Psychology All books
Robert Germinet
An Apprenticeship in the Uncertain
"When I got my degree from the Ecole des Mines, I didn't know how to do anything with my hands. But there was nothing surprising about that: I was an unalloyed product of French teaching methods. I realised that it would be useful to teach students not to be afraid to get their hands dirty: to educate future engineers by first of all inculcating in them an experimental approach to science. The idea was to send them out into the field, dressed in workers' overalls; to make them share in the concerns of the technicians, as well as in management's problems: in short, to make them ingenious engineers." Georges Charak Robert Germinet, who holds a doctorate in physics, is the director of the Ecoles des Mines, Nantes, and regional director for industry, research and the environment for the Pays de la Loire.
Libby Purves
How Not to be a Perfect Family
Perfect families, as we know, live in perfectly kept houses, have admirably well-organized vacations...
Darian Leader
What are you thinking about ? The incertitudes of love
What does it mean to be a woman ? What is the point of jealousy ? What is it that can lead a man to weakness ? And why do we so often end up asking one another : "What are you thinking about ?" Through little insights, both alert and educated, taking their sources from Freud and Lacan as well as from the cinema, literature and his own experience as a psychoanalyst, Darian Leader paints a subtle, enriching and dedramatized portrait of the sentimental motivations of the two sexes. Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst. He practices and teaches in London and in Leeds. He also regularly collaborates with the French Red Cross.
René Frydman, Muriel Flis-Trèves
Dying before living ?
Miscarriages, medical terminations of a pregnancy, embryonic destructions, perinatal mortalities these babies born prematurely dont even have the chance to be properly recognised as a part of this world, leaving their parents to solitude, grief and even a sense of guilt. Isnt it natural that the parents, even if it is painful for them, want to see their child, to name him, to register his existence ? That they need to follow the rituals of bereavement and record the child in the family history ? Doctors, midwives, anthropologists, philosophers, and psychoanalysts ask themselves what their role is when faced with this kind of sudden death, which has the capacity to affect so intensely other lives : how, they ask, can we help these patients along the road of their bereavement ?
Colette Chiland
Changing Sex
Some human beings refuse to take the path that leads from being male to becoming a man or from being female and becoming a woman and want to belong to the sex for which their bodies were not designed -and this at any price. In our culture, these transsexuals want to both occupy the other place in the network of symbolic exchanges and have a mark of this change in their bodies. Their sadness is irremediable, for although they can change their social sex, they cannot change their bodily sex. "It's better " states one transsexual, "to change what's in the mind". Will we succeed in doing so ? A university professor, Colette Chiland taught psychology and psychopathology of children and adolescents, then clinical psychology at the Sorbonne University in Paris.
Patrice Huerre, Martine Pagan-Reymond, Jean-Michel Reymond
Adolescence doesn't exist
Adolescence is a recent conception in the history of man, a method of signifying, via puberty, the passage from childhood to adulthood which has always existed. In the past, this passage was celebrated and defined through the practice of rituals. Today the transition is no longer marked within such a strict timescale. Even more serious is the tendency for adults to refuse young people entry into their grown up world, either as a result of their own fear of aging, or of their desire to protect the young person from all possible risk. Patrice Huerre is a hospital psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and director of the Georges Heuyer University Medical Clinic in Paris. Martine Pagan-Reymond is a certified professor in Modern Literature. Jean-Michel Reymond, formerly Chief of Staff of Child and Adolescent Psycology is now Director of the Medical-Pedagogic Center of Saint-Lô.
André Green
The Chain of Eros
Sexuality is no longer what it was when Freud elaborated his theory of its psychic functioning. His successors have either given it less importance or a completely different status. André Green has undertaken in this book a real re-founding. Sexuality, seen from a psychoanalistic point of view, is what he calls "an erotic chain", organized according to different steps (impulse, desire, fantasies, erotic language, etc.). For him, the importance it is not so much to consider each of these steps separately but to specify at which link of the chain the analyst himself stands. André Green, is a psychoanalyst and a psychiatrist.
Harlan Lane
When the Mind Hears (Coll. Opus) A History of the Deaf
This historical work recounts the struggle of deaf-mutes against prejudice, so that their rights and their language, sign language, were recognised. The people figuring in this book run from the abbey de l'Épée to Laurent Clerc, the spokesman for this community in the United States. A linguist, psychologist, and specialist in sign language, Harlan Lane teaches in Boston. He is the author of The Wild Child of Aveyron, which inspired the famous film by François Truffaut.
Willy Pasini
What use do couples serve ?
What use do couples serve? How can a solid couple be distinguished from a fragile one? Is 'living together' preferable to marriage? How can a healthy balance be maintained between intimacy and autonomy? How can passion be made to last? Can shaky bonds be salvaged? When should a therapist be consulted and how can the most suitable therapy for a specific case be chosen? At a time when the couple as a unit is undergoing a severe crisis, this book demonstrates that if every love story carries with it a risk, happiness within the couple is nevertheless possible. Willy Pasini is the founder of the European Federation of Sexology. He teaches psychiatry and medical psychology at the University of Geneva.
Jean-Baptiste Fages
History of Psychoanalysis after Freud (New Edition)
For all those who want an introduction in simple terms to psychoanalytical thinking this book highlights the great post-Freudian figures and principal movements. It examines in their turn the individuals who have made remarkable contributions (such as Sandor Ferenczi), those who were leaders and their spheres of influence (Adler, Jung, Lacan), the personalities united by their research area (for example the child psychoanalysis of Anna Freud and Mélanie Klein) or by cultural convergence (such as the New York School, the cultural tendency, etc.). Sociologist, and doctor of the history of philosophy, Jean-Baptiste Fages teaches at the Sorbonne in the capacity of CELSA.
Ginette Raimbault
When a child disappears
When a child disappears, the parents of that child have to first of all relearn how to live their lives. How can they face up to this task ? What routes, both conscious and subconscious do they take in order to do this ? Ginette Raimbault explores the mental processes of these devastated parents using the spontaneous testimonies of those who have relied on writing to get them through their bereavement such as Victor Hugo who mourns Léopoldine, and Isadora Duncan and Geneviève Jurgensen who both lost two children at once. Through the anguish of these famous examples, this book movingly asks the universally relevant question : what does a child mean for the parent ?
Édouard Zarifian
The Price of Well-being
Why is France one of the countries which has the highest rate of consumption of psychotropic drugs (tranquillisers, hypnotics, antidepressants, neuroleptics) ? Are the French more ill than other nationalities ? No, says Edouard Zarifian, it is rather that in this country, we offer medication for the least emotional trouble. It is thus a cry of warning that Professor Zarifian voices in this book, directly inspired by his celebrated report to the Ministry of Health which the public have not had access to up until now.
Bénédicte de Boysson-Bardies
How Does the Power of Speech Come to Children ?
How does the newborn, from his cradle, perceive the sounds that make up words? How does he hear and extract sounds, and then recognize, organize and analyze them? How does an infant come to understand and reproduce language? How does the power of speech come to children? Benedicte de Boysson Bardies invites the reader to follow the newborn from his first minute of life to his first sentence, retracing step by step the process of acquiring speech. As a psycholinguist, Benedicte de Boysson Bardies specializes in the acquisition of language by young children.
Marc Jeannerod
Of Mental Physiology A History of the Relationship Between Biology and Psychology
A relative newcomer to the world of science, psychology gives rise to a rivalry between two older siblings, philosophy and biology. This enduring conflict between materialism and spiritualism, which continues today in other forms, without adoubt was the driving force behind its progress. What we know today about the spirit is a result of this history. Biology and psychology have shaped each other in turn. This book represents a riveting study on how two centuries of spiritual quarrelling made possible the modern attempt to establish the inner workings of the mind. A professor of physiology at the Université Claude Bernard, Marc Jeannerod is also the director of an Inserm neurological research team in Lyon.
