Book Reviews

What is mind? Is it brain activity resulting in consciousness? Are mind and consciousness synonymous with each other? Is self-awareness an illness that leads to despair, or is physicality a curse that creates the delusion of separateness leading to alienation and melancholy? Defining the mind might limit its nascent quality; however, a definition can provide a necessary frame of reference in order to develop better understanding of what the mind is. Daniel J. Siegel, a professor of clinical psychiatry at... more

The title of this book, What Therapists Say and Why They Say It: Effective Therapeutic Responses and Techniques . might be a bit misleading. At first I thought that this book is dedicated to patients trying to better understand their therapists and I found it quite amusing. However, the subtitle “Effective Therapeutic Responses and Techniques” better catches the essence of the book. It is a compendium of therapeutic techniques, one that catalogs, describes and provides examples of potential responses and... more

I recently visited my friends to see their newborn baby boy. When I arrived, the baby was just fed, clean and seemed happy. Nevertheless, after a while it started wiggling and finally crying, seemingly with no reason at all. My friend tried to comfort his son, but when all methods failed, he gave up and passed the little one to his wife, mumbling “Well, baby whisperer, maybe you know what it is that he wants.” As amusing as it was... more

Being perceived as victim of an assault or as a drunk – does it matter to physicians when they treat you? Is it common to lie on purpose to a suspect and invent false evidence to get a confession? Can a suggestive interview create false memories in a witness without her noticing? Is a person more likely to get parole after the lunch break? “Well, maybe, but it should not!” - I believe you agree with me that hopefully this... more

A therapist working within the framework of psychodynamic psychotherapy has to concentrate not only on the patient’s story, but also needs to be aware of the ongoing transference and countertransference dynamic, projective identifications and other defense mechanisms. It makes the therapy process quite challenging for the psychotherapist. All these challenges multiply in a group setting, where the therapist has to be aware of the interactions between the clients and him or herself, but also between the clients. Not all standard... more

Can Botox be used to treat depression? Can adopting a “power pose” make you feel more confident? Does carrying a grocery basket versus pushing a cart alter purchasing behavior? In How the Body Knows its Mind: The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel , Dr. Sian Beilock (also the author of Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right When You Have To ) offers the reader a glimpse... more

The following review incorporates answers from Dr. John Launer, from an interview I conducted with him over email. I have included them within my review where appropriate, as I felt they added a new dimension to my own subjective thoughts. To summarize, "Sex versus Survival: The Life and Ideas of SABINA SPIELREIN" is the biography of Sabina Spielrein, a scientist at the turn of the 20 th century whose life and ideas played a big role in shaping the progress... more

The majority of people perceive themselves as individual thinkers who make their own decisions and formulate their personal opinions independent of others. Could this perception be far from the truth? Are most of our decisions predetermined by others? Is free choice an illusion created by the elite to give the masses a pseudo-sense of freedom? Has the human thought for the past two to three thousand years been nothing more than a futile activity of plagiaristic re-enactment cloaked with a... more

When I first started to teach myself how to program, I self-diagnosed myself with dysprogrammeria - a natural inability to understand any computer language. No matter how much time and effort I invested, I could not stretch my brain enough to understand all the new concepts. I was glad to find out that the author of “A Mind For Numbers. How To Excel At Math And Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)”, Barbara A. Oakley, must have felt similar when she first started learning engineering at the age of 23. However, she decided to take classes in engineering and 30 years later, as a professor of mechanical engineering, she is sharing her experience of how to rewire a “humanistic brain” into a “technical brain”. more