Being Reduced New Essays on Reduction, Explanation, and Causation By Jakob Hohwy and Jesper Kallestrup (Editors) Review by Matthew M. Konig on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
It is your third date, and it has been another magical evening; one filled with sweet gestures, shared laughs, and wonderful conversation. The night culminates in your first kiss, and as you walk back to your car you are thinking, "I am in love!" The next day, as you relate your experience to your friend the neurochemist, he says, "ah, yes, oxytocin, the "love" chemical--wonderful stuff!" "What are you talking about?" you ask. He explains that oxytocin is the chemical that creates in us a sense of intimacy and connectedness, and that the production of it is increased wh Click here to read the full review!
Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism is a collection of essays gathered together by editors David Braddon-Mitchell and Robert Nola, all of which are organized around a philosophical methodology that has come to be known as "The Canberra Plan." The Canberra Plan is the namesake of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and both offer solutions by way of compromises. In the case of the city, the compromise was to build an artificial city halfway between Melbourne and Sydney. The philosophical compromise, the compromise of the Canberra Planners (hereafter, "Planners"), employs conceptual Click here to read the full review!
Psychology Pythagoras to Present By John C. Malone Review by Kamuran Gödelek on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
What is real? Do we live in a three-dimensional world that Isaac Newton envisioned? Does time flow like a river? Why is the sky blue? Are human beings aggressive because of their heredity? Do we see with our eyes or through our eyes? Are we born with complete knowledge that is gradually awakened during our lifetime? Is artificial intelligence really intelligent? Do we have free will? How should we deal with depression? How should we raise and educate children? How should we deal with crime? Is what we call the "mind" is just another word for "brain"? These are all psychological questions that Click here to read the full review!
Voices of Alcoholism The Healing Companion: Stories for Courage, Comfort and Strength By The Healing Project Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
This collection has about 45 stories in 250 pages, each by a person describing how alcohol abuse has affected their lives. They are from a variety of perspectives: drinkers, spouses, parents and children of drinkers; while they are mainly white, there are a few contributions from people who are in minority groups, although there are no gay or lesbian contributions. Some declare religious faith, while others do not. The majority are sympathetic to the idea that alcoholism is a disease and that Alcoholics Anonymous is a good approach to dealing with alcohol problems, but not al Click here to read the full review!
The College Fear Factor How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another By Rebecca D. Cox Review by Maura Pilotti, Ph.D. on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
The College Fear Factor: How Students and Professors Misunderstand One Another is a fascinating chronicle of the myriad of problems faced by the American higher education system. Although the author of the book, Rebecca D. Cox, focuses on community colleges, most of the evidence collected and conclusions formulated appear to apply to a variety of institutions granting bachelor's degrees, from those subscribing to open-admission policies to those with admission requirements more or less stringent. The common trait among the institutions of higher education selected by Cox is the diversity Click here to read the full review!
Male Sexuality Why Women Don't Understand It and Men Don't Either By Michael Bader Review by George Williamson, Ph.D. on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
In Male Sexuality: Why Women Don't Understand It and Men Don't Either, Michael Bader is attempting to present a new theory of male sexuality, based on his clinical experience in therapy with his patients. This new theory of male sexuality, he claims, should do much to dispel the misunderstanding of male behavior behind contemporary controversies over cybersex and internet pornography, as well as the high-profile prostitution scandals which have recently caught some prominent politicians. Simplistic assumptions about the nature of male sexuality in these cases contribute to an ove Click here to read the full review!
The Ten Minute Sexual Solution A Busy Couple's Guide to Having More Fun, Intimacy, and Sex By Darcy Luadzers Review by Christian Perring on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
The Ten Minute Sexual Solution is a guide for couples who rarely have sex about how to achieve a more satisfying relationship. The basic idea is to open up communication, explore sexuality in a way that is positive to both, and to engage in more regular sexual interactions that don't aim to be wonderful for both partners but are at least satisfying and not unpleasant. This will have a gradually enhancing effect of reducing the frustration of the partner who feels like they are not getting enough, and since it only lasts for 10 minutes, it won't be a big deal for the other partner.& Click here to read the full review!
The Lexicon of Adlerian Psychology 106 Terms Associated With the Individual Psychology of Alfred Adler By Jane Griffith and Robert L. Powers Review by E. James Lieberman, M.D. on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
The authors of this valuable reference point out that Alfred Adler (1870-1937) is less well known than some of his ideas, e.g., his "inferiority complex" has been mistakenly attributed to Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung by respected publications. Griffith and Powers are emeriti professors at the Adler School of Professional Psychology, Chicago and edit a column on biopsychosocial issues in the Journal of Individual Psychology. The first edition of the Lexicon appeared in 1984 with 59 terms. Besides the added definitions, many of the entries have been updated. Arranged alphabetically, t Click here to read the full review!
Geektastic Stories from the Nerd Herd By Holly Black and Cecil Castellucci (Editors) Review by Natalie Kelley-Wilson on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
The purpose of this work is to entertain. It is a collection of stories by various authors and each story contains a "geek"-related theme. Some of the stories deal with fairly mainstream aspects of geek culture, while others deal with more obscure. Most of the stories are light hearted with references that various types of geeks can relate to. Authors allude to various types of geeks: gamers, bloggers, cosplayers, nerds, role players, comic lover, etc. Interspersed throughout are random comments about geeks and graphic panels with amusing insights into "geekdom". Following every story, informa Click here to read the full review!
Maral Hadidi's Yoga: Beginners Flow for Everyone is one of my favorite instructional yoga DVDs. It has a total of three hours of demonstration, but the home menu is a menu that allows you to choose from a variety of different sequences, and you can also choose the individual building blocks of the DVD to make your own practice. These basic sequences are:
· Meditation
· Warm ups
· Standing 1 & 2
· &nb Click here to read the full review!
Purge By Sarah Littman Review by Amy Ridley on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
Janie is a sophomore who is spending her summer vacation at Camp Golden Slopes learning how to stop herself from throwing up after every meal. She cannot believe she landed here after successfully hiding her habit from everyone in her life for over two years. She was throwing up multiple times a day without her family having a clue. Her downfall came at the wedding of her perfect older half-sister Jenny. What should have been a huge celebration of Jenny and Brad's love and commitment to each other ended up getting Janie committed to a psychiatric hospital.
Janie cannot believe she is stuck in Click here to read the full review!
Speed Shrinking By Susan Shapiro Review by Beth Cholette, Ph.D. on Tue, Feb 2nd 2010.
Speed Shrinking is the debut novel by author Susan Shapiro, whose previous works have included a memoir, Five Men Who Broke My Heart, as well as several self-help offerings. Although her current book is a work of fiction, Shapiro does not stray very far from her own history, as her main character, Julia, also happens to be an author of self-help books.
Julia, we soon discover, came to be a guru to others via her own obsession with therapy. With the help of her analyst and mentor, Dr. Ness, she has published her first book, Up in Smoke, and is on the verge of pub Click here to read the full review!
Psychiatrists and Traditional Healers Unwitting Partners in Global Mental Health By Mario Incayawar, Ronald Wintrob, Lise Bouchard (Editors) Review by Diana Soeiro on Tue, Jan 26th 2010.
The present book is the result of a process that can be traced back to the 80s. It started with a group of people of Quichua (Inca), in Ecuador, that created a healthcare initiative called Jambihuasi believing that traditional Quinchua healers could be effective partners to improve health status of the Quichua communities of the Andes. The project grew and Runajambi Institute, the first Quichua health research group, was created aiming to understand the nature and efficacy of traditional healers' work. In 2001 the Institute joined the Transcultural Psychiatric Section of the World Psychiatric Click here to read the full review!
Going Amiss in Experimental Research is a collection of papers that provide a thorough investigation into problems facing scientific research. Many of us are familiar with a sort of common sense notion of experimental error, in which either spurious results are taken as true or some fact remains undiscovered by an experiment. This book, however, offers the reader a number of tools (e.g. terms, distinctions, historical information) to move beyond a limited conception of error as simply getting it wrong. Experimental research can go amiss in a number of ways which don't necessarily require reach Click here to read the full review!
Mind and Consciousness 5 Questions By Patrick Grim (Editor) Review by Kamuran Gödelek on Tue, Jan 26th 2010.
Debate in issues of the mind is active and ongoing, with implications not only for philosophy but also for psychology, artificial intelligence and the neurosciences. Patrick Grimm in this intriguing book, collects interviews with some of the foremost philosophers of mind, focusing on open questions, promising projects and their own intellectual histories. The philosophers who are interviewed are Lynne Rudder Baker, David Chalmers, Daniel Dennett, Fred Dretske, Owen Flanagan, Samuel Guttenplan, Valerie Gray Hardcastle, John Heil, Terence Horgan, Douglas Hofstadter, Frank Jackson, Jaegwon Kim, W Click here to read the full review!
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