General Psychology All books
Massimo Piattelli Palmarini
Retraining Judgement How to avoid fooling yourself
How can we reason more effectively ? Everyday, we solve countless problems and take decisions by trusting our intuition, our common sense. Often, it is not only our passions, our emotions that lead us astray, it is the mind itself which tricks us, without us even being aware of it. How can we avoid these traps ? By driving out into the open, with the help of Massimo Piattelli Palmarini, the natural illusions and unconscious mechanisms which occupy our minds, and by working to help our judgement in the same way as psychoanalysis works to improve our emotional lives.
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 ?
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.
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 ?
Libby Purves
How Not to be a Perfect Family
Perfect families, as we know, live in perfectly kept houses, have admirably well-organized vacations...
