare, complicated, and misunderstood twin identity. She presents psychologically-focused real life histories, which demonstrate how childhood experiences shape the twin attachment and individual development, and she describes implications for twins in therapy, their therapists, and parents of twins. Unique to this book are effective therapeutic practices, developed specifically for twins, and designed to raise the consciousness of parents as well. Readers will find these practices and the insights within invaluable, whether they use them to communicate with twin patients, family members, or if they are part of a twinship themselves.