Catalog All books
Ghislaine Paris
The Importance of Sexuality
Throughout an extended dialogue with a young woman patient, Doctor Ghislaine Paris explains the importance of enjoying a fulfilled sexual existence
André Brahic
Children of the Sun The History of Our Origins
In less than a century, scientists have acquired enough information to try to explain the origin of life, to realise that there may be other life forms in the universe, and to begin to understand the birth of our planet and its future. André Brahic writes about the planets, the stars and the universe without forgetting the role played by human beings who are themselves made from solar atoms and are thus truly "children of the sun". André Brahic, an astronomer, is known for discovering the rings of Neptune.
Alain Bentolila
Talk to People You Don’t Like The Challenge Of Babel
A virulent criticism of everything that keeps the French from sharing a common language
Alain Prochiantz
The Anatomies of Thought What do squid think about ?
When we watch a squid facing up to a predator, we see it recoil, agitate the tentacles, spray a jet of ink, and then make use of the temporary blindness of the predator in order to escape to a safe hiding place. Are we able to say what it is thinking ? Evidently, we know that this behaviour is not the result of a reflex unleashed by the sight of an enemy. The mollusc is not however conscious of its acts, at least not in the sense that we, as human beings, understand this term. It is true that we are the product of a evolution of species, and that, although this may not be welcome news for everyone, we share a common ancestry with the octopus, or even the fly. Even if the structure of our cortex, and the invention of language allows us to write about octopuses (or flies), and not the other way round, the fact remains that these evolutive roots, in the same way as other animal species, including invertebrates, have something to teach us about the nature of our thoughts. Alain Prochiantz
Élisa Brune
Magic Thoughts 50 stimulating life stories that teach the art of happiness and joie de vivre
The modernisation of psychology through creative moments
Anne-Cécile Sarfati
Women’s Guide to Success How to Reconcile Personal and Professional Life
A practical tool offering concrete advice to women who may sometimes feel discouraged and disillusioned in the course of their professional lives.
Philippe Pédrot
Judging What Cannot Be Decided The Body Seized by the Law
This is a careful study of the cataclysm that biomedical technology has wreaked on procreation, gestation, life and death.
Jean-Charles Nayebi
Preparing, Protecting and Educating Children and Adolescents for Life in a Digital World
An educational and psychological aspect: the author explains how each of the sites accessed (game, chat rooms) can affect or even alter behaviour and lead to addiction.
Willy Pasini
The Passion for Golf Game The Winner’s Psychology
Improve your golf game and beat your opponents — a psychologist shows you how
François Ansermet, Pierre Magistretti
To Each His Own Brain Biology of the Unconscious
This book is the result of the coming together of psychoanalysis and neuroscience around the shared observation that experience leaves a mark. Although the idea that experience produces psychic imprints - whether conscious or unconscious - has always been central to psychoanalysis, it was not until recently that findings in neurobiology demonstrated that neuronal plasticity existed and that it operated throughout a person's life. This constant remodelling in relation to experience poses certain basic questions about each individual's identity and future. How does psychic life emerge from experience and from what it imprints? What are the respective contributions of external stimuli (the reality behind experience) and of internal stimuli (the imprinted marks)? How do the mechanisms of synaptic plasticity participate in the establishment of an unconscious internal reality? What is the role of the body in this new dynamic organisation? This book provides the foundations for a better understanding of the relations between neuroscience and psychoanalysis and offers an original theory of the unconscious, by combining recent findings in neurobiology with the basic principles of psychoanalysis. Eschewing genetic determinism, it shows that each individual is different and each brain unique. Pierre Magistretti, a physician and neurobiologist, is a professor of physiology and director of the Centre for Psychiatric Neuroscience at the University of Lausanne's medical school. In addition, he is the president of the Federation of European Neuroscience Societies. François Ansermet is a psychoanalyst and professor of child and adolescent psychology at the University of Lausanne. He is the co-author, with O. Halfon and B. Pierrehumbert, of Filiations psychiques (Presses Universitaires de France, 2000).
Christian de Duve
Listening to the Living
Everything one should know about biology is explained here by a Nobel Prize winner, including the origin of life, its chemical production and reproduction, the history of life, its earliest forms and also human evolution, the brain, the genius of genetics, and extra-terrestrial life. Finally, the author shows that although biology has undermined arguments in favour of the existence of God, religion and faith are a necessary product of nature selection. Christian de Duve is the director of the Brussels-based International Institute on Cellular Pathology. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1974 for his findings concerning the structural and functional organisation of cells.
Marc Bélit
The Love-sick Philosopher
A passionate and poisonous love affair in the world of Parisian intellectuals and political activists, in the late 1970s