Book Reviews

Savi McKenzie-Smith, a child, adolescent, and adult psychotherapist, takes time in her book, Buried Secrets: Rememberance of Things Past – Learning to Live with Those Unwelcome Feelings, to lend her readers each a glimpse of how her time practicing psychology led to an understanding of patterns amongst older adults tendencies to repress, recall, and react to recollections of things most people would hope to banish from thought altogether. Buried Secrets offers the reader an ability to trace back psychoanalytic therapy... more

In their new book, The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt are sounding an alarm about a rising trend of emotional fragility in American culture. Specifically, they explain how this fragility manifests on university and college campuses, to the detriment of learning, academic freedom, discourse, and debate. The Coddling is an important and timely book, as our society is dealing with extremely challenging problems, and we will need to work together in order to solve them... more

“There she is, a human being, diving into the unknown, and she is wide awake.” (p. 289) A Buddhist Analysis of My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh Ottessa Moshfegh’s 2018 novel—My Year of Rest and Relaxation—is written as a retrospective, reflection of the narrator’s former self. The characters and details of the story are a critique of Western psychology—including psychiatry—and American culture. Buddhist philosophy is applied to analyze the narrator’s mission as well as deconstruct Western psychology... more

“Over 2 million copies sold!” The cover says it all. No, not about the popularity and prominence of the Influence: Science and Practice, but rather about the subtle ways in which our attitudes, behaviors, and perceptions of value can be manipulated by people who have knowledge of what Robert Cialdini calls “the weapons of influence.” According to Cialdini, a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University and a legendary figure in the field of compliance research, these weapons of... more

We all know popular cases of people who became known for their immoral behavior: Think of Lance Armstrong, professional cyclist and seven-time-winner of the Tour de France, convicted for doping. Or the Abu Ghraib prison guards, soldiers of the U.S. army, who took photos while humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners under their protection. These, of course, are prominent examples that come readily to mind. However, immoral behavior also happens on the “smaller scale”: Every day, people commit tax fraud, pretend... more

Defining creativity can provide us with the necessary frame of reference to develop better understanding of what creativity is, and its impact on innovation and humanity. It is often assumed that a new product or a new idea reflects originality, but does it? What is this befuddling human phenomenon we call creativity that has immensely contributed to the advancement of our species? Is creativity a term often used to indicate the intrinsic fuel that ignites a new human idea or... more

Human consciousness can be blessing or a curse as it often impels us into self-examination. Hence, people wonder what makes them and others tick? How their attitudes are shaped? How great leaders are made? How does prejudice develop, and how can it be overcome? And the questions can go on and on. Social interactions are complicated and their impact on the individual is profound. Therefore, understanding the social context that motivates behavior becomes necessary to fathom. Social psychology is a... more

Introduction Martin Seligman is one of the best-known and most influential psychologists in the world. He is also something of a celebrity, central to the development of popular psychology and its incursion into the self-help publishing genre. Seligman is most famous today for fathering positive psychology, which celebrates 20 years of stunning growth this August. Half a century ago, he made his name with learned helplessness, a discovery that Seligman argues helped overthrow behaviorist orthodoxy and usher in psychology’s cognitive... more

What is mind? Is it brain activity resulting in consciousness? Are mind and consciousness synonymous with each other? Is self-awareness an illness that leads to despair, or is physicality a curse that creates the delusion of separateness leading to alienation and melancholy? Defining the mind might limit its nascent quality; however, a definition can provide a necessary frame of reference in order to develop better understanding of what the mind is. Daniel J. Siegel, a professor of clinical psychiatry at... more