Our lives are full of disruptions, from the minor - a flat tire, an unexpected phone call - to the fateful - a diagnosis of infertility, an illness, the death of a loved one. In the first book to examine disruption in American life from a cultural rather than a psychological perspective, Gay Becker follows hundreds of people to find out what they do after something unexpected occurs. Starting with bodily distress, she shows how individuals recount experiences of disruption metaphorically, drawing on important cultural themes to help them reestablish order and continuity in their lives.
Through vivid and poignant stories of people from different walks of life who experience different types of disruptions, Becker examines how people rework their ideas about themselves and their worlds, from the meaning of disruption to the meaning of life itself.Becker maintains that to understand disruption, we must also understand cultural definitions of normalcy. She questions what is normal for a family, for health, for womanhood and manhood, and for growing older. In the United States, where life is expected to be orderly and predictable, disruptions are particularly unsettling, she contends. And, while continuity in life is an illusion, it is an effective one because it organizes people's plans and expectations.
Becker's phenomenological approach yields a rich, compelling, and entirely original narrative. Disrupted Lives acknowledges the central place of discontinuity in our existence at the same time as it breaks new ground in understanding the cultural dynamics that underpin life in the United States. From the book: 'The doctor was blunt. He does not mince words. He did a [semen] analysis and he came back and said, 'This is devastatingly poor.' I didn't expect to hear that. It had never occurred to me. It was such a shock to my sense of self and to all these preconceptions of my manliness and virility and all of that. That was a very, very devastating moment and I was dumbfounded...In that moment it totally changed the way that I thought of myself'.
False memories of sexual abuse lead to terrible miscarriages of justice
To avoid the innocent being convicted, police, lawyers and judges must understand the fickle nature of human memory
Many of those working in our legal system have such a poor understanding of the nature of human memory that miscarriages of justice are an almost inevitable consequence, according to a book published today by the British False Memory Society. Miscarriage of Memory, edited by William Burgoyne, Norman Brand, Madeline Greenhalgh and Donna Kelly, presents factual accounts of prosecutions in the UK that were based entirely upon memories of sexual abuse recovered during therapy in the absence of any supporting evidence
Typically such cases occur when a vulnerable individual seeks help from a psychotherapist for a commonly occurring psychological problem such as anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and so on. At this stage, the client has no conscious memories of ever being the victim of childhood sexual abuse and is likely to firmly reject any suggestion of such abuse. To a particular sort of well-meaning psychotherapist, however, such denial is itself evidence that the abuse really did occur
Despite strong criticism from experimental psychologists, many psychotherapists still accept the Freudian notion of repression – the idea that when someone experiences extreme trauma, a defence mechanism kicks in that buries the memory of the traumatic event so deep that it cannot be retrieved into consciousness. Like radioactive waste, its presence is said to exert a malign influence. Indeed, the whole rationale of such therapy is that these hidden memories must be recovered and worked through in order to achieve psychological health.
During therapy, and often as a result of "memory recovery" techniques such as hypnotic regression and guided imagery, the client may gradually develop clear and vivid memories of abuse having taken place, typically at the hands of parents and other family members.
On the evidence of a huge amount of well-controlled research, we can now be confident that these memory recovery techniques are highly likely to give rise to false memories – apparent memories for events that never took place.
Given the unregulated nature of the therapy and counselling industry inhabited by many practitioners with little or no training, it is inevitable that malpractice and abuse of the relationship between counsellor and client will occur. This can destroy the lives of those who have, innocently, placed their complete trust in their therapist to whom they have revealed their innermost thoughts and fears at a time when they are at their most vulnerable and suggestible. It can have a devastating effect on their parents, relatives and others who know the client and may be wrongly accused. This small booklet attempts to provide an easily-read guide for parents and other secondary victims of therapy, and those who are contemplating therapy, are already receiving it or have experienced therapy but have doubts about their treatment.
'DNA Can Be Influenced And Reprogrammed By Words And Frequencies Russian DNA Discoveries
By Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf
The human DNA is a biological Internet and superior in many aspects to the artificial one. The latest Russian scientific research directly or indirectly explains phenomena such as clairvoyance, intuition, spontaneous and remote acts of healing, self healing, affirmation techniques, unusual light/auras around people (namely spiritual masters), the mind’s influence on weather patterns and much more.
In addition, there is evidence for a whole new type of medicine in which DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies WITHOUT cutting out and replacing single genes.'
Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century[Paperback]
by Edward F. Kelly, Emily Williams Kelly, Adam Crabtree, Michael Grosso, Bruce Greyson
Product Description
Practically every contemporary mainstream scientist presumes that all aspects of mind are generated by brain activity. We demonstrate the inadequacy of this picture by assembling evidence for a variety of empirical phenomena which it cannot explain. We further show that an alternative picture developed by F. W. H. Myers and William James successfully accommodates these phenomena, ratifies the common sense view of ourselves as causally effective conscious agents, and is fully compatible with contemporary physics and neuroscience.
Multiple Man: Explorations in Possession and Multiple Personality
by Adam Crabtree Introduction by Colin Wilson
Synopsis
Possession and multiple personality have up to now been seen as aberrations of the human mind - the frightening experiences of a few unfortunate victims. This book suggests that multiple personality may be a form of multiple consciousness which we all experience and that possession may be much more widespread than has been believed. Working from new clinical data and an analysis of the history of possession and multiple personality, the author calls for a re-examination of how the mind of both the "healthy" and the "ill" individual works.
He suggests that these experiences, rather than being considered bizarre anomolies, should be seen as teaching us important truths about the inner nature of the human psyche. Adam Crabtree is a Canadian psychotherapist. He is founder and director of Willow Workshops, whose programme includes both educational and therapeutic programmes.
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind[Paperback]
Sadly neglected now, this path-finding study of consciousness uses the latest mapping of the brain (from car crash victims, etc.) to speculate on how self-conscious individuals emerged from tribal group-think. Perhaps the most astonishing fact deployed by Jaynes is that the brain has a back-up speech centre that can be used for re-learning to speak after the active centre has been destroyed. What is this second speech centre for? Why is it mute? Did it once serve a group-think purpose, such a voice-of-divine-monarch-in-head? Jaynes has a long look at the earliest evidence, drawn from so-called Homer's Iliad. This section should be obligatory reading for all students of literature and history. Possibly, it will be one day, when humans have evolved a little further.
Jaynes delves into anthropology, psychology, ontology and pathology to produce a theory of the mind that, once studied and considered, is never forgotten. This book is a penetrating contribution to the great, probably uncrackable, mystery of how language came to be. Regrettably, few people ever give it much thought. Until they do, this stimulating work will remain marginal. It deserves to be read and discussed by students everywhere.
Alien abduction, poltergeist attacks, incubi, succubi, split and multiple personalities, possessions, precognition, spontaneous combustion - the list of phenomena not just unexplained but ignored by mainstream science seems endless. Yet the key to the origin of all these manifestations lies deep within our own brains. In "The Origins of Psychic Phenomena", Stan Gooch explores the functioning of the dream-producing part of the brain - the cerebellum - and how the unconscious mind is able to externalise itself.
The cerebellum is the physical seat of the unconscious and was once equal, or even superior to, the cerebrum as essential to our functioning. In modern times it has been shunted into the subliminal - yet the cerebellum continues to process our worldly experiences and reveals its concerns in misunderstood, often frightening, manifestations. Gooch explains that Neanderthal Man possessed a much larger cerebellum than Cro-Magnon Man and posits that the modern repression of the cerebellum's role in our consciousness has given rise to these supernatural phenomena.
It explores how the unconscious mind manifests paranormal phenomena; shows how the cerebellum - the seat of the unconscious -is the source of these energies, sub-personalities, and manifestations; and identifies our neglected "Neanderthal" subconscious as responsible for the rising incidence of paranormal happenings.
Easy Touch : The Omerta of The English Legal System[Kindle Edition]
Simon Kaberry (Author)
Simon Kaberry was born in Leeds in December 1948. After schooling elsewhere, he was admitted a solicitor in 1974 and returned to his native city in 1980 where he set up and ran his own legal practice. This is his true story of the workings of our legal establishment today.
Book Extract
They say that life is what you make of it. Others say that is not so; it is much more what happens to you in it. Events over which you have no control; such determine the path of your life and you can only respond to them as best one can.
The account, which follows, is of life in England today, subjected to its lawyers' rules. It is not fiction; I wish it were. Any event to which I was not a party is based upon reasoned assumptions from known facts. Had these events not happened to me, I would have said this could not happen - yet it could happen to you. How would you cope?
If wrong should befall you, or your family, you would seek redress in accordance with the law. You would put your trust in it, and in the lawyers. You would look to that word - 'justice' - a concept which ordinary people see as right and truth; sometimes retribution, sometimes compensation. To do that you would look to our judges - our trustees of justice, to hear the evidence fairly, then judge and order. As a democracy, we elect those entrusted to govern. Each five years at least, we have the right to change that government - the legislature and executive, if it fails us, lets us down or does not answer our needs; they know that. However, the third part of democratic life is the Judiciary. Our Judges are not elected and self-regulate; as such, they know they are not accountable to us. The system has evolved this way over centuries. It is one of the few 'jobs for life' - appointed from within their own, answerable only to its self-regulation, and covered by a powerful omerta. Any system whereby those who control it are unanswerable is open to abuse, deceit and cover-up at the public's expense. It can ruin anyone's life and we are powerless.
This account gives you an insight into the workings of all the systems: From solicitors; barristers; QC's; judges from all courts to the House of Lords; to the vital importance of our jury system: can we trust lawyers with justice? Moreover, what becomes of those wrongly charged and innocent?
Do No Harm? Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy: Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome[Paperback]
This review is from: Do No Harm? Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy: Munchausen by Proxy Syndrome (Paperback)
This has to be the least biased book I have ever read covering this topic. The author portrays MSBP in a very thought provoking manner. He leaves the media hysteria behind and searches for the truth in these cases where the truth is hard to find. His brave attempt to get to the truth in these situations will no doubt help shed light on the tragedy of these cases for families that are falsely accused. Without denying that real abuse exist in this world at the hands of parents, he has exposed that parents are not the only abusers of children. Will this report bring the reality of what is happening to children at the hands of some of the worlds most powerful countries social systems, while maintaining a system that will protect children that need protection? One can only hope at this point.
Harry Stack Sullivan: Interpersonal Theory and Psychotherapy (Makers of Modern Psychotherapy)[Paperback]
Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949) has been described as 'the most original figure in American psychiatry'. Challenging Freud's psychosexual theory, Sullivan founded the interpersonal theory of psychiatry, which emphasized the role of interpersonal relations, society and culture as the primary determinants of personality development and psychopathology.
This concise and coherent account of Sullivan's work and life invites the modern audience to rediscover the provocative, groundbreaking ideas embodied in Sullivan's interpersonal theory and psychotherapy.
A true story, "Cult Scare" is a firsthand account of the shocking kidnapping of Kirsten Nielsen.
The year was 1976. Kirsten was a rebellious seventeen-year-old Californian who had just run away from home. She hit the road, hitchhiking across the country, looking for love and a place to belong. She found what she was looking for in a community in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Two years later in 1978, the infamous Jonestown mass suicide happened in Guyana. Mass hysteria and a "cult scare" analogous to the anti-Communist "Red Scare" of the previous generation began springing up everywhere.
In the late '70s, the method used by anti-cultists to "bust cults" was through deprogramming. Several members of the Chattanooga Community were violently seized from the peace of the community only to be harangued, harassed, threatened, and humiliated for adherence to their chosen religious beliefs. The most publicized deprogramming was that of Kirsten Nielsen in 1979, who at the age of 21 and on the day of the wedding of her twin sister, was kidnapped by her parents and associates of Ted Patrick, the notorious Cult Awareness Network deprogrammer.
This is Kirsten's story.
Note from Louise Ayr: The book includes some other people's experiences of joining a community which they were happy to be with, and how some other people intevened, thinking it was in their best interests. It often cost a lot of money for "cult experts". Deprogramming from cults got a bad name partly because of this.
It is difficult to know how best to advise anyone who loses a family member to a cult-like organisation. Some cults are based on double-standards, and do not let members leave.
This book appears here because it shows a different viewpoint, not just the experiences of the main author Kirsten Nielson, but there are other accounts too. Internet links are provided for further information.
Crazy Therapies: What are They? Do They Work?[Hardcover]
Margaret Thaler Singer, Janja Lalich
Reviews
"This book is an intelligent, witty guide for anyone who is considering an "innovative" or unconventional approach to mental health or personal transformation."
"Singer brings educated skepticism to her topic--the wide-open field of fringe psychotherapy." (Dallas Morning News)
"Crazy Therapies is a much-needed book to help consumers navigate the unregulated filed of psychotherapy."
"This is a consumer guide to help sort out what might be right for you." (The Denver Post)
"Written in a clear, highly entertaining, and popular style, "Crazy Therapies" is just the book for anyone trying to wend their way through the daunting therapeutic maze."
"Tells a sad but fascinating tale of pathological therapies that abound throughout the country."
"This title is a good complement to Jack Gorman's The New Psychiatry. Together, the two titles provide a solid background for anyone seeking assistance with life's problems."
"Crazy Therapies is fascinating reading and would be helpful for anyone considering any innovative approach to mental health or personal transformation."
"...a must read for anyone who believes that there is sometimes little difference between some mental health practices and the occult. This is that rare book that is both highly entertaining and deeply disturbing..."
Insane Therapy: Portrait of a Psychotherapy Cult[Kindle Edition]
Sensational media coverage of groups like Heaven's Gate, the People's Temple, and Synanon is tinged with the suggestion that only crazy, lonely, or gullible people join cults. Cults attract people on the fringe of society, people already on the edge. Contrary to this public perception, Marybeth Ayella reveals how anyone seeking personal change in an intense community setting is susceptible to the lure of group influence. The book begins with the candid story of how one keen skeptic was recruited by Moonies in the 1970s - the author herself. Ayella's personal experience fueled her interest in studying the cult phenomenon.
This book focuses on her analysis of one community in southern California, The Center for Feeling Therapy, which opened in 1971 as an offshoot of Arthur Janov's Primal Scream approach. The group attracted mostly middle-class, college-educated clients interested in change through intense sessions led by licensed therapists. At the time of the Center's collapse in 1980, there were three hundred individuals living in the therapeutic community and another six hundred outpatients. Through interviews with twenty-one former patients, the author develops a picture of the positive changes they sought, the pressures of group living, and the allegations of abuse against therapists. Many patients contended that they were beaten, made to strip before the group and to engage in forced sex, forced to have abortions and give up children, and coerced to donate money and to work in business affiliated with the Center.
The close of the Center brought yet more trauma to the patients as they struggled to readjust to mainstream life. Ayella recounts the stories of these individuals, again and again returning to the question of how personal identity is formed and the power of social influences. This book is a key to understanding how 'normal' people wind up in cults. Author note: Marybeth F. Ayella teaches Sociology at St. Joseph's University.
Cult leaders inspire intense loyalty among their followers, yet they strike outsiders as loathsome. Why are there so many of them and why do they persist throughout history despite the fact that most cults disintegrate completely under the strain of their mad ideas? In this study of the thin partitions that separate cult leaders from full-blown schizophrenia, this book argues that the answer lies in our gene pool. The sexual charisma of schizotypal leaders - from Hitler, David Koresh and Jim Jones on the one side and Jesus on the other side of the spectrum - play a vital role when groups split and this is in turn vital for the survival of the species.
There are many reports of strange cults which enthral their followers and cut themselves off from the world. Invariably led by gurus, or "spiritual leaders", the fruit of these cults are mass suicides in the South American jungle or the self-immolation of hundreds in besieged fortresses. This study provides an examination of these men and women and of those who follow them. It takes as example some of those considered to be modern gurus - James Jones, David Koresh, the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, Gurdjieff and others - and establishes what each of them has in common. It then examines what they share with other gurus whose teachings are accepted or at least respected - Jung, Freud, Ignatius Loyola, Jesus himself - and finds some startling continuities.
About the Author
The editor, Anthony Storr, is a doctor, psychiatrist and analyst (trained in the school of C.G.) and author of 'Jung' (a Fontana Modern Master,1973) amongst many others.
Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults[Paperback]
Heaven's Gate, a secretive group of celibate 'monks' awaiting pickup by a UFO, captured intense public attention in 1997 when its members committed collective suicide. As a way of understanding such perplexing events, many have seen those who join cults as needy, lost souls, unable to think for themselves. This book, a compelling look at the cult phenomenon written for a wide audience, dispels such simple formulations by explaining how normal, intelligent people can give up years of their lives - and sometimes their very lives - to groups and beliefs that appear bizarre and irrational. Looking closely at Heaven's Gate and at the Democratic Workers Party, a radical political group of the 1970s and 1980s, Janja Lalich gives us a rare insider's look at these two cults and advances a new theoretical framework that will reshape our understanding of those who join such groups.
Lalich's fascinating discussion includes her in-depth interviews with cult devotees as well as reflections gained from her own experience as a high-ranking member of the Democratic Workers Party. Incorporating classical sociological concepts such as 'charisma' and 'commitment' with more recent work on the social psychology of influence and control, she develops a new approach for understanding how charismatic cult leaders are able to dominate their devotees. She shows how members are led into a state of 'bounded choice', in which they make seemingly irrational decisions within a context that makes perfect sense to them and is, in fact, consistent with their highest aspirations. In addition to illuminating the cult phenomenon in the United States and around the world, this important book also addresses our pressing need to know more about the mentality of those true believers who take extreme or violent measures in the name of a cause.
About the Author
Janja Lalich is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Chico. She is coauthor of "Crazy" Therapies: What Are They? Do They Work? (1996) and Captive Hearts, Captive Minds: Freedom and Recovery from Cults and Abusive Relationships (1994).
Outsiders: Studies in Sociology of Deviance[Paperback]
This sociological text on deviance and difference provides an exploration into unconventional individuals and their place in "normal" society.
Howard S. Becker is an American sociologist who for many years lived and worked in Chicago. His book, `Outsiders', is one of his most famous pieces of work, which set the foundations for his Labeling Theory.
Aliens and Alienists: Ethnic Minorities and Psychiatry[Paperback]
In this extensively revised edition of an influential book, two psychiatrists assess the psychological consequences of migration and prejudice for groups as diverse as West Indians, Turkish Cypriots and Hasidic Jews. In their exploration of a wide range of issues, the authors conclude that mental illness can be an intelligible response to disadvantage and prejudice. Combining theoretical perspectives from such diverse areas as psychiatry and social anthropology, this standard text has been brought up to date with a comprehensive new chapter, and a detailed list of new sources and literature. The authors conclude that little has changed and that racism in Britain continues to affect the mental health of Black and other ethnic minorities.
Cons & Scams
'Conned: Scams, Frauds & Swindles' by James Morton & Hilary Bateson
'The Con Artist Handbook, the Secrets of Hustles & Scams' by Joel Levy
'The Art of Deception' by Kevin D Mitnick & William L Simon
'More Scams from the Great Beyond' by Peter Huston
'The Art of the Steal' by Frank Abagnale
'The Sting - True Stories of the World's greatest Conmen' by Nigel Blundell
'The Tourist Trap - when Holiday turns to Nightmare' by Patrick Blackden
'The Body Language Bible' by Judi James
'The Book of Tells' by Peter Collett
'The Call of the Weird - Travels in American Subcultures' by Louis Theroux
'The Dilbert Principle' by Scott Adams
'A Mind of its Own - How your Brain Distorts & Deceives' by Cordelia Fine
'The Psychology of Self-Deception' by Daniel Goleman
Advertising & Influence
'Buy-ology' by Martin Lindstrom
'Decoding Advertisements - Ideology & Meaning in Advertising' by Judith Williamson
'Emotional Design - Why we love (or hate) everyday things' by Donald A Norman
'Of Cigarettes, High Heels, & Other Interesting Things' by Marcel Danesi
'Predictably Irrational' by Dan Ariely
'Stack & Sway - the new Science of Jury Consulting'
by Neil J Kressel & Dorit F Kressel
'Techniques of Persuasion' by J.A.C. Brown
'We Know What You Want - How they change your Mind' by Martin Howard
'The Want Makers' by Eric Clark
Magic & Illusion
'Body Magic' by John Fisher
'Building Blocks' by Luke Jermay
Cold Reading/Barnum Effect article
'Hiding the Elephant' by Jim Steinmeyer
'Hoffmann's Modern Magic' by Hoffmann
'Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic'
'The Psychic Mafia' by M. Lamar Keene'Secrets of Stage Mindreading' by Ormond McGill
'Self-Working Mental Magic' by Karl Fulves
'Sleight of Hand' by Edwin Sachs
'Tricks of the Mind' by Derren Brown
Beliefs & Behaviour
'An Introduction to Social Anthropology: Other People's Worlds'
by Joy Hendry
'A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion' ed. Michael Lambek
'Britain on the Couch' by Oliver James
'Cross-Cultural Psychology' by Berry, Poortinga, Segall, Dasen
'Eccentric & Bizarre Behaviours' by Franzini & Grossberg
'Extraordinary Popular Delusions' by Charles Mackay
'Fugitive Minds' by Antonio Melechi
'Messengers of Deception' by Jacques Vallee
'Phantoms of the Brain' by Blakeslee & Ramachandran
'Pointed Observations' by Kevin R D Shepherd
'Social Psychology' by M A Hogg & G M Vaughan
'Spying in Guru Land' by William Shaw
'The Anthropology of Religion' by Fiona Bowie
'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat' by Oliver Sacks
'The Psychic Tourist' by William Little
'The Secret World of Cults' by Jean Ritchie
'The Stargate Conspiracy' by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince
'The Supernatural' by Will Storr
'The Wayward Mind' by Guy Claxton
'Worldviews' by Ninian Smart
X-Files or W-H-Y?
'Ancient Energies of the Earth' by David Cowan & Anne Silk
'Archaeology of the Mind: the Social History of the Unconscious'
by George Frankl
'Beyond the Occult' by Colin Wilson
'Borderlands' by Mike Dash
'Daimonic Reality' by Patrick Harpur
'Disneyland of the Gods' by John Keel
'Earth Harmony' by Nigel Pennick
'Enter the Valley' by Christopher O'Brien
'Environmental Psychology' by Robert Gifford
'ESP Beyond Time & Distance' by T.C. Lethbridge
'Games of the Gods - The Origin of Board Games'' by Nigel Pennick
'Hidden Meanings' by Laird Scranton
'Hungry Ghosts' by Joe Fisher
'Labyrinths: Ancient Myths & Modern Uses' by Sig Lonegren
'Ley Lines' by Danny Sullivan
'Messengers of Deception' by Jacques Vallee
'Missing Pieces' by Robert A Baker & Joe Nickell
'Mysteries of the Hopewell' by William F. Romain
'Natural Symbols' by Mary Douglas
'Needles of Stone' by Tom Graves
'Places of Power' by Paul Devereux
'Revelations' by Jacques Vallee
'Shamanism & The Mystery Lines' by Paul Devereux
'Shaman, Healer, Sage' by Alberto Villoldo
'Space, Time & Medicine' by Larry Dossey
'Strange Creatures from Time & Space' by John Keel
'Symbols & Meaning' by Mari Womack
'The Journey to You' by Ross Heaven
'The Phantom World' by Augustin Calmet (written in 1746)
'The Power of Coincidence' by Frank Joseph
'The Stargate Conspiracy' by Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince
'The System in which we Live' by Arthur Oram
'The Way of the Shaman' by Michael Harner
'True Life Encounters' by John & Anne Spencer
Sticks and Stones: The Philosophy of Insults[Hardcover]
"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." This schoolyard rhyme projects an invulnerability to verbal insults that sounds good but rings false. Indeed, the need for such a verse belies its own claims. For most of us, feeling insulted is a distressing-and distressingly common-experience. In Sticks and Stones, philosopher Jerome Neu probes the nature, purpose, and effects of insults, exploring how and why they humiliate, embarrass, infuriate, and wound us so deeply. What kind of injury is an insult? Is it determined by the insulter or the insulted? What does it reveal about the character of both parties as well as the character of society and its conventions? What role does insult play in social and legal life? When is telling the truth an insult?
Neu draws upon a wealth of examples and anecdotes-as well as a range of views from Aristotle and Oliver Wendell Holmes to Oscar Wilde, John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, and many others-to provide surprising answers to these questions. He shows that what we find insulting can reveal much about our ideas of character, honor, gender, the nature of speech acts, and social and legal conventions. He considers how insults, both intentional and unintentional, make themselves felt-in play, Freudian slips, insult humor, rituals, blasphemy, libel, slander, and hate speech. And he investigates the insult's extraordinary power, why it can so quickly destabilize our sense of self and threaten our moral identity, the very center of our self-respect and self-esteem. Entertaining, humorous, and deeply insightful, Sticks and Stones unpacks the fascinating dynamics of a phenomenon more often painfully experienced than clearly understood.
The Trouble with Blame: Victims, Perpetrators and Responsibility[Paperback]
This text takes up the topic of victimization and blame as a pathology of our time and its consequences for personal responsibility. By probing the psychological dynamics of victims and perpetrators of rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence, Sharon Lamb seeks to answer some crucial questions: How do victims become victims and sometimes perpetrators?; How can we break the psychological circle of perpetrators blaming others and victims blaming themselves?; How do victims and perpetrators view their actions and reactions?; And how does our social response to them facilitate patterns of excuse?
With clarity and compassion, Lamb examines the theories, excuses and psychotherapies that strip both victims of their power and perpetrators of their agency - and thus deprive them of the means to human dignity, healing and reparation. She shows how the practice of painting victims as innocents may actually help perpetrators of abuse to shirk responsibility for their actions; they too can claim to be victims in their own right, passive and will-less in their wrongdoing. "The Trouble With Blame" clarifies the social cost of letting perpetrators off too easily, and points out the dangers of overemphasizing victimization, two problems which eclipse our need for accountability and recovery.
Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts[Paperback]
Review by an Amazon customer
For clear, engaging explanations of psychological research, this is one of the best books you can get. Cognitive biases are like optical illusions, distorting our decisions, memories and judgement. This book focuses in particular on self-directed biases: the distortions of memory and explanation that make sure that each of us is the hero, not the villain, or our own life story.
When corrupt police frame innocent people, how do they justify to themselves what they are doing? When a couple divorce, how can two former lovers come to hate each other with such passion? When political or military mistakes lead to thousands of deaths, how do the decision-makers live with themselves? The authors take academic research (on cognitive dissonance, stereotypes, obedience and more) and apply it to a wide spectrum of issues from the White House to Mel Gibson's racism.
It is eye-opening to read how malleable and unreliable memory is, and how easy it is to create feedback loops of increasing certainty from just a glimmer of evidence. An appalling example is the recovered memory craze of the 80s and 90s, which is discussed at length. The book isn't entirely downbeat, even though it explains how prosecutions, marriages or therapy sessions can go terribly wrong. It shows how easy it is for good people to hurt others, but that we can avoid these traps with humility and self-questioning. They call science "a form of arrogance control".
A theme running through the work of these two psychologists is how science can address real problems of human conflict. That warm, humane spirit pervades this book and I think anybody curious about the science or the solutions would benefit from reading it.
Up from Scapegoating: Awakening Consciousness in Groups[Paperback]
Ever since Up from Scapegoating has been available on amazon.com I recieved a number of consultation requests from individuals and subgroups who've experienced the scapegoating phenomena and want help. They've ranged from requests by lawyers to help with scapegoated, abused clients who want a handle on group process to members of religious communities who find themselves isolated by the blanket of goodness and denial to students in schools finding a class process to be powerfully scapegoating--often of friends as well as themselves. Each one takes some analyzing but I think there should be a group of people who are interested and can do something to advance a general theoy and practice. The dynamics of victimization by groups attempting to exclude and excommunicate for the purpose of their own wholeness is common to all kind of abuse.
Ostracism: The Power of Silence (Emotions & Social Behavior)[Hardcover]
'Relying on a judicious mix of case studies, experiments, and role play, Williams explores ostracism in narratives, the laboratory, office settings, and even on the internet (being shunned online is by no means uncommon). This wonderful 11-chapter book illustrates that important, unexplored issues amenable to traditional social psychological analysis remain to be explored.'- Choice
'This is a scholarly, engaging, and lucidly written work. Williams, a foremost authority on the topic, has done an admirable job documenting the prevalence of ostracism across history, cultures, and the course of human development ... Social scientists and undergraduate and graduate-level students will be awed by the power of this book to explain a complex phenomenon so elegantly, and to provide so many valuable insights into both the dark and bright sides of human behavior.'- Constantine Sedikides, PhD, University of Southampton, England
Product Description
This illuminating book provides a comprehensive examination of this pervasive phenomenon, exploring the short- and long-term consequences for targets as well as the functions served for those who exclude or ignore.
The Bully at Work: What You Can Do to Stop the Hurt and Reclaim Your Dignity on the Job
by Gary Namie and Ruth Namie
Review by an Amazon customer
I experienced all of the behaviors described in this book, and I think the reasons given for the behavior are right on the mark. When my e-mail friends suggested the same reasons (before I read this book), I found them so far-fetched (such as perhaps I was making the bullies look bad through my competence-I said to myself, "They are professional people; surely they are self-confident about their own work.")
This book looks at reasons for bullying, and who become targets for bullying behavior (how and why those targets are chosen). It discusses bullying in other European countries, as well as South Africa, and what progress legally has been made against passing laws against bullying in the workplace. These laws are compared with the legal progress/standing of the target in the United States. The book discusses health ramifications on the target, and all possible actions that can and should or should not be taken personally, and in the workplace.
If I had read this book MUCH sooner (such as when the bullying FIRST started), it would have helped me emotionally. I would have realized MUCH sooner what was happening, and known that I wasn't crazy. I could have fought back sooner, and would have known how, and which strategies to use. I also would have kept detailed records of each bullying incident, and I would have gotten witnesses' statements.
Bully in Sight: How to Predict, Resist, Challenge and Combat Workplace Bullying - Overcoming the Silence and Denial by Which Abuse Thrives[Paperback] Tim Field(Author)
Review by an Amazon customer
Bully in sight made me aware what was happening to me and some of the other people I worked with. It made it clear that bullying is not management. I finally took a stand after 2 breakdowns and took my employer to court. The result was 7 managers joined her and ganged up to eliminate me. I managed to get all this recorded and left a massive paper trail. The result was my company paid me to leave when they realised that I could clearly show that they victimised me. (This is why I am anonymous).
Bully in sight tells you what bullying is, it tells you how to prove it, it gives you some ideas on how to play the game and who to ask for for help. It informs you why your colleagues will disappear and why grievance procedures don't work. It gives you an idea why you are suffering from stress and other weird illnesses when you have never been ill before.
The only downside is the law section is a bit out of date but you can buy an employment law book to help you with that.
Barsteadworth College: How Workplace Bullies Get Away With It[Paperback]
Barsteadworth College is a book about workplace bullying, the damage it causes and institutional suppression of the truth about both.
Workplace bullying is a hot contemporary topic. It crops up in conversations between friends and colleagues and not infrequently in the television, radio and print media. It can often seem that everyone has either been bullied at work or knows someone who has. However, cases where a victim of workplace bullying has taken on 'the system' and won are few and, because of this, are big news when they happen. This is due in no small part to the routine use of 'gagging clauses' in 'compromise agreements', which bring to a close the one-sided battles that take place between bullied employees and their employers/managers. Victimised employees can find themselves placed in situations where they have no alternative but to resign and then contractually prohibited from speaking about their experiences by the agreement that terminates their employment. Thus, it is ensured that the extent of the kind of abuses described in this book remains hidden and that one of the routine social sicknesses of our time and the knock-on actual sicknesses that result stay largely invisible and unchallenged.
The author, Dr Stephen Riley, has experienced workplace bullying and its damaging consequences firsthand and, like many, he is prohibited from speaking by a 'compromise agreement'. In Barsteadworth College he therefore uses fiction as means of describing and analysing the issues: Dr Dan Ripley, a Fine Art Lecturer, moves from Manchester and takes a job at a provincial art college in the south of England. After a time, a new manager arrives and starts to appoint friends and family and to create preferential working conditions for herself and her clique. Those outside of the clique - Dan and two others - are then subjected to a wide range of undermining activities from their line-manager, including staged public humiliations at meetings, unmanageable workloads and endlessly contradictory instructions. The book describes the gradual corrosive effects of the bullying: fatigue, loss of confidence, confusion and then depression. It then describes what happens when Dan complains: the college's managers close ranks and connive with the bullying line-manager to discredit the allegations, eliminate evidence and vilify the complainant.
Ultimately, Barsteadworth College is an appeal to law and policy makers to address the current situation, which is hopelessly skewed in favour of workplace bullies and against their victims and, within this, to address the question of how, when suitable policies are in place, institutions can be made to adhere to them and be answerable if they do not.
Workplace bullying, like childhoodbullying, is the tendency of individuals or groups to use persistent aggressive or unreasonable behaviour against a co-worker or subordinate. Workplace bullying can include such tactics as verbal, nonverbal, psychological, physical abuse and humiliation. This type of aggression is particularly difficult because unlike the typical forms of school bullying, workplace bullies often operate within the established rules and policies of their organization and their society. Bullying in the workplace is in the majority of cases reported as having been perpetrated by management and takes a wide variety of forms. Bullying can be covert or overt.
Extract relevant to the UK
In the United Kingdom, although bullying is not specifically mentioned in workplace legislation, there are means to obtain legal redress for bullying. The Protection from Harassment Act 1997[35] is a recent addition to the more traditional approaches using employment-only legislation. Notable cases include Majrowski v Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Trust[36] wherein it was held that an employer is vicariously liable for one employee's harassment of another, and Green v DB Group Services (UK) Ltd,[37] where a bullied worker was awarded over £800,000 in damages. In the latter case, at paragraph 99, the judge Mr Justice Owen said,
"...I am satisfied that the behaviour amounted to a deliberate and concerted campaign of bullying within the ordinary meaning of that term."
Bullying behaviour breaches other UK laws. An implied term of every employment contract in the UK is that parties to the contract have a (legal) duty of trust and confidence to each other. Bullying, or an employer tolerating bullying, typically breaches that contractual term. Such a breach creates circumstances entitling an employee to terminate his or her contract of employment without notice, which can lead to a finding by an Employment Tribunal of unfair dismissal, colloquially called constructive dismissal. An employee bullied in response to asserting a statutory right can be compensated for the detriment under Part V of the Employment Rights Act 1996, and if dismissed, Part X of the same Act provides that the dismissal is automatically unfair. Where a person is bullied on grounds of sex, race or disability et al., it is outlawed under anti-discrimination laws.
It was argued, following the obiter comments of Lord Hoffmann in Johnson v Unisys in March 2001,[38][39] that claims could be made before an Employment Tribunal for injury to feelings arising from unfair dismissal. It was re-established that this was not what the law provided, in Dunnachie v Kingston upon Hull City Council, July 2004[40] wherein the Lords confirmed that the position established in Norton Tool v Tewson in 1972, that compensation for unfair dismissal was limited to financial loss alone. Unfair dismissal compensation is subject to a statutory cap set at £60600 from Feb 2006. Discriminatory dismissal continues to attract compensation for injury to feelings and financial loss, and there is no statutory cap.
Access to justice in the UK is via self-representation at a tribunal, via a no-win no-fee lawyer, or via insurance or trade union lawyers. Since the Access to Justice act, "collective conditional fees" have blurred the distinction causing controversy for example in the case of Unison v Jervis.
Sociologist Gerhard Falk examines the social psychology that motivates this process of exclusion, focusing on the outcasts in contemporary American society and comparing current experience with examples from the past. Referring to the work of Emile Durkheim and Erving Goffman, Falk reviews the whole range of stigmatised people from the mentally ill to ordinary people with unpopular occupations, like undertakers and trash collectors.
Amid the wide diversity of stigmatised persons, he finds two basic types of outsiders: the 'existential' and the 'achieved'. The first group comprises those who are stigmatised because of their very existence, regardless of their specific actions: the mentally handicapped, for example. The second group describes those whose actions or life conditions have resulted in stigma: from high achievers (often subject to resentment) to criminals. Falk also looks at the ways in which writers past and present have dramatised stigmatised characters in literature. This fascinating overview of a long-standing and widespread social problem will be of interest to all those concerned about creating a more fair-minded society.
Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity[Paperback]
Erving Goffman (1922-1982) was one of the most influential sociologists of the twentieth century. He was Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.
By an Amazon Customer
For those not familiar with Goffman's work he is the acceptable face of Sociology. He avoids the bogus science which has given the whole enterprise a bad name but captures the essence of what makes the study of social interraction so fascinating. The Stigmas covered include disabilities, social deviance or sexual orientation. Stigma proposes a basic principle: That the stigmatised individual has a simple choice regarding the attributes that he or she has that makes them different. They can either control the information by not letting so called 'normals' i.e. everyone else, know what their secret is if its not obviously visible; or they can let it be known and manage the resulting tension. They can 'pass' i.e. pretend to be normal while harbouring the knowledge that their stigma makes them distinct and different.
It is Goffman's extraordinary insight and accurate description that makes his brand of Sociology so engaging. You will read this and say 'Aha' when you recognise that things you thought only you had observed in the minutely detailed interplay of human relations have been bagged, tagged and described in the most accurate and well documented manner. Nobody should go through life without at least once dipping in to the sharply observed world of this great 20th century observer.
Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates (Penguin Social Sciences)[Paperback]
Asylums is an analysis of life in "total institutions"--closed worlds like prisons, army camps, boarding schools, nursing homes and mental hospitals. It focuses on the relationship between the inmate and the institution, how the setting affects the person and how the person can deal with life on the inside.
By an Amazon Customer
The fact that this collection of essays has been in print for almost four decades is consistent with its enduring signficance. Although Goffman draws on his research in mental institutions, his writings in this book have much broader relevance. In particular, they have to do with the nature of identity, the processes whereby organizations and groupings seek to change the identities and selves of their members, and the strategies used by group members to resist those changes. At a broader level, this book is about the relationship between person and the groups of which s/he is a part. Extremely well written, and very readable with excellent use of illustrative examples, this set of essays provides unparalleled insights into and understandings of the relation between person and society.
Why? is a book about the explanations we give and how we give them--a fascinating look at the way the reasons we offer every day are dictated by, and help constitute, social relationships. Written in an easy-to-read style by distinguished social historian Charles Tilly, the book explores the manner in which people claim, establish, negotiate, repair, rework, or terminate relations with others through the reasons they give.
Tilly examines a number of different types of reason giving. For example, he shows how an air traffic controller would explain the near miss of two aircraft in several different ways, depending upon the intended audience: for an acquaintance at a cocktail party, he might shrug it off by saying "This happens all the time," or offer a chatty, colloquial rendition of what transpired; for a colleague at work, he would venture a longer, more technical explanation, and for a formal report for his division head he would provide an exhaustive, detailed account.
Tilly demonstrates that reasons fall into four different categories:
Convention: "I'm sorry I spilled my coffee; I'm such a klutz." Narratives: "My friend betrayed me because she was jealous of my sister." Technical cause-effect accounts: "A short circuit in the ignition system caused the engine rotors to fail." Codes or workplace jargon: "We can't turn over the records. We're bound by statute 369."
Tilly illustrates his topic by showing how a variety of people gave reasons for the 9/11 attacks. He also demonstrates how those who work with one sort of reason frequently convert it into another sort. For example, a doctor might understand an illness using the technical language of biochemistry, but explain it to his patient, who knows nothing of biochemistry, by using conventions and stories.
Replete with sparkling anecdotes about everyday social experiences (including the author's own), Why? makes the case for stories as one of the great human inventions.
Throughout his 50-book career, Tilly liked to squint hard at social life and find simple patterns. [In Credit and Blame] his undogmatic schematizing could reshape our judgments about what might have been obvious to begin with. -- Alexander Star, New York Times Book Review
Drawing upon sources as disparate as Dostoyevski, Darwin, water-cooler conversations and truth commissions, Tilly illustrated how assigning credit and blame stems from and redefines 'relations between the creditor and the credited, the blamer, and the blamed.' Tilly astutely analyzes how people accept credit and society assesses blame, and the commonalities between the two. With its most vivid examples drawn from the author's own life, this book is simultaneously highbrow and humble and a close analysis of social interaction. -- Publishers Weekly
Product Description
In his eye-opening book Why?, world-renowned social scientist Charles Tilly exposed some startling truths about the excuses people make and the reasons they give. Now he's back with further explorations into the complexities of human relationships, this time examining what's really going on when we assign credit or cast blame.
Everybody does it, but few understand the hidden motivations behind it. With his customary wit and dazzling insight, Tilly takes a lively and thought-provoking look at the ways people fault and applaud each other and themselves. The stories he gathers in Credit and Blame range from the everyday to the altogether unexpected, from the revealingly personal to the insightfully humorous--whether it's the gushing acceptance speech of an Academy Award winner or testimony before a congressional panel, accusations hurled in a lover's quarrel or those traded by nations in a post-9/11 crisis, or a job promotion or the Nobel Prize.
Drawing examples from literature, history, pop culture, and much more, Tilly argues that people seek not only understanding through credit and blame, but also justice. The punishment must fit the crime, accomplishments should be rewarded, and the guilty parties must always get their just deserts.
Brilliantly conceived and masterfully written, Credit and Blame is a book that revolutionizes our understanding of the compliments we pay and the accusations we make.
The Stories We Live by: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self[Paperback]
'Who Am I?' 'How do I fit in the world around me?' From early childhood, we are all faced with key questions of human identity. This revealing and innovative book demonstrates that each of us discovers what is true and meaningful, in our lives and in ourselves, through the creation of personal myths. Challenging the traditional view that our personalities are formed by fixed, unchanging characteristics, or by predictable stages through which every individual travels, The Stories We Live By persuasively argues that, strange as it may seem, we are the stories we tell. Based on more than 10 years of research and hundreds of first-hand interviews, the book accessibly links scientific investigation to the struggles and joys of real people. Sensitively told anecdotes and mini-life stories draw readers into exploring the intimate connection between our personal myths and our perceptions, relationships, and life choices.
Providing an integrative view of human beings as evolving story-tellers whose tales deepen and broaden with age, The Stories We Live By describes an ongoing process that allows us, within limits, to develop and revise our stories and open up new possibilities for our lives. This book will be value for all those who are interested in enhancing their self-understanding. It will also serve as useful classroom text for undergraduates and advanced students in personality and social psychology, counselling and psychotherapy.
