The Harmony of Illusions

The Harmony of Illusions

Author: Allan Young

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 1997-10-27

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1400821932

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As far back as we know, there have been individuals incapacitated by memories that have filled them with sadness and remorse, fright and horror, or a sense of irreparable loss. Only recently, however, have people tormented with such recollections been diagnosed as suffering from "post-traumatic stress disorder." Here Allan Young traces this malady, particularly as it is suffered by Vietnam veterans, to its beginnings in the emergence of ideas about the unconscious mind and to earlier manifestations of traumatic memory like shell shock or traumatic hysteria. In Young's view, PTSD is not a timeless or universal phenomenon newly discovered. Rather, it is a "harmony of illusions," a cultural product gradually put together by the practices, technologies, and narratives with which it is diagnosed, studied, and treated and by the various interests, institutions, and moral arguments mobilizing these efforts. This book is part history and part ethnography, and it includes a detailed account of everyday life in the treatment of Vietnam veterans with PTSD. To illustrate his points, Young presents a number of fascinating transcripts of the group therapy and diagnostic sessions that he observed firsthand over a period of two years. Through his comments and the transcripts themselves, the reader becomes familiar with the individual hospital personnel and clients and their struggle to make sense of life after a tragic war. One observes that everyone on the unit is heavily invested in the PTSD diagnosis: boundaries between therapist and patient are as unclear as were the distinctions between victim and victimizer in the jungles of Southeast Asia.


The Illusion of Doubt

The Illusion of Doubt

Author: Genia Schönbaumsfeld

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 178

ISBN-13: 0198783949

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The Illusion of Doubt confronts one of the most important questions in philosophy: what can we know? The radical sceptic's answer is 'not very much' if we cannot prove that we are not subject to (permanent) deception. This book shows that the radical sceptical problem is an illusion created by a mistaken picture of our evidential situation.


The Self Illusion

The Self Illusion

Author: Bruce Hood

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2012-06-15

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 0199969892

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Most of us believe that we are unique and coherent individuals, but are we? The idea of a "self" has existed ever since humans began to live in groups and become sociable. Those who embrace the self as an individual in the West, or a member of the group in the East, feel fulfilled and purposeful. This experience seems incredibly real but a wealth of recent scientific evidence reveals that this notion of the independent, coherent self is an illusion - it is not what it seems. Reality as we perceive it is not something that objectively exists, but something that our brains construct from moment to moment, interpreting, summarizing, and substituting information along the way. Like a science fiction movie, we are living in a matrix that is our mind. In The Self Illusion, Dr. Bruce Hood reveals how the self emerges during childhood and how the architecture of the developing brain enables us to become social animals dependent on each other. He explains that self is the product of our relationships and interactions with others, and it exists only in our brains. The author argues, however, that though the self is an illusion, it is one that humans cannot live without. But things are changing as our technology develops and shapes society. The social bonds and relationships that used to take time and effort to form are now undergoing a revolution as we start to put our self online. Social networking activities such as blogging, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter threaten to change the way we behave. Social networking is fast becoming socialization on steroids. The speed and ease at which we can form alliances and relationships is outstripping the same selection processes that shaped our self prior to the internet era. This book ventures into unchartered territory to explain how the idea of the self will never be the same again in the online social world.


Freud

Freud

Author: Frederick Crews

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2017-08-22

Total Pages: 768

ISBN-13: 1627797181

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From the master of Freud debunkers, the book that definitively puts an end to the myth of psychoanalysis and its creator Since the 1970s, Sigmund Freud’s scientific reputation has been in an accelerating tailspin—but nonetheless the idea persists that some of his contributions were visionary discoveries of lasting value. Now, drawing on rarely consulted archives, Frederick Crews has assembled a great volume of evidence that reveals a surprising new Freud: a man who blundered tragicomically in his dealings with patients, who in fact never cured anyone, who promoted cocaine as a miracle drug capable of curing a wide range of diseases, and who advanced his career through falsifying case histories and betraying the mentors who had helped him to rise. The legend has persisted, Crews shows, thanks to Freud’s fictive self-invention as a master detective of the psyche, and later through a campaign of censorship and falsification conducted by his followers. A monumental biographical study and a slashing critique, Freud: The Making of an Illusion will stand as the last word on one of the most significant and contested figures of the twentieth century.


Chinese Migrants in Paris

Chinese Migrants in Paris

Author: Simeng Wang

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-06-22

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 9004461450

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This research employs the narrative of mental suffering as a prism through which to study Chinese migration in France. It provides new analytical angles and new perspectives on the paradoxical existence and conditions of the migrants, and traces the social links between individuals and societies, objectivity and subjectivity, the real and the imaginary.


The Knowledge Illusion

The Knowledge Illusion

Author: Steven Sloman

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0399184341

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“The Knowledge Illusion is filled with insights on how we should deal with our individual ignorance and collective wisdom.” —Steven Pinker We all think we know more than we actually do. Humans have built hugely complex societies and technologies, but most of us don’t even know how a pen or a toilet works. How have we achieved so much despite understanding so little? Cognitive scientists Steven Sloman and Philip Fernbach argue that we survive and thrive despite our mental shortcomings because we live in a rich community of knowledge. The key to our intelligence lies in the people and things around us. We’re constantly drawing on information and expertise stored outside our heads: in our bodies, our environment, our possessions, and the community with which we interact—and usually we don’t even realize we’re doing it. The human mind is both brilliant and pathetic. We have mastered fire, created democratic institutions, stood on the moon, and sequenced our genome. And yet each of us is error prone, sometimes irrational, and often ignorant. The fundamentally communal nature of intelligence and knowledge explains why we often assume we know more than we really do, why political opinions and false beliefs are so hard to change, and why individual-oriented approaches to education and management frequently fail. But our collaborative minds also enable us to do amazing things. The Knowledge Illusion contends that true genius can be found in the ways we create intelligence using the community around us.


The Mindfulness Edge

The Mindfulness Edge

Author: Matt Tenney

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2016-02-10

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1119183243

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The one habit that can improve almost every leadership skill There is a simple practice that can improve nearly every component of leadership excellence and it doesn't require adding anything to your busy schedule. In The Mindfulness Edge, you'll discover how a subtle inner shift, called mindfulness, can transform things that you already do every day into opportunities to become a better leader. Author Matt Tenney has trained leaders around the world in the practice of mindfulness. In this book, he partners with neuroscientist Tim Gard, PhD, to offer step-by-step, practical guidance for quickly and seamlessly integrating mindfulness training into your daily life—rewiring your brain in ways that improve both the ‘hard' and ‘soft' skills of leadership. In this book, you'll learn how mindfulness training helps you: Quickly improve business acumen and your impact on the bottom line Become more innovative and attract/retain innovative team members Develop the emotional intelligence essential for creating and sustaining a winning culture Realize the extraordinary leadership presence that inspires greatness in others The authors make a compelling case for why mindfulness training may be the 'ultimate success habit.' In addition to helping you improve the most essential elements of highly effective leadership, mindfulness training can help you discover unconditional happiness and realize incredible meaning—professionally and personally.


No Self, No Problem

No Self, No Problem

Author: Chris Niebauer

Publisher: Hierophant Publishing

Published: 2019-09-03

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 1938289986

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While in grad school in the early 1990s, Chris Niebauer began to notice striking parallels between the latest discoveries in psychology, neuroscience, and the teachings of Buddhism, Taoism, and other schools of Eastern thought. When he presented his findings to a professor, his ideas were quickly dismissed as “pure coincidence, nothing more.” Fast-forward 20 years later and Niebauer is a PhD and a tenured professor, and the Buddhist-neuroscience connection he found as a student is practically its own genre in the bookstore. But according to Niebauer, we are just beginning to understand the link between Eastern philosophy and the latest findings in psychology and neuroscience and what these assimilated ideas mean for the human experience. In this groundbreaking book, Niebauer writes that the latest research in neuropsychology is now confirming a fundamental tenet of Buddhism, what is called Anatta, or the doctrine of “no self.” Niebauer writes that our sense of self, or what we commonly refer to as the ego, is an illusion created entirely by the left side of the brain. Niebauer is quick to point out that this doesn't mean that the self doesn't exist but rather that it does so in the same way that a mirage in the middle of the desert exists, as a thought rather than a thing. His conclusions have significant ramifications for much of modern psychological modalities, which he says are spending much of their time trying to fix something that isn’t there. What makes this book unique is that Niebauer offers a series of exercises to allow the reader to experience this truth for him- or herself, as well as additional tools and practices to use after reading the book, all of which are designed to change the way we experience the world—a way that is based on being rather than thinking.