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Catherine Clément, Tobie Nathan
The Couch and the Grigri
This work is a fascinating discussion between a practising analyst who has not ceased to confront his discipline with other disciplines of the mind, and a philosopher with great psychoanalytic experience. It aims to show how cultural heritage a debt linking each generation to its ancestors shapes both how we represent reality and our emotional universe. The authors thoughts and conclusions are thoroughly backed up with a variety of specific examples and observations. Tobie Nathan is an ethno-psychologist and teaches clinical and pathological psychology at the University of Paris VIII. Catherine Clément is a writer and philosopher.

Marc D. Hauser
Wild Minds: What Animals Really Think
A slender loris comes up to a zoo keeper and hugs him. A dog lowers its head and whines when its master is unhappy. Is such behaviour a sign of affection and empathy or are other mechanisms at work, to explain the animals near-human behaviour? Why do chimps and dolphins form coalitions to defend themselves? How do lions determine, from far away, the number of gazelles calmly watering by a stream? How is it that a few species can recognise their own image in a mirror? Marc D. Hauser is a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Harvard University, where he is a fellow of the Mind, Brain and Behavior Program. Besides performing laboratory research, he has done extensive fieldwork in Kenya, Uganda and Puerto Rico.

Didier Pleux
From the King Child to the Tyrant Child
More and more parents are faced with what amounts to a power take-over by their children. The tyrannical child makes constant demands, uses his parents for his own ends and creates a climate of psychological violence. The solution lies in education coupled with authority. This is a lively, clear and polemical work which shows parents how to redefine their parental authority and should enable them to feel less anxious. Besides offering practical psychological advice, it also provides an examination of what living in society means. Didier Pleux is a clinical psychologist

Vilayanur S. Ramachandran, Sandra Blakeslee
Phantoms in the Brain Human Nature and the Architecture of the Mind
How do we make decisions? Why do we deceive ourselves? Why do we dream? Why may we believe in God? Why do we laugh or become depressed? Few scientists have dared address these questions that inform our daily lives with so much acumen and audacity. V.S. Ramachandran is a brilliant Sherlock Holmes of neuroscience. He reveals the strangest case studies he has encountered of patients suffering from serious neurological disorders and the insights they yield about human nature and the workings of the mind. V.S. Ramachandran is professor and director of the Center for Brain and Cognition, at the University of California.

Jean-Claude Carrière, Thibault Damour
Reflections on the Mass of the World
Physicists are now faced with the disturbing certainty that the reality of the world is multiple. We do not exist in a single story, with a middle and an ending. Instead, we live in a multitude of superimposed stories although we see only our own because our perception is limited by the narrow beam of light in which we exist.

Hubert Montagner
The Child : The Real Question of Education
This ambitious work aims to provide a comprehensive view of the mechanisms, processes, influences, factors, and past and present events that may keep children from constructing, structuring or mobilising their abilities in an academic environment, and from acquiring new abilities and successfully constructing the required learning skills. In the struggle against academic failure, the main tool is understanding the child better. In order to do this, it is essential to base educational practice on the most recent knowledge.