Born in 1905 in the center of the crumbling Austro-Hungarian Empire, Viktor Frankl was a witness to the great political, philosophical, and scientific upheavals of the twentieth century. In these stirring recollections, Frankl describes how as a young doctor of neurology in prewar Vienna his disagreements with Freud and Adler led to the development of "the third Viennese School of Psychotherapy," known as logotherapy; recounts his harrowing trials in four concentration camps during the War; and reflects on the celebrity brought by the publication of Man's Search for Meaning in 1945.
An electric portrait of the artist as a young woman that asks how a writer finds her voice in a society that prefers women to be silent In Recollections of My Nonexistence, Rebecca Solnit describes her formation as a writer and as a feminist in 1980s San Francisco, in an atmosphere of gender violence on the street and throughout society and the exclusion of women from cultural arenas. She tells of being poor, hopeful, and adrift in the city that became her great teacher; of the small apartment that, when she was nineteen, became the home in which she transformed herself; of how punk rock gave form and voice to her own fury and explosive energy. Solnit recounts how she came to recognize the epidemic of violence against women around her, the street harassment that unsettled her, the trauma that changed her, and the authority figures who routinely disdained and disbelieved girls and women, including her. Looking back, she sees all these as consequences of the voicelessness that was and still is the ordinary condition of women, and how she contended with that while becoming a writer and a public voice for women's rights. She explores the forces that liberated her as a person and as a writer--books themselves, the gay men around her who offered other visions of what gender, family, and joy could be, and her eventual arrival in the spacious landscapes and overlooked conflicts of the American West. These influences taught her how to write in the way she has ever since, and gave her a voice that has resonated with and empowered many others.
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Souvenirs was his extraordinarily lucid and trenchant analysis of the 1848 revolution in France. Despite its bravura passages and stylistic flourishes, however, it was not intended for publication. Written just before Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte’s 1851 coup prompted the great theorist of democracy to retire from political life, it was initially conceived simply as an exercise in candid personal reflection. In Recollections: The French Revolution of 1848 and Its Aftermath, renowned historian Olivier Zunz and award-winning translator Arthur Goldhammer offer an entirely new translation of Tocqueville’s compelling book. The book has an interesting publishing history. Yielding to pressure from friends, Tocqueville finally approved its publication, although only after those portrayed in the work—most, unflatteringly—had died. After Tocqueville’s death, his grandnephew published a redacted version, but it was not until 1942 that French editors restored the potentially offensive passages. Goldhammer’s is the first English translation to do justice to Tocqueville’s original uncensored masterpiece of analytical description, stylistic subtlety, vivid social panorama, and incisive critique of political blundering and cowardice. Zunz’s introduction—and his addition of several of Tocqueville’s ancillary speeches, occasional texts, and letters—round out a unique volume that significantly enhances our understanding of the revolutionary period and Tocqueville’s role in it. In this new edition, Zunz highlights the persistent influence of the United States on the life and work of a man who tirelessly, albeit futilely, promoted the American model of government for the New French Republic.
In Recollections of My Life as a Woman, Diane di Prima explores the first three decades of her extraordinary life. Born into a conservative Italian American family, di Prima grew up in Brooklyn but broke away from her roots to follow through on a lifelong commitment to become a poet, first made when she was in high school. Immersing herself in Manhattan's early 1950s Bohemia, di Prima quickly emerged as a renowned poet, an influential editor, and a single mother at a time when this was unheard of. Vividly chronicling the intense, creative cauldron of those years, she recounts her revolutionary relationships and sexuality, and how her experimentation led her to define herself as a woman. What emerges is a fascinating narrative about the courage and triumph of the imagination, and how one woman discovered her role in the world.
This book reviews the extensive literature on early recollections and organizes various interpretive systems of evaluating early memories. The practitioner will find specific and detailed guidelines for administering and interpreting early recollections to help integrate these memories into counseling and psychotherapy. Following a carefully articulated contextual approach to early recollections, which synthesizes three perspectives - subjective, interpersonal and objective - come suggestions for using early recollections in the counseling process and a full-length case study to explicate the model and demonstrate the utility of using this approach.
Our present and our past are manifestly intertwined. Memories are not identical simulations of the past, but are stories shaped by our current perspectives of others, the world, and ourselves. As a result, the gathering of early recollections can be used as a projective technique that indicates our strengths, goals, lines of movement, fears, and a host of other relevant psychological data. Early Recollections are a quick, accurate, and cost-effective personality assessment demonstrated to have similar reliability and validity to other personality measures. Both a comprehensive and accessible text, Early Recollections: Interpretative Method and Application presents a constructivist approach and systematic development of early recollection theory. Mosak and Di Pietro invite students to think and actively engage in problem solving rather than merely read for content. Supported by step-by-step examples, this book also offers a perspective suitable for application by Adlerian practitioners, non-Adlerian clinicians, and all other mental health professionals and students seeking a new framework for evaluating personality.
