“A wonderfully helpful book . . . After reading it, you will understand what you must do for your brain, and why you must do it.”—Norman Doidge, M.D., New York Times bestselling author of The Brain That Changes Itself Did you know that experts are often less mentally agile than jacks-of-all-trades? That crossword puzzles and sudoku are of minimal help in building brainpower? That multitasking poses unique dangers to the brain? Cognitive psychologist Shlomo Breznitz knows—and what’s more, he knows what to do about it. In Maximum Brainpower, Breznitz and technologist Collins Hemingway provide both an in-depth look at how the brain works and proven methods to increase its capabilities. Armed with the results of cutting-edge research, they champion the stimulus of continual change over the deadening effects of comfortable routine, show how to separate good mental stress from bad, and demonstrate how hope and socialization can help defend against forgetfulness, memory loss, even dementia. Filled with colorful real-life stories and fascinating psychological experiments, this revelatory work will help adults of any age keep their minds sharp, healthy, and cognitively fit throughout life. It’s a no-brainer! Praise for Maximum Brainpower “Everyone knows the importance of physical fitness; less appreciated is the necessity of cognitive fitness. How do you maintain an exercised, stimulated, flexible brain? Start by reading this book.”—David Eagleman, New York Times bestselling author of Incognito “Profound, rich, and enriching . . . Because of its forceful suggestions, its analyses, and its wide knowledge, this book is well worth reading. And rereading.”—Elie Wiesel, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and author “Many of us are petrified of Alzheimer’s disease, strokes, and other maladies that impair the functioning of the brain. Breznitz and Hemingway can deliver no ‘magic bullet’ to prevent dementia. But their book does get you thinking about what you can do to develop and maintain your gray matter, build on the plasticity of the brain, and increase the likelihood that you’ll live not just a longer but a fuller life.”—The Huffington Post “Most books about healthy brain maintenance just give you the ‘how’; this one tells you why. And it helps you do it.”—Rita Carter, author of Mapping the Mind

'Never has the world needed strong and wise American leadership more than it does now. Abramsky's eminently readable description of Obama's personal gifts makes it clear that he is remarkably suited to be the president the moment requires.' -Former New York Governor Mario M. Cuomo From the moment he burst onto the national political scene, Barack Obama has fascinated people more than any politician in decades. Many biographers have already retold his story, but no previous book truly explains how his mind works, what passions drive him, or what makes him such an effective leader. This concise profile explores the ideas, inspirations, and experiences that have shaped the president. It quotes a wide network of sources, including many who broke long-standing vows of silence to offer their candid and surprising observations. Award-winning journalist Sasha Abramsky interviewed close to one hundred of Obama's current and former friends, colleagues, classmates, teachers, staff, mentors, basketball buddies, fellow Chicago activists, media consultants, editors, and even his next-door neighbors from Hyde Park. These people each know a part of Obama's life and career, which the author blends the pieces into a uniquely detailed analysis. Abramsky explains the origins of Obama's extraordinary poise, focus, and self-confidence; his powerful storytelling and speaking skills; and his empathetic listening style. He shows why Obama's experiences as a community organizer are widely misunderstood and more influential than many people realize. And he explores how Obama found a unique way to bridge America's racial divides. No previous book has delved so deeply into the events and people that helped make Barack Obama the man he is today.

Helping is not a one-way process. Caring for others, the sick, the dying, the bereaved and the injured, places an enormous strain on helper and helped alike. The latter may feel resentment, anger and frustration; the former may experience self-doubt, failure, guilt and overwork. Ram Dass and Paul Gorman offer guidance on how to recognize and deal with the spiritual, practical and psychological stresses of the caring situation. This is a book for counsellors, community officers and those whose family circumstances have cast them in a caring role.

“A carefully argued and convincing case.” —Ann Levin, Associated Press Do antidepressants actually work, or are they just glorified dummy pills? How can we tell one way or the other? In Ordinarily Well , the celebrated psychiatrist and author Peter D. Kramer addresses the growing mistrust of antidepressants among the medical establishment and the broader public by taking the long view. He charts the history of the drugs’ development and the research that tests their worth, from the Swiss psychiatrist Roland Kuhn’s pioneering midcentury discovery of imipramine’s antidepressant properties to recent controversial studies suggesting that medications like Prozac and Paxil may be no better than placebos in alleviating symptoms. He unpacks the complex “inside baseball” of psychiatry—statistics—and reveals the fascinating ways that clinical studies and their results can be combined, manipulated, and skewed toward a desired conclusion. All the while, Kramer never loses sight of the patients themselves. He writes with deep empathy about his own clinical encounters over the decades as he weighed treatments, analyzed trial results, and considered the idiosyncrasies each case presented. As Kramer sees it, we must respect human complexity and the value of psychotherapy without denying the truth—that depression is a serious and destructive illness that demands the most effective treatment available.

2010 Reprint of 1952 Edition. First published in 1924, Otto Rank's The Trauma of Birth took as its starting point a note that Freud added to his The Interpretation of Dreams: "Moreover, the act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety". Rank set out to identify "the ultimate biological basis of the psychical," the very "nucleus of the unconscious" (p. xxiii). For him this was the physical event of birth, whereby the infant passes from a state of perfectly contented union with the mother to a state of parlous separation via an oppressive experience of asphyxiation, constriction, confinement in the vaginal canal, and so on-all feelings recognizable in anxiety states of every kind. It was the struggle against this traumatic experience of birth, in Rank's account, that structured the fantasy life of the child, including the disavowal of the difference between the sexes, infantile sexual theories, and oedipal scenarios. Castration anxiety was a defensive derivative of the anxiety associated with the birth trauma.

Feel Better. . .Live Better Scientific discoveries are unlocking the mysteries of our emotional lives. Every week brings us new information on the environmental, hormonal, genetic, and chemical factors that affect our feelings, and an ever-expanding repertoire of methods to manage specific emotional conditions. But how can we apply this cutting-edge research to our own lives? In The Emotional Revolution, Norman E. Rosenthal, psychiatrist, researcher, and specialist in the fields of psychopharmacology and psychobiology, offers a comprehensive guide to these exciting breakthroughs. He explores the latest findings about the body mechanisms that create emotions--and why our feelings can sometimes go out of control. He also offers simple self-help strategies and evaluates dozens of the newest treatments--both traditional and alternative--that can help with everything from depression and addiction to anxiety and excessive anger. Here is fascinating, up-to-the-minute information you won't find in any other single resource, including: * Clues to the biological basis of monogamy * A new link between depression and heart disease, and what this means for the treatment of both conditions * How simple patterns of eye movements can help alleviate painful memories * How taking a commonly-used blood pressure medication can help you cope with trauma * How lying in the dark releases a hormone that can alleviate anxiety and craving * The surprising health benefits of friendship and religion * The deadly dangers of anger * The health-promoting powers of love The first book to combine scientific research with prescriptive guidelines for the general reader, The Emotional Revolution is your guide to understanding the complexities of human feelings--and improving your life. "A well-researched, clearly-written, and absorbing book. Highly recommended for anyone who's ever seen a psychiatrist--or who hasn't!" --Dean Hamer, Ph.D., author of The Science of Desire Norman E. Rosenthal, M.D., is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University. A practicing psychiatrist, Dr. Rosenthal has been listed in The Best Doctors in the U.S. For twenty years, he was a senior researcher in psychiatry and psychobiology at the National Institute of Mental Health. He has appeared on 20/20, CNN, National Public Radio, The Today Show, CBS Morning News, and Good Morning, America . Dr. Rosenthal lives and practices in Rockville, Maryland. Visit his Web site at www.normanrosenthal.com.

Dr. Glass is a world renown Communication and Body Language expert and pioneer in the field of Gender Differences in Communication. She was the one who taught Dustin Hoffman how to sound like a women for his Academy Award winning role in Tootsie. Not only does she identify the 105 Sex Talk Differences that affect male/female interaction, she provides specific guidelines for men and for women to follow in order to build a more solid and fulfilling relationship with the opposite sex. Peppered with case examples and important findings from an eye-opening Gallup poll she commissioned, this fascinating book discusses the differences in the way men and women communicate--including body language, facial expressions, and voice--and offers real solutions for ending the battle between the sexes.This book is the only gives definitive answers as to why men and women differ so greatly in the area of communication between the sexes, but it is the only book which provides the reader with practical information they can utilize in order to improve communication and relationships with the opposite sex.

The psychologist Leslie Farber, who died in 1981, has been revered as one of the most astute observers of the human condition and a writer of penetrating wisdom. His essays, on topics as diverse as the pornographic anguish of jealousy and the despair of psychotherapy, were collected in 1966 (The Ways of the Will) and 1976 (Lying, Despair, Jealousy, Envy, Sex, Suicide, Drugs, and the Good Life) and have been out of print for nearly twenty years. Based partly on his experiences as a therapist, but more importantly on his special insight, Dr. Farber's observations provide us with a unique glimpse into ourselves that is frequently startling, but in the end always consoling.

Based on the authors' discovery that connectedness in relationships is a major source of women's psychological health, The healing connection offers ways to transform relationships--with family members, friends, and colleagues, as well as in therapy--for growth and health.

An Absorbing Errand uses stories of artists' lives, personal anecdotes, and insights from the author's work as a psychotherapist to examine the psychological obstacles that prevent people from staying with, and relishing, the process of art–making. Each chapter is devoted to a problem intrinsic to the creative process and illustrates how these very obstacles, once understood, can become prime sources of the energy that actually fuels the mastery of art–making. Ultimately, An Absorbing Errand provides a philosophical, historical, and analytical look at the creative impulse and how certain artists from a wide field mastered their craft. From Julia Child to Charlie Chaplin, Lady Gaga to Michael Jackson, famous painters to established writers, Smith shows us how each overcame the obstacles they faced in the pursuit of their creative visions. Many people carry within their hearts an aching sense that they have something they want to express through art; or that they will not feel complete until they've brought out some hidden part of themselves. Yet they cannot begin to do the work of bringing their creative idea into the world. Or, maybe they've begun over and over, but they can't stay with their labor long enough to finish it. An Absorbing Errand is a supportive companion, an enlightened and compassionate ballast, a guide for anyone who has ever picked up a pencil to write, or a paint brush to paint, or any tool —from chisel to loom— to pursue any serious craft, and then put it down again frustrated, discouraged, and unable to continue. An Absorbing Errand is unlike any book about creating art of any kind, and aspiring and working artists alike will find it both original and invaluable.

An essay about culture and feminism argues that human culture simultaneously romanticizes and vilifies mothers, making them into a scapegoat for all failings.

Dogs fill our hearts with love and our minds with wonder, but their emotional lives have remained unexplored since Darwin 125 years ago. Now in Dogs Never Lie About Love, controversial psychoanalyst Jeffrey Masson brilliantly navigates the rich inner landscape of "our best friends. "As he guides readers through the surprising depth of canine emotional complexity, Jeffrey Masson draws from myth and literature, from scientific studies, and from the stories and observations of dog trainers and dog lovers around the world. But the stars of the book are the author's own three dogs whose delightful and mysterious behavior provides the way to exploring a wide range of subjects--from emotions like gratitude, compassion, loneliness, and disappointment to speculating what dogs dream of and how their powerful sense of smell shapes their perception of reality. As he sweeps aside old prejudices on animal behavior, Masson reaches into a rich universe of dog feeling to its essential core, their "master emotion": love. Like the dogs he loves, Masson's writing will capture the reader with its playful, mysterious, and serious sides. Its surprising insights provide a new dimension of understanding for dog owners everywhere.

Methods in Neuronal Modeling is the first technical handbook on computational neuroscience. Written for researchers and theoreticians alike, it outlines methods and techniques used for simulating on digital computers the functional properties of single neurons from synapses, dendrites, single cells; and small invertebrate networks to large scale neural networks in the mammalian nervous system. The use of new experimental tools such as selective staining methods, membrane patch electrodes, voltage and calcium-dependent dyes, and multielectrode recordings, together with the, advent of universally available powerful computing, makes it possible to construct detailed and realistic models of neuronal systems. Methods in Neuronal Modeling addresses such questions as what can and should be simulated and what techniques should be used; what experimental parameters are crucial for such simulations, and whether these models may be verified experimentally. Chapters cover simulation of passive dendritic trees, compartmental models of single cells including neurons with a number of different ionic channels, calcium current dynamics, simulations of small invertebrate networks, simulations of the mammalian cortex, connectionists' models, and the use of parallel computers in modeling neural networks. Although the chapters were written by several authors, they are uniform in structure and notation. Detailed examples are given to clarify the different approaches. Each chapter concludes with a description of the model discussed and the details of its implementation on the computer. Christof Koch is an Assistant Professor of Computation and Neural Systems at the California Institute of Technology. Idan Segev is a Lecturer in Neurobiology at the Institute of Life Science, Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Methods in Neuronal Modeling inaugurates the new series in Computational Neuroscience, edited by Terrence J. Sejnowski and Tomaso Poggio. A Bradford Book.

from Publisher's Weekly: This posthumous collection of case material illustrates the treatment modality successfully employed by psychiatrist Bruch with patients suffering from the eating disorder of anorexia. Two of her associates at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston have edited this final work, taped by the author before her death in 1984. Bruch makes the reader privy to the therapeutic transaction between her patients who are in what she describes as "the relentless pursuit of thinness.'' Emphasizing the conversational ambiance of the therapy and discounting heretofore unsuccessful approaches of psychoanalysis and behavior modification, she helped her patients to heal. The dramatic dialogues in the cases presented allow us to hear these desperate young anorexic women individually explore their thwarted development, under the direction of a compassionate physician who guides them towards wellness. from Library Journal: Psychiatrist Bruch was a pioneer in developing psychotherapy for anorexia victims. Author of half a dozen books, her first work, Eating Disorders, appeared 15 years ago. She taped her interactions with clients, and these form the nucleus of this final book. Bruch's strength is her straightforward writing: it is honest, simple, and effective.