Psychology All books
Jacques Lecomte
Cured of Childhood
How does a child whom life has hurt become resilient? Jacques Lecomte examines every aspect of a child's environment that can help him or her overcome misfortune. He stresses the crucial need for markers in the reconstruction of the child's personality, and on the importance of finding meaning in suffering. This is a thorough study of resilience, its foundations and how it works. It is also a polemical work which questions the role played by psychotherapists in building resilience. Jacques Lecomte argues that they are not the only ones who can do this - and that sometimes psychotherapists can do more harm than good. The author suggests specific plans of action, for families and children, so that those who are suffering and in pain may learn to become resilient and happy. This book offers a powerful message of hope - happiness, says the author, lies in acquiring a better understanding of resilience. Jacques Lecomte is a doctor in psychology and a lecturer at the University of Paris-X. He specialises in training professionals who work with children and is secretary general of the International Observatory on Resilience, presided by Boris Cyrulnik.
Howard Gardner
Creating Minds An Anatomy of Creativity Seen Through the Lives of Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, Eliot, Grah
What is creativity? Do there exist psychological traits common to all creative geniuses? Can one characterize creativity in different forms and in different areas? It is impossible to respond to these questions without examining variegated and specific cases of creative genius: artistic, literary, scientific and even political. Thus, Gardner proposes seven psychobiographies characteristic of each type of genius: Freud, Einstein, Picasso, Stravinsky, T.S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Gandhi. What were the different paths that they chose? How did their creative spirits work? Howard Gardner is a cognitive psychologist.
Pierre Deniker, Jean-Pierre Olié
Crazy, Me ? Psychiatry Today and Yesterday
An increasing number of mental patients are being treated outside the stereotypical confines of mental institutions. This trend is often financially motivated, since the cost of institutional care is high. But the psychological advantage to the patients is often contested. Should its demise be encouraged? Need mental institutions necessarily be places of repression and exclusion? What is the position of mental illness in our society--given contemporary therapeutic progress and advances in medication? Jean-Pierre Olié and Pierre Deniker are psychiatrists.
Boris Cyrulnik, Patrick Lemoine
The Crazy History of Crazy Ideas in Psychiatry
A lively and illuminating perspective on the history of a discipline that is still young. Unusual reflections on the future of treatment for psychiatric illness, based on past mistakes. Suggestions for helping the near future to become the Golden Age of psychiatry.
Willy Pasini, Donata Francescato
The Courage to Change
What would happen if, instead of stifling our dreams, we took the desire to change seriously? What would happen if we really gave ourselves the means with which to transform our lives and ourselves? Willy Pasini, a psychotherapist, and Donata Francescato, a social psychologist, have brought together their respective skills in order to show us how to succeed in making both our inner and outer transformations. Willy Pasini, a psychotherapist, teaches psychiatry and psychology at the University of Geneva. Donata Francescato is a psychologist and teaches at La Sapienza University, in Rome.