Psychology & Philosophy Archives - Page 2 of 2

Floating

‘Lovely, lively, passionate… a celebration of nature’s ability to inspire healing and joy’ Robert MacFarlane

In the breaststrokes of Roger Deakin’s Waterlog, this is the story of one man’s search for himself across the breadth of Britain’s wild waters.

Joe Minihane became obsessed with wild swimming and the way it soothed his anxiety, developing a new-found passion by following the example of naturalist Deakin in his own swimming memoir. While fighting the currents – sometimes treading water Minihane swims to explore, to forget, to find the path back to himself through nature, and in the water under an open sky he finally begins to find his peace.

Floating is a remarkable memoir about a love of swimming and a deep appreciation for the British countryside: it captures Minihane’s struggle to understand himself, and the healing properties of wild stretches of water. From Hampstead to Yorkshire, Dorset to Jura, the Isles of Scilly to Wales, Minihane uses Waterlog to trace his own path by diving right in.

A Very Short Tour of the Mind

Leading us through cognitive theory, neuroscience and Darwinian evolution with his trademark wit and wisdom, Michael Corballis explains what we know and don’t know about our minds. How do we know if we’re really the top dogs in brain power? Does our creativity stem solely from the right brain? From language to standing upright, composing music to lying, he uncovers our most common misconceptions and the fascinating habits and abilities that make us human.

Going Solo

In 1950, only 22% of adults were single. Today, more than 50% of adults are. Though conventional wisdom tells us that living by oneself leads to loneliness and isolation, most solo dwellers – compared with their married counterparts – are more likely to eat out and exercise, sign up for art and music classes, attend public events and lectures, and volunteer.

Drawing on over three hundred in-depth interviews with men and women of all ages and from across every class, Eric Klinenberg reaches some startling conclusions about the seismic impact solo living is having on our culture, business and politics.

Revolution in Mind

How did Freudian Theory come together as a body of ideas, and how did these ideas attract followers who spread this model of mind throughout the West? Makari contextualises Freud’s early psychological work amid the great changes occurring in late-nineteenth-century European science, philosophy, and medicine, showing how Freud was a creative, inter-disciplinary synthesizer whose immersion in pre-existing domains of study led to the creation of Freudian Theory.

He looks at how Freud’s followers built a heterogeneous movement in the years leading to 1914, at the growth of the movement, and its subsequent collapse with the departures of Bleuler, Jung and Adler. Finally, Makari examines the critical, but neglected, Weimar period, when there was an attempt to rebuild a more pluralistic psychoanalytic community. This reformation resulted in the broader theoretical reach of psychoanalysis and its greater acceptance across the Western world outside Europe, where the rise of fascism was to lead to the destruction of psychoanalysis and the culture that once sustained it.

Sex vs Survival

Who was Sabina Spielrein? Her dramatic life story is most famous for her notorious affair with Carl Jung, dramatised in the film A Dangerous Method starring Keira Knightley. Yet she was a woman who overcame family and psychiatric abuse to become an original thinker in the field of psychotherapy.

This is the first biography to put her life and ideas at the centre of the story, and to examine Spielreins key role in the development of psychoanalysis and in the rift between Jung and Freud. Drawing on fresh research into Spielreins diaries, papers and correspondence, John Launer tells the story of a passionate woman who transformed herself from one of Jungs disturbed patients into a leading figure in Western psychology, then the Soviet intelligentsia, before losing her life in the Holocaust.

At the heart of Sex Versus Survival is the gripping tale of Spielrein and Jungs tumultuous affair, which played such an important role in both of their lives and intellectual journeys. Launer shows how Spielreins overlooked ideas rejected by Jung and Freud, but substantially vindicated by later developments in psychology and evolutionary biology may represent the last and most important stage in the rediscovery of an extraordinary life.

The Modern Guide to Judaism

Does it mean nothing at all that we are spiritual beings? What does one of the world’s oldest religions have to say? After the astonishing success of his latest book, Kosher Sex, Shmuley Boteach now tackles these important issues in another freshly argued, provocative book that will stir debate. Convinced that Judaism possesses a core of wisdom that appeals to everyone, Shmuley Boteach ferociously argues against Jews seeking piety in abstractions, in rationalising injustice, in explaining the holocaust away as a punishment for assimilation. He pleads for recognition that Judaism is not about death or suffering, but is about seeking optimism and spirituality, as is life. In a modern world riddled with angst, this book will have an astonishing impact on how our relation to society should be understood.

Sign up to hear more