Book Reviews

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

Debut Novel Explores and Explodes Attachment Therapy Barbara Barrow’s intriguing new novel, The Quelling (Lanternfish Press, September 25) explores a psychological treatment called attachment therapy. Although this innocuous name connects to attachment theory, which is legitimate, attachment therapy is controversial and dangerous, as the novel demonstrates ably. In The Quelling, two sisters, Addie and Dorian, are placed in a treatment facility as children and forced to grow up under the harmful influence of daily attachment therapy. Barrow has constructed an... more

When I started incorporating cognitive paradigms into my research, I was looking for a book that would allow me to quickly navigate through cognitive theories and refresh my knowledge acquired in undergraduate cognitive psychology course. I was glad to find ”An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology” edited by David Groome and colleagues. David Groome is a retired psychology professor from the University of Westminster. The author informs us that he sees himself more as a guitarist who does psychology in his... more

When I first started to teach myself how to program, I self-diagnosed myself with dysprogrammeria - a natural inability to understand any computer language. No matter how much time and effort I invested, I could not stretch my brain enough to understand all the new concepts. I was glad to find out that the author of “A Mind For Numbers. How To Excel At Math And Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)”, Barbara A. Oakley, must have felt similar when... more

The majority of people perceive themselves as individual thinkers who make their own decisions and formulate their personal opinions independent of others. Could this perception be far from the truth? Are most of our decisions predetermined by others? Is free choice an illusion created by the elite to give the masses a pseudo-sense of freedom? Has the human thought for the past two to three thousand years been nothing more than a futile activity of plagiaristic re-enactment cloaked with a... more

Can Botox be used to treat depression? Can adopting a “power pose” make you feel more confident? Does carrying a grocery basket versus pushing a cart alter purchasing behavior? In How the Body Knows its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel, Dr. Sian Beilock (also the author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To) offers the reader a glimpse into the... more

A therapist working within the framework of psychodynamic psychotherapy has to concentrate not only on the patient’s story, but also needs to be aware of the ongoing transference and countertransference dynamic, projective identifications and other defense mechanisms. It makes the therapy process quite challenging for the psychotherapist. All these challenges multiply in a group setting, where the therapist has to be aware of the interactions between the clients and him or herself, but also between the clients. Not all standard... more

Organization-motivated aggression like retaliatory behavior and antisocial conduct designed to harass, ostracize, humiliate (verbally and non-verbally), and eliminate any employee who might become a problem for management could be classified as bullying behavior. Human resources departments are designed to protect management and can be easily drawn into playing the role of the “Bully” who is hiding behind his or her legal jargon in order to lynch and attack targeted employees. Targeting vulnerable employees, who speak the truth, have medical conditions... more