New Books in Psychology

By Marshall Poe

What's New Books in Psychology about?

Interviews with Psychologists about their New Books

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New Books in Psychology episodes:

04.15.2024
Lawson R. Wulsin, "Toxic Stress: How Stress Is Making Us Ill and What We Can Do About It" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
Our stress response system is magnificent - it operates beneath our awareness, like an orchestra of organs playing a hidden symphony. When we are healthy, the orchestra plays effortlessly, but what happens when our bodies face chronic stress, and the...
04.15.2024
Betty Milan, "Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account" (Bloomsbury, 2023)
Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account (Bloomsbury, 2023) brings together the first English translations of Why Lacan, Betty Milan's memoir of her analysis with Lacan in the 1970s, and her play, Goodbye Doctor, inspired by her experience. Why Lacan provides a unique and valuable perspective on...
04.10.2024
Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (1951)
A stevedore on the San Francisco docks in the 1940s, who eventually taught at the University of California at Berkeley, Eric Hoffer wrote philosophical treatises in his spare time while living in the railroad yards. The True Believer: Thoughts on the...
04.01.2024
Max Bennett, "A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, Ai, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains" (Mariner Books, 2023)
A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, Ai, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains (Mariner Books, 2023) tells two fascinating stories. One is the evolution of nervous systems. It started 600 million years ago, when the first brains evolved in...
03.27.2024
Neil Gong, "Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics: Mental Illness and Homelessness in Los Angeles" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Sociologist Neil M. Gong explains why mental health treatment in Los Angeles rarely succeeds, for the rich, the poor, and everyone in between. In 2022, Los Angeles became the US county with the largest population of unhoused people, drawing a stark contrast with...
03.27.2024
Greg Wrenn, "Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis" (Regalo Press, 2024)
A dazzling, evidence-based account of one man’s quest to heal from complex PTSD by turning to endangered coral reefs and psychedelic plants after traditional therapies failed—and his awakening to the need for us to heal the planet as well. Professor...
03.25.2024
Maggie Hennefeld, "Death by Laughter: Female Hysteria and Early Cinema" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Can you really die from laughing too hard? Between 1870 and 1920, hundreds of women suffered such a fate—or so a slew of sensationalist obituaries would have us believe. How could laughter be fatal, and what do these reports of...
03.19.2024
Charlie Hertzog Young, "Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future" (Footnote Press, 2023)
Charlie Hertzog Young became a climate activist in his early teens. His journey led him onto airport runways and into the halls of power, but also to a serious mental health breakdown. He had to rebuild himself physically and psychologically,...
03.08.2024
Kenneth Miller, "Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep" (Hachette Books, 2023)
Why do we sleep? How can we improve our sleep? A century ago, sleep was considered a state of nothingness—even a primitive habit that we could learn to overcome. Then, an immigrant scientist and his assistant spent a month in the...
03.06.2024
Thomas Metzinger, "The Elephant and the Blind: The Experience of Pure Consciousness: Philosophy, Science, and 500+ Experiential Reports" (MIT Press, 2024)
What if our goal had not been to land on Mars, but in pure consciousness? The experience of pure consciousness—what does it look like? What is the essence of human consciousness? In The Elephant and the Blind. The Experience of Pure...
03.05.2024
Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold, "A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: Talking Bodies" (Routledge, 2023)
By viewing psychoanalysis through the lens of embodiment, Brothers and Sletvold suggest a shift away from traditional concept-based theory and offer new ways to understand traumatic experiences, to describe the therapeutic exchange and to enhance the supervisory process. Since traditional psychoanalytic...
03.04.2024
Louis Rothschild, "Rapprochement Between Fathers and Sons: Breakdowns, Reunions, Potentialities" (Karnac, 2023)
Today I spoke with Dr. Louis Rothschild about his new book Rapprochement Between Fathers and Sons Breakdowns, Reunions, Potentialities (Karnac, 2024). Our conversation moved freely between theory, generational attitudes, thinkers, and personal vignettes. What is a good enough father? What is the difference...
03.03.2024
Anna Dako, "Dances with Sheep: On RePairing the HumanNature Condition in Felt Thinking and Moving towards Wellbeing" (Intellect Books, 2023)
Anna Dako,'s book Dances with Sheep: On RePairing the HumanNature Condition in Felt Thinking and Moving towards Wellbeing (Intellect Books, 2023) presents the methodology of Felt Thinking in Movement as an eco-somatic practice inspired by re-thinking nature of being human, as well as...
03.03.2024
Mimi Khúc, "dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss" (Duke UP, 2023)
Mimi Khúc is a PhD, writer, scholar, and teacher of things unwell. She is currently the Co-Editor of The Asian American Literary Review and an adjunct lecturer in Disability Studies at Georgetown University. Her work includes Open in Emergency, a hybrid book-arts project decolonizing...
02.29.2024
Dominique Scarfone, "The Reality of the Message: Psychoanalysis in the Wake of Jean Laplanche" (Unconscious in Translation, 2023)
The Reality of the Message: Psychoanalysis in the Wake of Jean Laplanche (Unconscious in Translation, 2023) compiles papers written by Dominique Scarfone. Each paper is followed by a conversation about the paper between the author and Avgi Saketopoulou. "I propose we have...
02.25.2024
Aaron J. Jackson, "Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities" (U California Press, 2021)
Vulnerable narratives of fatherhood are few and far between; rarer still is an ethnography that delves into the practical and emotional realities of intensive caregiving. Grounded in the intimate everyday lives of men caring for children with major physical and...
02.23.2024
Sten Grillner, "The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function" (MIT Press, 2023)
C. S. Sherrington said “All the brain can do is to move things". The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function (MIT Press, 2023) shows how much the brain can do "just" by moving things. It gives an amazing overview...
02.22.2024
Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There
Today’s book is: Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There (Atria/One Signal Publishers, 2024), by Tali Sharot and Cass R. Sunstein, a book that asks why stimulating jobs and breathtaking works of art lose their sparkle after a while....
02.20.2024
Torsa Ghosal, "Out of Mind: Mode, Mediation, and Cognition in Twenty-First-Century Narrative" (Ohio State UP, 2021)
What is the relationship between aesthetic presentation of thought and scientific conceptions of cognition? Torsa Ghosal’s Out of Mind: Mode, Mediation, and Cognition in Twenty-First-Century Narrative (Ohio State UP, 2021) answers this question by offering incisive commentary on a range of contemporary...
02.19.2024
Nate Klemp, "Open: Living with an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World" (Sounds True, 2024)
With the avalanche of information we get every day, closing down our minds and hearts seems to be the only way to survive. We close down to our inner experience by compulsively checking our devices. We close down to others...
02.13.2024
Paul Katsafanas, "Philosophy of Devotion: The Longing for Invulnerable Ideals" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Why do some of our identity-defining commitments resist reason and critical reflection, and why do we persist in them even when they threaten our happiness, safety, and comfort? Paul Katsafanas argues in his book Philosophy of Devotion:The Longing for Invulnerable Ideals (Oxford UP, 2023) that...
02.10.2024
Joshua Paul Dale, "Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World" (Profile Books, 2023)
Why are some things cute, and others not? What happens to our brains when we see something cute? And how did cuteness go global, from Hello Kitty to Disney characters? Cuteness is an area where culture and biology get tangled up....
02.08.2024
John Horgan, "Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right" ( Columbia UP, 2023)
What makes a person want to become a terrorist? Who becomes involved in terrorism, and why? In what ways does participating in violent extremism change someone? And how can people become deradicalized? John Horgan―one of the world’s leading experts on the...
02.05.2024
Vani Kant Borooah, "Economics, Religion and Happiness: God, Mammon and the Search for Spiritual and Financial Wealth" (Routledge, 2023)
Many books on happiness suggest that we have considerable control over our level of happiness by doing or not doing specific things, like mediation, exercise, and maintaining social ties. Approaching happiness through the lens of economics, Vani Kant Borooah takes a different...
01.28.2024
Matthew Rubery, "Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences" (Stanford UP, 2022)
Matthew Rubery's book Reader’s Block: A History of Reading Differences (Stanford UP, 2022) explores the influence neurodivergence has on the ways individuals read. This alternative history of reading is one of the few books which tells the stories of "atypical" readers and...
01.21.2024
Ghostwriting Psychology and Overcoming Anxiety Associated with Writer’s Block
Barbara Richter is an accomplished author, public speaker, French-to-English translator, and founder of DIYBook and In Ink Ghostwriting. Raised in a home steeped in books and greatly influenced by her father, an award-winning editor and National Book Award finalist, Barbara's upbringing richly nurtured...
01.20.2024
Harry van der Hulst, "A Mind for Language: An Introduction to the Innateness Debate" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
How does human language arise in the mind? To what extent is it innate, or something that is learned? How do these factors interact? The questions surrounding how we acquire language are some of the most fundamental about what it...
01.19.2024
Cross-Cultural Research on Gaming and “Gaming Disorder”
In 1998 the phrase “internet addiction” was first used to describe problematic prolonged internet use, and encompassed a wide range of online activities including reading news, connecting in chat rooms, viewing pornography, and gambling. Since then, particular focus has been...
01.19.2024
What Decision Means
Listen to Episode No.5 of All We Mean, a Special Focus of this podcast. All We Mean is an ongoing discussion and debate about how we mean and why. The guests on today's episode are Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis, professors at the University of Illinois,...
01.17.2024
Tara Brach, "Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha" (Random House, 2004)
It can be so easy to feel like we’re not enough or that we’re somehow insufficient. According to meditation teacher Tara Brach, this feeling of unworthiness is fundamentally a disease of separation, as it alienates us from ourselves and the...
01.14.2024
Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman, "Let's Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication" (2022)
Let's Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication (2022) is a transformative guide to elevate your everyday conversations. Authored by Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman, this practical handbook equips you with essential skills to navigate challenging topics, boost self-expression confidence, and...
01.10.2024
Krista K. Thomason, "Dancing with the Devil: Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good" (Oxford UP, 2023)
How could a good life include one with anger, or jealousy, or spite? In Dancing with the Devil: Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good (Oxford UP, 2023), Krista Thomason flips the script on popular ways of dealing with our emotions, including neo-Stoicism,...
01.08.2024
Melanie Joy, "How to End Injustice Everywhere" (Lantern, 2023)
In this eye-opening and compelling work, psychologist Melanie Joy reveals the common denominator driving all forms of injustice. The mentality that drives us to oppress and abuse humans is the same mentality that drives us to oppress and abuse nonhumans...
01.08.2024
Christian Coseru on Perceiving Reality
What does it mean to perceive and just how capable are we of perceiving reality? This is a core question in the work of Christian Coseru, who is today’s guest. He is the Lightsey Humanities chair and Professor of Philosophy...
01.02.2024
Matthew Gutmann, "Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short" (Basic Books, 2019)
In Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short (Basic Books, 2019), Matthew Gutmann examines how cultural expectations viewing men as violent and sex driven becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Dubious interpretations of the scientific study of the effects of...
12.30.2023
Erika Dyck, "Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2018)
Today I talked with historian Erika Dyck about Aldous Huxley, Humphry Osmond and their correspondence over a ten year period. Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2018) is a collection of letters which...
12.29.2023
Kevin Hood Gary, "Why Boredom Matters: Education, Leisure, and the Quest for a Meaningful Life" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Boredom is an enduring problem. In response, schools often do one or both of the following: first, they endorse what novelist Walker Percy describes as a 'boredom avoidance scheme,' adopting new initiative after new initiative in the hope that boredom...
12.27.2023
Jeffrey Whyte, "The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War" (Oxford UP, 2023)
Jeffrey Whyte's book The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War (Oxford UP, 2023) explores the history, politics, and geography of United States psychological warfare in the 20th century against the backdrop of the...
12.27.2023
Helena Vissing, "Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Trauma Treatment for Perinatal Mental Health" (Routledge, 2023)
Today we spoke with Dr. Helena Vissing about her new book Somatic Maternal Healing Psychodynamic and Somatic Trauma Treatment for Perinatal Mental Health (Routledge, 2023). What does the research of neuro science, immunology and biology tell us about the complex links between trauma, stress, inflammatory responses,...
12.21.2023
Talking to Strangers: A Discussion with Psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber
Can the kindness of strangers help with the loneliness crisis? Whether you are a student, staff, or have gone alt-ac, you’ve likely had to move at least once recently for your education and career goals. It can get lonely when...
12.19.2023
Brian Brown and Virginia Kuulei Berndt, "Body Art" (Emerald Publishing, 2023)
Body art, especially tattoos and piercings, has enjoyed an explosion of interest in recent years. However, the response of many health professionals and researchers to this phenomenon is often negative, as body art continues to be associated with issues ranging...
12.16.2023
Lawrence Sherman and Dennis Plies, "Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music" (Columbia UP, 2023)
Whenever a person engages with music--when a piano student practices a scale, a jazz saxophonist riffs on a melody, a teenager sobs to a sad song, or a wedding guest gets down on the dance floor--countless neurons are firing. Playing...
12.10.2023
Oren Jay Sofer, "Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love" (Shambhala, 2023)
What is the role of contemplative practice in times of crisis? And how can meditation actually support us in meeting the greatest challenges of our time? Oren Jay Sofer takes up these questions in his new book, Your Heart Was Made for...
12.06.2023
A Conversation with Austin Ratner, the New Editor of "The American Psychoanalyst"
Austin Ratner has an interesting background. After graduating from medical school he decided to change careers. Rather than continuing in medicine he became a fiction writer. This shift seemed to be a good decision since he won the Sami Rohr...
12.05.2023
Emma K. Sutton, "William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
Emma K. Sutton's William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician (U Chicago Press, 2023) is the first book to map William James's preoccupation with medical ideas, concerns, and values across the breadth of his work. William James is known as a nineteenth-century philosopher, psychologist,...
12.01.2023
Coleen T. Murphy, "How We Age: The Science of Longevity" (Princeton UP, 2023)
All of us would like to live longer, or to slow the debilitating effects of age. In How We Age: The Science of Longevity (Princeton UP, 2023), Coleen Murphy shows how recent research on longevity and aging may be bringing us closer...
11.30.2023
Christian B. Miller, "Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue" (Oxford UP, 2021)
Honesty is an important virtue. Parents want to develop it in their children. Close relationships depend upon it. Employers value it in their employees. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have said very little about the virtue of honesty over the past fifty...
11.29.2023
Jonathan M. Depierro et al., "Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
Life presents us all with challenges. Most of us at some point will be struck by major traumas such as the sudden death of a loved one, a debilitating disease, or a natural disaster. What differentiates us is how we...
11.28.2023
Astra Taylor, "The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart" (House of Anansi Press, 2023)
These days, everyone feels insecure. We are financially stressed and emotionally overwhelmed. The status quo isn’t working for anyone, even those who appear to have it all. What is going on? In The Age of Insecurity (House of Anansi Press, 2023), author and...
11.27.2023
Ran Zwigenberg, "Nuclear Minds: Cold War Psychological Science and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
Ran Zwigenberg’s Nuclear Minds: Cold War Psychological Science and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (U Chicago Press, 2023) explores early efforts by the American military, psychiatrists, psychologists, and social scientists to understand the effects of the atomic bombings on the minds of...

What's New Books in Psychology about?

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New Books in Psychology episodes:

Lawson R. Wulsin, "Toxic Stress: How Stress Is Making Us Ill and What We Can Do About It" (Cambridge UP, 2024)

Betty Milan, "Analyzed by Lacan: A Personal Account" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" (1951)

Max Bennett, "A Brief History of Intelligence: Evolution, Ai, and the Five Breakthroughs That Made Our Brains" (Mariner Books, 2023)

Neil Gong, "Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics: Mental Illness and Homelessness in Los Angeles" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

Greg Wrenn, "Mothership: A Memoir of Wonder and Crisis" (Regalo Press, 2024)

Maggie Hennefeld, "Death by Laughter: Female Hysteria and Early Cinema" (Columbia UP, 2024)

Charlie Hertzog Young, "Spinning Out: Climate Change, Mental Health and Fighting for a Better Future" (Footnote Press, 2023)

Kenneth Miller, "Mapping the Darkness: The Visionary Scientists Who Unlocked the Mysteries of Sleep" (Hachette Books, 2023)

Thomas Metzinger, "The Elephant and the Blind: The Experience of Pure Consciousness: Philosophy, Science, and 500+ Experiential Reports" (MIT Press, 2024)

Doris Brothers and Jon Sletvold, "A New Vision of Psychoanalytic Theory, Practice and Supervision: Talking Bodies" (Routledge, 2023)

Louis Rothschild, "Rapprochement Between Fathers and Sons: Breakdowns, Reunions, Potentialities" (Karnac, 2023)

Anna Dako, "Dances with Sheep: On RePairing the HumanNature Condition in Felt Thinking and Moving towards Wellbeing" (Intellect Books, 2023)

Mimi Khúc, "dear elia: Letters from the Asian American Abyss" (Duke UP, 2023)

Dominique Scarfone, "The Reality of the Message: Psychoanalysis in the Wake of Jean Laplanche" (Unconscious in Translation, 2023)

Aaron J. Jackson, "Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities" (U California Press, 2021)

Sten Grillner, "The Brain in Motion: From Microcircuits to Global Brain Function" (MIT Press, 2023)

Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There

Torsa Ghosal, "Out of Mind: Mode, Mediation, and Cognition in Twenty-First-Century Narrative" (Ohio State UP, 2021)

Nate Klemp, "Open: Living with an Expansive Mind in a Distracted World" (Sounds True, 2024)

Paul Katsafanas, "Philosophy of Devotion: The Longing for Invulnerable Ideals" (Oxford UP, 2022)

Joshua Paul Dale, "Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Brains and Conquered the World" (Profile Books, 2023)

John Horgan, "Terrorist Minds: The Psychology of Violent Extremism from Al-Qaeda to the Far Right" ( Columbia UP, 2023)

Vani Kant Borooah, "Economics, Religion and Happiness: God, Mammon and the Search for Spiritual and Financial Wealth" (Routledge, 2023)

Matthew Rubery, "Reader's Block: A History of Reading Differences" (Stanford UP, 2022)

Ghostwriting Psychology and Overcoming Anxiety Associated with Writer’s Block

Harry van der Hulst, "A Mind for Language: An Introduction to the Innateness Debate" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

Cross-Cultural Research on Gaming and “Gaming Disorder”

What Decision Means

Tara Brach, "Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha" (Random House, 2004)

Mudita Nisker and Dan Clurman, "Let's Talk: An Essential Guide to Skillful Communication" (2022)

Krista K. Thomason, "Dancing with the Devil: Why Bad Feelings Make Life Good" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Melanie Joy, "How to End Injustice Everywhere" (Lantern, 2023)

Christian Coseru on Perceiving Reality

Matthew Gutmann, "Are Men Animals? How Modern Masculinity Sells Men Short" (Basic Books, 2019)

Erika Dyck, "Psychedelic Prophets: The Letters of Aldous Huxley and Humphry Osmond" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2018)

Kevin Hood Gary, "Why Boredom Matters: Education, Leisure, and the Quest for a Meaningful Life" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

Jeffrey Whyte, "The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War" (Oxford UP, 2023)

Helena Vissing, "Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Trauma Treatment for Perinatal Mental Health" (Routledge, 2023)

Talking to Strangers: A Discussion with Psychotherapist Charlotte Fox Weber

Brian Brown and Virginia Kuulei Berndt, "Body Art" (Emerald Publishing, 2023)

Lawrence Sherman and Dennis Plies, "Every Brain Needs Music: The Neuroscience of Making and Listening to Music" (Columbia UP, 2023)

Oren Jay Sofer, "Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love" (Shambhala, 2023)

A Conversation with Austin Ratner, the New Editor of "The American Psychoanalyst"

Emma K. Sutton, "William James, MD: Philosopher, Psychologist, Physician" (U Chicago Press, 2023)

Coleen T. Murphy, "How We Age: The Science of Longevity" (Princeton UP, 2023)

Christian B. Miller, "Honesty: The Philosophy and Psychology of a Neglected Virtue" (Oxford UP, 2021)

Jonathan M. Depierro et al., "Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges" (Cambridge UP, 2023)

Astra Taylor, "The Age of Insecurity: Coming Together as Things Fall Apart" (House of Anansi Press, 2023)

Ran Zwigenberg, "Nuclear Minds: Cold War Psychological Science and the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki" (U Chicago Press, 2023)