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The Sweet Spot
by Christine CarterLearn how to achieve more by doing less! Live in that zone you've glimpsed but can't seem to hold on to--the sweet spot where you have the greatest strength, but also the greatest ease. Not long ago, Christine Carter, a happiness expert at UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center and a speaker, writer, and mother, found herself exasperated by the busyness of modern life: too many conflicting obligations and not enough time, energy, or patience to get everything done. She tried all the standard techniques--prioritizing, multitasking, delegating, even napping--but none really worked. Determined to create a less stressful life for herself--without giving up her hard-won career success or happiness at home--she road-tested every research-based tactic that promised to bring more ease into her life. Drawing on her vast knowledge of the latest research related to happiness, productivity, and elite performance, she followed every strategy that promised to give her more energy--or that could make her more efficient, creative, or intelligent. Her trials and errors are our reward. In The Sweet Spot, Carter shares the combination of practices that transformed her life from overwhelmed and exhausting to joyful, relaxed, and productive. From instituting daily micro-habits that save time to bigger picture shifts that convert stress into productive and creative energy, The Sweet Spot shows us how to * say "no" strategically and when to say "yes" with abandon * make decisions about routine things once to free our minds to focus on higher priorities * stop multitasking and gain efficiency * "take recess" in sync with the brain's need for rest * use technology in ways that bolster, instead of sap, energy * increase your ratio of positive to negative emotions Complete with practical "easiest thing" tips for instant relief as well as stories from Carter's own experience of putting The Sweet Spot into action, this timely and inspiring book will inoculate you against "The Overwhelm," letting you in on the possibilities for joy and freedom that come when you stop trying to do everything right--and start doing the right things. Advance praise for The Sweet Spot "Illuminates the simple and sustainable path toward a precious and happy balance."--Deepak Chopra "A gift, like a good friend drawing a personal road map out of the crazy busy swirl of our overloaded lives."--Brigid Schulte, author of Overwhelmed "This book did something I thought was impossible: It seemed to give me more time."--Martha Beck, author of Finding Your Way in a Wild New World "A page-turning thriller full of proven ways to have the life you want."--Rick Hanson, Ph.D., author of Hardwiring Happiness "Timely, lively, and vital, The Sweet Spot is an immediately useful must-read."--Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage"The Sweet Spot inspired me to make immediate changes that have increased my productivity and lowered my stress."--Dan Mulhern, president, Granholm Mulhern Associates "A must-read for every overworked executive, overwrought parent, or overscheduled human being."--Jennifer Granholm, governor of Michigan, 2003-11From the Hardcover edition.
The Sweetest Summer: Bayberry Island Book 2 (Bayberry Island)
by Susan DonovanNew York Times bestselling author Susan Donovan returns to Bayberry Island, where a bronze mermaid statue could be the cause of heartbreak or everlasting romance for a practical-minded police chief and his first love. Perfect for fans of Susan Elizabeth Phillips, JoAnn Ross and Jill Shalvis.Every instinct tells Police Chief Clancy Flynn that his island's claim to fame is nothing but a silly tourist attraction. Still, he can't help but wonder if his lifetime of bad romances - starting with the pretty tourist who broke his twelve-year-old heart - could be traced back to a childhood prank involving that very statue...Then one day the pretty tourist comes barrelling back into Bayberry - all grown-up and on the run with her niece. Though Evelyn McGuinness is wanted for kidnapping, she tries to persuade Clancy that there's more to the story. Now the by-the-book police chief must make the toughest decision of his life: to take Evelyn into custody - or into his arms...Don't miss more irresistible Bayberry Island romance with Rowan's story in Sea of Love and Duncan's story in Moondance Beach.
The Sweetness of Life
by Paulus HochgattererIt is Christmas in the alpine town of Furth am See and a six-year-old girl is playing ludo with her grandfather. The doorbell rings, and the old man goes to answer. The next time the girl sees him, he is lying with his skull broken, his face a red pulp against the white snow. From that time on, she does not speak a single word. Raffael Horn, the psychiatrist engaged to treat the silent child, reluctantly becomes involved in solving the murder along with Detective Superintendent Ludwig Kovacs. Their parallel researches sweep through the town: a young mother who believes her new-born child is the devil; a Benedictine monk who uses his iPod to drown the voices in his head; a high-spending teenager who tortures cats. The psychological profile of this claustrophobic, winter-held town is not reassuring - which, if any, of its inhabitants was the brutal night-time slayer of the suffering girl's grandfather?
The Sweetness of Life
by Paulus HochgattererIt is Christmas in the alpine town of Furth am See and a six-year-old girl is playing ludo with her grandfather. The doorbell rings, and the old man goes to answer. The next time the girl sees him, he is lying with his skull broken, his face a red pulp against the white snow. From that time on, she does not speak a single word. Raffael Horn, the psychiatrist engaged to treat the silent child, reluctantly becomes involved in solving the murder along with Detective Superintendent Ludwig Kovacs. Their parallel researches sweep through the town: a young mother who believes her new-born child is the devil; a Benedictine monk who uses his iPod to drown the voices in his head; a high-spending teenager who tortures cats. The psychological profile of this claustrophobic, winter-held town is not reassuring - which, if any, of its inhabitants was the brutal night-time slayer of the suffering girl's grandfather?
Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory in Action (In Action)
by Oliver Lovell Tom SherringtonWhat is it that enables students to learn from some classroom activities, yet leaves them totally confused by others? Although we can't see directly into students' minds, we do have Cognitive Load Theory, and this is the next best thing. Built on the foundation of all learning, the human memory system, Cognitive Load Theory details the exact actions that teachers can take to maximise student outcomes.Written under the guidance, and thoroughly reviewed by the originator of CLT, John Sweller, this practical guide summarises over 30 years of research in this field into clear and easily understandable terms. This book features both a thorough discussion of the core principles of CLT and a wide array of classroom-ready strategies to apply it to art, music, history, chemistry, PE, mathematics, computer science, economics, biology, and more.
Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory in Action (In Action)
by Oliver Lovell Tom SherringtonWhat is it that enables students to learn from some classroom activities, yet leaves them totally confused by others? Although we can't see directly into students' minds, we do have Cognitive Load Theory, and this is the next best thing. Built on the foundation of all learning, the human memory system, Cognitive Load Theory details the exact actions that teachers can take to maximise student outcomes.Written under the guidance, and thoroughly reviewed by the originator of CLT, John Sweller, this practical guide summarises over 30 years of research in this field into clear and easily understandable terms. This book features both a thorough discussion of the core principles of CLT and a wide array of classroom-ready strategies to apply it to art, music, history, chemistry, PE, mathematics, computer science, economics, biology, and more.
Swim Wild: Dive into the natural world and discover your inner adventurer
by Jack Hudson Calum Hudson Robbie HudsonLive a more creative, content and fulfilled life by reconnecting with nature.Brothers Jack, Calum and Robbie have been swimming together their whole lives, and have never lost the sense of wonder, excitement and relief that getting in open water brings. In this book, we learn about their swimming feats, from tackling the 145km River Eden to setting the world record for swimming in the Arctic. They take us through their preparation for these expeditions, including sourcing wild spots in the heart of sprawling cities in which to train. They document the challenges they encounter and the successes often achieved in the most unexpected ways. And with everything they've learned, they give tips for those wanting to take on their own aquatic foray, whether a beginner or a seasoned swimmer. This book will show people of all ages how they too can take part in open water swimming and reconnect with the natural world around them.Their experience will embolden readers to escape their status quo and build confidence and contentment by challenging themselves to try something new and reconsider their relationship with nature and the wild. At its core, this book will provide advice, reassurance and inspiration for anyone in search of something more joyful, peaceful and, ultimately, meaningful.
Swim Wild: Dive into the natural world and discover your inner adventurer
by Jack Hudson Calum Hudson Robbie HudsonHow to live a more creative, content and fulfilled life by reconnecting with nature.Brothers Jack, Calum and Robbie have been swimming together their whole lives, and have never lost the sense of wonder, excitement and relief that getting in open water brings. In this book, we learn about their swimming feats, from tackling the 145km River Eden to setting the world record for swimming in the Arctic. They take us through their preparation for these expeditions, including sourcing wild spots in the heart of sprawling cities in which to train. They document the challenges they encounter and the successes often achieved in the most unexpected ways. And with everything they've learned, they give tips for those wanting to take on their own aquatic foray, whether a beginner or a seasoned swimmer.This book will show people of all ages how they too can take part in open water swimming and reconnect with the natural world around them.Their experience will embolden readers to escape their status quo and build confidence and contentment by challenging themselves to try something new and reconsider their relationship with nature and the wild. At its core, this book will provide advice, reassurance and inspiration for anyone in search of something more joyful, peaceful and, ultimately, meaningful.(P)2018 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
The Swimmer: An Integrated Computational Model of A Perceptual-motor System (Scientific Psychology Series)
by William R. Uttal Gary Bradshaw Sriram Dayanand Robb Lovell Thomas ShepherdThis research monograph describes a large programming project in which an underwater organism, capable of perceiving, learning, deciding, and navigating, is computationally simulated. The developed computational model serves as a contemporary theory of perceptual-motor performance, embodying much of what is known about human vision and some of what is known about other cognitive processes. This artificial intelligence project has substantial contributions to make to the development of autonomous underwater vehicles. It also makes a specific theoretical statement about the organization and nature of organic perceptual motor systems that may be useful to psychologists, neuroscientists, and theoreticians in a number of other fields.
Swimming Anatomy (Anatomy)
by Ian McLeodSwimming Anatomy includes 74 of the most effective swimming exercises, each with step-by-step descriptions and full-color anatomical illustrations highlighting the primary muscles in action. Swimming Anatomy goes beyond exercises by placing you on the starting block, in the water, and into the throes of competition. Illustrations of the active muscles for starts, turns, and the four competitive strokes (freestyle, breaststroke, butterfly, and backstroke) show you how each exercise is fundamentally linked to swimming performance. You'll also learn how exercises can be modified to target specific areas, improve your form in the water, and minimize common swimming injuries. Best of all, you'll learn how to put it all together to develop a training program based on your individual needs and goals. Whether you are training for a 50-meter freestyle race or the open-water stage of a triathlon, Swimming Anatomy will ensure you enter the water prepared to achieve every performance goal.
Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir
by David RieffBoth a memoir and an investigation, Swimming in a Sea of Death is David Rieff's loving tribute to his mother, the writer Susan Sontag, and her final battle with cancer. Rieff's brave, passionate, and unsparing witness of the last nine months of her life, from her initial diagnosis to her death, is both an intensely personal portrait of the relationship between a mother and a son, and a reflection on what it is like to try to help someone gravely ill in her fight to go on living and, when the time comes, to die with dignity. Rieff offers no easy answers. Instead, his intensely personal book is a meditation on what it means to confront death in our culture. In his most profound work, this brilliant writer confronts the blunt feelings of the survivor -- the guilt, the self-questioning, the sense of not having done enough. And he tries to understand what it means to desire so desperately, as his mother did to the end of her life, to try almost anything in order to go on living. Drawing on his mother's heroic struggle, paying tribute to her doctors' ingenuity and faithfulness, and determined to tell what happened to them all, Swimming in a Sea of Death subtly draws wider lessons that will be of value to others when they find themselves in the same situation.
Swimming in the Sacred: Wisdom from the Psychedelic Underground
by Rachel HarrisWISDOM FROM THE WOMEN HEALERS OF THE PSYCHEDELIC UNDERGROUND The use of entheogens, or psychedelics, is out of the closet today. LSD, psilocybin, MDMA, and other medicines once associated only with the counterculture are now being legally studied for their healing properties. But as Rachel Harris shows, the underground use and study of psychedelics by women dates back to the Eleusinian Mysteries of ancient Greece. Harris interviews the modern women elders carrying on this tradition to gather their hard-won wisdom of experience. Any reader interested in inspiration, healing, and enlightenment will find here a wonder-filled narrative packed with provocative and perhaps life-changing insight.
Swimming Upstream: Teaching and Learning Psychotherapy in a Biological Era
by Jerry M. LewisFirst published in 1991. The experiential base from which this book is written the author’s seminar for psychiatric residents which emphasizes that self-disclosure with colleagues is an important aspect of becoming a therapist. The ability to look at and listen to one's own work along with one's peers is important in the maturation process. In order to construct a context in which it is possible to learn from each other, I share many of my own psychotherapeutic experiences. More than this, however, Lewis shares personal experiences when they seem appropriate to the teaching-learning process.
Swimming with Crocodiles: The Culture of Extreme Drinking (ICAP Series on Alcohol in Society)
by Marjana Martinic Fiona MeashamThere is evidence that a distinct pattern of alcohol consumption is emerging across the world and is a cause for concern because of its relationship with a range of health and social problems. Its visibility, particularly its high involvement of young people, makes this not only an issue for public safety and order in many countries, but also a highly contentious and politicized subject. This book examines the rapid and heavy drinking behavior by young people, described in a number of countries, positioning it within its appropriate social, historical and cultural contexts. The book argues in favor of a new term, “extreme drinking,” to fully encapsulate the many facets of this behavior, taking into account the underlying motivations for the heavy, excessive and unrestrained drinking patterns of many young people. It also acknowledges the drinking process itself and accommodates greater focus on outcomes that are likely to follow. In many ways, “extreme drinking” is not so far removed from other “extreme” behaviors, such as extreme sports – all offer a challenge, their pursuit is motivated by an expectation of pleasure, and they are, by design, not without risk to those who engage in them, others around them and society as a whole. Edited by Marjana Martinic and Fiona Measham, Swimming with Crocodiles is the ninth volume in the ICAP Book Series on Alcohol in Society. The authors discuss the factors that motivate extreme drinking, address the developmental, cultural and historical contexts that have surrounded it, and offer a new approach to addressing this behavior through prevention and policy. The centerpiece of the book is a series of focus groups conducted with young people in Brazil, China, Italy, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, and the United Kingdom, which examine their views on extreme drinking, motivations behind it and the cultural similarities and differences that exist, conferring at once risk and protective factors.
Swings and Roundabouts: A Self-Coaching Workbook for Parents and Those Considering Becoming Parents (The\professional Coaching Ser.)
by Anna Golawski Agnes Bamford Professor Irvine GerschThe first two authors of this coaching workbook are themselves parents who have been on a journey of "swings and roundabouts" - experienced the highs and lows of having children. Having difficulties knowing how to parent in many situations, which was not made easier by the conflicting advice in the media, made them unsure of their own parenting skills. This was one of the reasons that they entered into the field of parent-coaching. They were trained coaches who wanted to use their coaching skills and experience as parents to help both themselves and other parents get the understanding and trust in themselves to be the parents they dream of being. As an educational and child psychologist, Irvine was able to contribute an evidence and psychological base to the project.Parents often feel alone and the authors have found that running courses for them created a space where they could share experiences with each other as well as experiment with different ways of parenting. It is their intention to give back some of the awareness they gained in this comprehensive and invaluable self-coaching book.
Switch
by A.S. KingA surreal and timely novel about the effects of isolation and what it means to be connected to the world from the Printz Award-winning author of Dig.Time has stopped. It's been June 23, 2020 for nearly a year as far as anyone can tell. Frantic adults demand teenagers focus on finding practical solutions to the worldwide crisis. Not everyone is on board though. Javelin-throwing prodigy Truda Becker is pretty sure her "Solution Time" class won't solve the world's problems, but she does have a few ideas what might. Truda lives in a house with a switch that no one ever touches, a switch her father protects every day by nailing it into hundreds of progressively larger boxes. But Truda's got a crow bar, and one way or another, she's going to see what happens when she flips the switch.
Switchcraft: Harnessing the Power of Mental Agility to Transform Your Life
by Elaine FoxWhat is the key ingredient to a happy, successful life?There is no one-size-fits-all solution to dealing with life. Elaine Fox, one of the world's leading psychologists and performance coaches, has witnessed this time and again. In her work coaching top athletes, military leaders and business professionals, she has seen that it's the people who know how and when to switch between different approaches - people who have an agile mind - who achieve the best performance.Drawing on 25 years of scientific research, Fox shares with us her step-by-step guide to what she calls 'switchcraft': the set of skills we need to navigate a complex and uncertain world. Whether it's coping with a difficult boss, overcoming a fear, dealing with hyperactive children, resolving a dispute with a friend or making a difficult choice about where to live or what to do, switchcraft helps us thrive in any situation.Like your own personal life coach, Switchcraft shows you how to break out of a rigid mindset to restore your fulfilment, curiosity and zest for life.
Switchcraft: How Agile Thinking Can Help You Adapt and Thrive
by Elaine FoxA revolutionary audiobook on the power of mental agility to transform your life, from Oxford psychologist and neuroscientist Professor Elaine Fox.What is the key ingredient to a happy, successful life?Endless self-help approaches claim to have the answer. It's important to be mindful, we are told, and to stay in the moment. Sometimes, we are advised to keep going no matter what, to be 'gritty'. Others tell us that adopting a growth mindset' is key. However, the truth is that there is no one size fits all solution to dealing with life. Elaine Fox, one of the world's leading psychologists and performance coaches, has witnessed this time and again. In her work coaching top athletes, military leaders and business professionals, she has seen that it's the people who know how and when to switch between different approaches - people who have an agile mind - who achieve the best performance.Drawing on 25 years of scientific research, Fox shares with us her step-by-step guide to what she calls 'switchcraft': the set of skills we need to navigate a complex and uncertain world. Whether it's coping with a difficult boss, overcoming a fear, dealing with hyperactive children, resolving a dispute with a friend or making a difficult choice about where to live or what to do, switchcraft helps us thrive in any situation.Like your own personal life coach, Switchcraft shows you how to break out of a rigid mindset to restore your fulfilment, curiosity and zest for life.(P) 2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
Switched On: From Asperger's to Emotional Awakening
by John Elder Robison"For the first time in my life, I learned what it was really like to truly "know" other people's feelings. At a stroke I went from oblivious to insightful, and my life was forever changed. It was as if I'd been experiencing the world in black and white all my life, and suddenly I could see everything - and particularly other people - in brilliant beautiful color."Six years ago, John Elder Robison published Look Me In the Eye, his memoir about growing up with Asperger's. Now he tells the remarkable story of how he met Dr Alvaro Pascual-Leone, a Harvard neuroscientist who proposed that John's emotional intelligence wasn't so much absent as it was dormant, and that by animating the appropriate neural pathways with powerful electromagnets he might be able to awaken this part of his brain. So began a five-and-a-half year journey in which John gave himself up as a guinea pig to some of the world's top brain researchers in an effort to understand and fix the deficits of emotional intelligence that lie at the heart of autism.John experiences the benefits and pitfalls, the joy and melancholy, of being able to feel in response to things that happen to him and his loved ones. A real-life Flowers For Algernon with a happy ending, Switched On goes on the trail of the revolutionary science that has the potential to transform millions of emotionally circumscribed lives.
Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities (Playaway Adult Nonfiction Ser.)
by Richard K. BaerBaer, now medical director for the nation's largest Medicare contractor, had a psychiatry practice for 14 years. He offers a complete account of his 18 year odyssey with Karen Overhill, a seemingly normal wife and mother who came to him for depression and eventually revealed 17 separate personalities. A classic case of multiple personality disorder (MPD), Karen survived a childhood of unimaginable horror and was only able to maintain even a tenuous grasp on sanity with the help of 16 alters who lived inside her--men, women, and children, each frozen at a certain age and stage in Karen's development. Baer draws on 622 pages of progress notes, videos and audiotapes of sessions, and Karen's journal entries and letters to describe their journey into the human psyche. B&w letters and drawings are included, along with an epilogue by Karen herself. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc. , Portland, OR (booknews. com)
Switching Time: A Doctor's Harrowing Story of Treating a Woman with 17 Personalities
by Richard K. BaerIn 1989, Karen Overhill walks into psychiatrist Richard Baer's office complaining of vague physical pains and depression. Odder still, she reveals that she's suffering from a persistent memory problem. Routinely, she "loses" parts of her day, finding herself in places she doesn't remember going to or being told about conversations she doesn't remember having. Her problems are so pervasive that she often feels like an impersonator in her own life; she doesn't recognize the people who call themselves her friends, and she can't even remember being intimate with her own husband. Baer recognizes that Karen is on the verge of suicide and, while trying various medications to keep her alive, attempts to discover the root cause of her strange complaints. It's the work of months, and then years, to gain Karen's trust and learn the true extent of the trauma buried in her past. What she eventually reveals is nearly beyond belief, a narrative of a childhood spent grappling with unimaginable horror. How has Karen survived with even a tenuous grasp on sanity? Under hypnosis, alternate Karen personalities reveal themselves in shocking variety and with undeniable traits - both physical and psychological. One "alter" is a young boy filled with frightening aggression; another an adult male who considers himself Karen's protector; and a third a sassy flirt who seeks dominance over the others. It's only by compartmentalizing her pain, guilt, and fear in this fashion-by "switching time" with alternate selves as the situation warrants - that Karen has been able to function since childhood. Realizing that his patient represents an extreme case of multiple personality disorder, Baer faces the daunting task of creating a therapy that will make Karen whole again. Somehow, in fact, he must gain the trust of each of Karen's seventeen "alters" and convince them of the necessity of their own annihilation. As powerful as Sybil or The Three Faces of Eve, Switching Time is the first complete account of such therapy to be told from the perspective of the treating physician, a devoted healer who worked selflessly for decades so that Karen could one day live as a single human being. This book includes grim and disturbing, though not grisly descriptions of child abuse. It also contains language that is objectionable to many people.
Sybil Exposed: The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
by Debbie NathanNow available in paperback, Sybil Exposed is the New York Times bestselling book that offers a new perspective on the smash hit book and film, Sybil, and on multiple personality disorder itself. Sybil: a name that resonates with legions of obsessed fans who followed the nonfiction blockbuster from 1973. The book rocketed multiple personality disorder into public consciousness and played a major role in having the diagnosis added to the psychiatric bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. But what do we really know about how Sybil came to be? In her news-breaking book Sybil Exposed, journalist Debbie Nathan gives proof that the allegedly true story outlined in the megabestseller was largely fabricated. The actual identity of Sybil (Shirley Mason) has been available for some years, as has the idea that the book might have been exaggerated. But Nathan reveals the trio of women behind the legend: the willing patient, her ambitious shrink, and the imaginative journalist who spun their story into bestseller gold. Sybil Exposed draws from an enormous trail of papers, records, photos, and tapes to unearth the lives and passions of these three women whose story exploded into an epic movement with consequences beyond their wildest dreams. Set across the twentieth century and rooted in a time when few professional roles were available to women, this is a story of corrosive sexism, bold but unchecked ambition, runaway greed, utter human vulnerability, duplicity and shared delusion, shaky theories of psychoanalysis exuberantly and drastically practiced, and how one modest young woman’s life turned psychiatry on its head and radically changed the course of therapy—and our culture, as well.
The Syllable in Speech Production: Perspectives on the Frame Content Theory
by Barbara L. Davis Krisztina ZajdoAs a testament to the scope of Peter MacNeilage’s scholarly work across his 40 year career, contributions to this tribute volume represent a broad spectrum of the seminal issues addressed by phonetic and evolutionary science over a number of years. Approaches to the problems raised by attempting to understand these fundamental topics are illustrated in the broad diversity of paradigms represented in the volume. This diversity in itself is a tribute to the breadth of scholarly questions pursued by MacNeilage across his career. Chapters are arranged around five thematic areas. Two themes, Evolutionary Perspectives on Speech Production and Acquisition of Speech, reflect the major thrust of Peter’s scholarly career over the past 25 years. The other themes are reflective of the broad implications of MacNeilage’s work for scholars in disparate scientific domains. One of the strengths of this volume is the unitary focus of contributions by scientists from diverse scientific backgrounds in considering the applicability of the Frame Content Theory within their own scholarly perspectives. Thematic strands in the volume include: - Evolutionary Perspectives on Speech Production - Neurobiological Aspects of Speech - Perception / Action Relationships - Acquisition of Speech Production Skill - Modeling and Movement - Alternative Perspectives on the Syllable.
Symbiosis and Ambiguity: A Psychoanalytic Study (The New Library of Psychoanalysis)
by José BlegerSymbiosis and Ambiguity is the first English edition of the classic study of early object relations by influential Argentinian psychoanalyst José Bleger (1922-1972). It is rooted in Kleinian thinking and rich in clinical material. Bleger's thesis is that starting from primitive undifferentiation, prior to the paranoid-schizoid position described by Klein, autism and symbiosis co-exist as narcissistic relations in a syncretic ‘agglutinated’ nucleus. In symbiosis part of the mind is deposited in an external person or situation; in autism it is deposited in the patient's own mind or body. The nucleus is ambiguous and persists in adults as the psychotic part of the personality. Symbiosis tends to immobilise the analytic process, so the analyst must mobilise, fragment and discriminate the agglutinated nucleus, whose ambiguity tends to ‘blunt’ persecutory situations. The psychoanalytic setting functions as a silent refuge for the psychotic part of the personality, where it creates a ‘phantom world’. At some point, therefore, the setting itself has to be analysed and the analytic relationship de-symbiotised, as Bleger observes in a celebrated chapter on the setting. José Bleger’s work demonstrates the need to analyse early narcissistic object relations as they arise clinically, especially in the setting. More widely, he regards undifferentiation and participation as operating throughout life: in groups, institutions, and society as a whole.
Symbol and Archetype: A Study of the Meaning of Existence
by Martin LingsEvery religious tradition or metaphysical worldview involves a system of powerful symbols, most of which bear common meanings across cultures, continents, and time. This volume, complete with a 9th century Quranic manuscript, explores the significance of the most recurrent symbols and archetypes in human history and elaborates a compelling theory for why symbolism plays such an essential role in human life. The work explores certain basic aspects of symbolism in relation to the Divinity, the hierarchy of the universe, the function of human faculties and qualities, the human condition, natural objects, works of art, and the final end--all with reference to the great living religions of the world, and in particular to Christianity and Islam.