New Books in Psychology

Latest Episodes:

Jillian Peterson and James Densley, "The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic" (Harry N. Abrams, 2021) Aug 31, 2022

Show notes

Using data from the writers' groundbreaking research on mass shooters, including first-person accounts from the perpetrators themselves, The Violence Project: How to Stop a Mass Shooting Epidemic(Harry N. Abrams, 2021) charts new pathways to prevention and innovative ways to stop the social contagion of violence. Frustrated by reactionary policy conversations that never seemed to convert into meaningful action, special investigator and psychologist Jill Peterson and sociologist James Densley built The Violence Project, the first comprehensive database of mass shooters. Their goal was to establish the root causes of mass shootings and figure out how to stop them by examining hundreds of data points in the life histories of more than 170 mass shooters--from their childhood and adolescence to their mental health and motives. They've also interviewed the living perpetrators of mass shootings and people who knew them, shooting survivors, victims' families, first responders, and leading experts to gain a comprehensive firsthand understanding of the real stories behind them, rather than the sensationalized media narratives that too often prevail. For the first time, instead of offering thoughts and prayers for the victims of these crimes, Peterson and Densley share their data-driven solutions for exactly what we must do, at the individual level, in our communities, and as a country, to put an end to these tragedies that have defined our modern era.

Marshall Poe is the founder and editor of the New Books Network. He can be reached at marshallpoe@newbooksnetwork.com.

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Carl Waitz and Theresa Clement Tisdale, "Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Eastern Orthodox Christian Anthropology in Dialogue" (Routledge, 2022) Aug 29, 2022

Show notes

Carl Waitz and Theresa Clement Tisdale offer to us a complex and scholarly text in their new book: Lacanian Psychoanalysis and Eastern Orthodox Christian Anthropology in Dialogue (Routledge, 2021).

Psychoanalyst Marilyn Charles says of this text, in today’s world, we need faith, but one that is grounded in the essential mysteries that mark the human journey. In this volume, Waitz and Tisdale make a plea for the place of the inexplicable in both psychoanalysis and religion, inviting a reading of each that advocates for, not knowledge, but rather a learning that can continue to enrich our lives and spirits rather than closing down possibilities. For those attempting to move beyond pleasure and fear towards an ethic of personal responsibility, this is an important volume.

This book vigorously engages Lacan with a spiritual tradition that has yet to be thoroughly addressed within psychoanalytic literature―the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition.

Waitz and Tisdale seek to offer the reader a unique engagement with a faith system that highlights and extends analytic thinking. For those in formation within the Orthodox tradition, this book brings psychoanalytic insights to bear on matters of faith that may at times seem opaque or difficult to understand. Ultimately, the authors seek to elicit in the reader the reflective and contemplative posture of Orthodoxy, as well as the listening ear of analysis, while considering the human subject.

Roy Barsness is a Clinical Psychoanalytic Psychologist, Founder and Executive Director of the Post-Graduate Program in Relationally-Focused Psychodynamic Therapy; Professor at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology and have been in clinical practice for 30+ years.

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Alfie Bown, "Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships" (Pluto Press, 2022) Aug 24, 2022

Show notes

We are in the middle of a 'desirevolution' - a fundamental and political transformation of the way we desire as human beings. Perhaps as always, new technologies - with their associated and inherited political biases - are organising and mapping the future. What we don’t seem to notice is that the primary way in which our lives are being transformed is through the manipulation and control of desire itself.

Our very impulses, drives and urges are 'gamified' to suit particular economic and political agendas, changing the way we relate to everything from lovers and friends to food and politicians. Digital technologies are transforming the subject at the deepest level of desire – re-mapping its libidinal economy - in ways never before imagined possible. From sexbots to smart condoms, fitbits to VR simulators and AI to dating algorithms, the 'love industries' are at the heart of the future smart city and the social fabric of everyday life.

Alfie Bown's Dream Lovers: The Gamification of Relationships (Pluto Press, 2022) considers these emergent technologies and what they mean for the future of love, desire, work and capitalism.

Rudolf Inderst is a professor of Game Design with a focus on Digital Game Studies at the IU International University of Applied Science.

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Save the Whales: The Addictive Psychology Behind Video Games Aug 23, 2022

Show notes

We’ll save the Moby Dick puns for the episode itself, but suffice it to say that sinister game developers are on a whale hunt. This episode, originally published last fall, is about the sophisticated psychological tactics they use to hunt and capture their prey. Free to play mobile games as glorified slot machines, in-game purchases even for triple-A titles, game design that keep gamers hooked to their rigs. These practices are often exploitative and, for some who fall victim to them, devastating. Some countries, like China, are pushing back. But their restrictions are overbearing and unlikely to work as people skirt the restrictions. There are better ways. On this episode of Darts and Letters, we take a journey to save the whales.

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Jamieson Webster, "Disorganisation & Sex" (Divided Publishing, 2022) Aug 22, 2022

Show notes

The first collection of essays from the author of the Life and Death of Psychoanalysis, Stay, Illusion! with Simon Critchley and Conversion Disorder, Disorganisation & Sex (Divided Publishing, 2022) is as much about our resistance to sexuality as it is about sex itself. Jamieson Webster continues to excite and disturb, turning to Lacan and the autotheoretical in her exploration of the deep roots of our libidinal ties and the ways in which we keep desire at bay in our efforts to lead tidier, more coherent lives.

Part theory, part manifesto and part testimony, Webster calls for us as analysts to reinvent ourselves with our patients, as patients to take part in the poetry of our symptoms, and as institutions to create the conditions for something radical to happen in the transmission of psychoanalysis.

While many in theory have turned toward the soma and the exterior, Webster has not given up on psychic interiority, her writing an attempt to avoid the trap of idealizing one while diminishing the other, or getting stuck in the reversal. We can wish for the new while remaining skeptical of the march of progress, and we can speak from the discourse of the patient while remaining connected to the discourse of the analyst. We can take risks even as we face loss, and seek pleasure even though there’s no common satisfaction.

Cassandra B. Seltman is a writer, psychoanalyst, and researcher in New York City. cassandraseltman@gmail.com

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Jordan Osserman, "Circumcision on the Couch: The Cultural, Psychological, and Gendered Dimensions of the World's Oldest Surgery" (Bloomsbury, 2022) Aug 15, 2022

Show notes

It is not terribly controversial to say that castration fear is one of the key conceptual engines driving the psychoanalytic project overall. Whether one thinks of it manifesting as a looming, retributive threat for incestuous longings or as a struggle to face one’s shortcomings, contending with what we are at risk of losing or what has already gone missing animates both the field and the consulting room. Imagine the profession if it didn’t contend with this subject: without castration we would have neither Oedipal conflict nor a theory of repression. As such, it is noteworthy to consider the paucity of writing about circumcision in psychoanalysis, especially when you remember that circumcision and castration both involve cutting male genitalia. And before you protest that a penis is not a testicle, it should not come as a surprise that in the unconscious the bits and bobs of male genitalia might not be represented as separately as they are in medical discourse—in the unconscious sometimes a penis is a scrotal sac and sometimes the balls include the dick.

Jordan Osserman’s Circumcision on the Couch: The Cultural, Psychological, and Gendered Dimensions of the World's Oldest Surgery (Bloomsbury, 2022), approaches the subject of penile cutting née circumcision from myriad angles. It represents the pining of contemporary “intactivists” in search of lost foreskins and lost chances as both poignant if not also politically pregnant with neoliberal meaning. It fleshes out the pondering of St. Paul (of “love thy neighbor as thyself’ fame) on the importance of the unimportance of circumcision. It illuminates the ways in which what appears to be a fear of childhood sexuality run amok also belies a prurient interest in it. The discussion of 19th century American medicine’s invention of reflex theory, which employed circumcision to cure boys’ perceived ailments, investigates a mode of thinking that will be familiar to readers of feminist medical history of the same period. The removal of the foreskin and the removal of the uterus share a close, perhaps twinned, relationship.

Osserman has written a book that invites the reader to see circumcision as a rite, experience, discourse and practice that offers itself up to unabashedly efflorescent and ambivalent readings. Is a penis without a foreskin more masculine because it lacks a flowery covering— think of tulip petals or better yet pansies strewn on the roadside? Or is a penis without a foreskin a tad castrated, having been bloodied, (and a tad envious—sorry Alice Cooper but not only women bleed) and so ultimately feminized? We are encouraged to wonder what might keep this practice—the world’s oldest surgery—in seemingly perpetual, if at times contested, circulation? What are the unconscious roots of the wish to cut penises anyway?

I found myself a little surprised at how little I or others I know have given thought to the beautifully irrational reasons that underlie a surgical practice (performed the world over and without any singular religious allegiance as it ends up) laden with meaning and yet not medically necessary. What has given it such staying power? What unconscious conflicts might circumcision sate, if not actually resolve? In trying to answer these questions, I find myself asking if there is any relationship between circumcision and Freud’s idea that the repudiation of femininity functions as a kind of bedrock? What is bedrock is challenging to crack open (intellectually, philosophically) precisely because it is foundational. It is the ground upon which we stand. We fear fucking with it.

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Mark Solms, "The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness" (Norton, 2021) Aug 12, 2022

Show notes

If you have ever been skeptical about whether neuroscience has anything to teach psychoanalysis, or vice-versa, you will be stimulated by this book which engages the two disciplines in a fascinating dialogue with each other. How does the mind connect to the body? Why does it feel like something to be us? For one of the boldest thinkers in neuroscience, solving this puzzle has been a lifetime's quest. Now at last, the man who discovered the brain mechanism for dreaming appears to have made a breakthrough. The very idea that a solution is at hand may seem outrageous. Isn't consciousness intangible, beyond the reach of science?

Yet Mark Solms shows how misguided fears and suppositions have concealed its true nature. Stick to the medical facts, pay close attention to the eerie testimony of hundreds of neurosurgery patients, and a way past our obstacles reveals itself. Join Solms on a voyage into the extraordinary realms beyond. More than just a philosophical argument, The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness (Norton, 2021) will forever alter how you understand your own experience. There is a secret buried in the brain's ancient foundations: bring it into the light and we fathom all the depths of our being.

Philip Lance, Ph.D. is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Los Angeles. He can be reached at PhilipJLance@gmail.com.

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Daniel Bergner, "The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches" (Ecco, 2022) Aug 04, 2022

Show notes

In The Mind and the Moon: My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches (Ecco, 3033), Daniel Bergner examines these and other by describing three riveting case studies in the context of the history of psychiatry and psychopharmacology. Alongside the story of his brother Bob’s struggle with bipolar disorder, we learn about Caroline, who is besieged by the hallucinations of psychosis, and David, an attorney who is engulfed by anxiety and depression. In telling their stories while describing the frontiers of brain research, Bergner shows how the pharmaceutical industry has played a key role in perpetuating a biological view of the mind and drug-based cures for its disorders – despite mediocre drug effectiveness, many challenging side effects, and questionable patient outcomes. The Mind and the Moon addresses fundamental issues of selfhood and identity in ways that will challenge basic beliefs about who we are and who we might be.

Steve Beitler’s work in the history of medicine focuses on how pain has been understood, treated, experienced, and represented. His recently published articles examined the history of opiates in American football and surveyed the history of therapeutic drugs. He can be reached at steve@stevebeitler.com.

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Tracey Meyers, "Yin Yoga Therapy and Mental Health: An Integrated Approach" (Singing Dragon, 2022) Aug 02, 2022

Show notes

Tracey Meyers' book Yin Yoga Therapy and Mental Health: An Integrated Approach(Singing Dragon, 2022) teaches yoga therapists and mental health professionals how to integrate Yin Yoga into practice and treatment plans as part of a holistic approach to healing and treating a variety of mental health challenges and brain injuries.

Yin yoga is an accessible form of yoga consisting of mainly floor based low force stretching, perfect for all patients regardless of physical limitations. The use of Yin yoga when combined with breath work and meditation can decrease anxiety, improve overall mood, and create a sense of well-being.

With explanations on the principles of practice, such as asanas, meditation, breathwork and how to integrate different psychological methods to decrease emotional suffering and increase self-care along with examples of how to apply these principles for a range of mental health conditions; this guide is essential reading for all practitioners interested in an integrated approach to healing.

Tracey Meyers, PsyD is a licensed clinical psychologist in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York. She is currently employed at Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers (LCL) in Massachusetts, a lawyer assistance program where she focuses on lawyer wellbeing and mental health and maintains a private practice as well. In addition, she is an advanced yoga teacher, certified yoga therapist, and MBSR and mindfulness teacher. Prior to LCL, Tracey worked for the State of Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services where she spent 17 years working as a clinical neuropsychologist working with clients with learning disabilities, attention-deficit disorder, traumatic brain injury, and developmental and brain-based disorders providing neuropsychological assessment, group and individual psychotherapy, and positive behavioral support planning.

Tracey graduated from Skidmore College in 1992 and completed her doctorate in clinical psychology from Florida Tech in 1997. She completed her internship and post-doctoral training in neuropsychology at the Miami VA and University of Miami. She is a member of the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Neuropsychology, the International Neuropsychological Society, and the National Register of Healthcare Providers in Psychology.

Tracey has authored several publications and book chapters around neuropsychological assessment, autism spectrum disorders, behavioral treatment for different mental health conditions, yoga for addiction, and has written a book Yin Yoga Therapy and Mental Health that was recently published in June of 2022 (Singing Dragon, 2022). Tracey is an adjunct faculty member at Maryland University of Integrative Health Master of Science Yoga Therapy program in Laurel, Maryland.

Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher with offices in Brookline and Norwood, MA. You can follow her on Instagram or visit her website.

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Melina Palmer, "What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You: Unlocking Consumer Decisions with the Science of Behavioral Economics" (Mango, 2021) Jul 28, 2022

Show notes

Today I talked to Melina Palmer about her book What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You: Unlocking Consumer Decisions with the Science of Behavioral Economics (Mango, 2021)

Once you realize that the average person makes 35,000 decisions a day, it makes total sense that habits drive 95% of our behavior. Otherwise, we’d become paralyzed with analysis paralysis in trying to choose what to do next. As Melina Palmer fully recognizes, behavioral economic principles help to unlock the mystery of why people do things that seem so confounding. How could it be, for instance, that giving the gift of two mints with your check in the restaurant can lead to a 14% increase in the average tip for the waiter? Well, gratitude—the principle of reciprocity—weighs in. From the difference between satisfaction and delight to what the peak/end rule can make a small business more prosper if used well, this is both a fun and meaningful episode.

Melina Palmer is the founder and CEO of the Brainy Business and hosts the podcast by that same name. She received a Masters in behavior economics from the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, teaches at the Texas A&M Human Behavior Lab, and writes a column for Inc. magazine.

Dan Hill, PhD, is the author of ten books and leads Sensory Logic, Inc. (https://www.sensorylogic.com). His newest book is Emotionomics 2.0: The Emotional Dynamics Underlying Key Business Goals. To check out his related “Dan Hill’s EQ Spotlight” blog, visit https://emotionswizard.com.

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