New Books in Psychology

The Devil's Castle: Nazi Eugenics, Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Reverberates Today (Catapult, 2025) delves into the forgotten history of eugenics and links it to present-day psychiatry to explain how we as a culture continue to get mind care so wrong. In The Devil's Castle, Susanne Paola Antonetta weaves a haunting narrative that confronts the darkest chapters of psychiatric history while offering a bold vision for the future of mental health care. In 1939, the eugenics movement growing throughout the West did its worst in Nazi Germany. Through the Aktion T4 euthanasia program, five asylums and an abandoned jail were transformed into gas chambers. Tens of thousands of lives—predominantly adults with neuropsychiatric conditions—were extinguished in those structures, ultimately paving the way for the horrors of the Holocaust.  Interlacing her experiences of psychosis with the complex history of psychiatry, Antonetta sheds light on the intersections of madness and societal perceptions of mental difference. She brings to life the stories of Paul Schreber and Dorothea Buck, two historical figures who act as models for mind care and acceptance. This gripping exploration traverses the spectrum of neurodiversity, from the devastating consequences of dehumanization to the transformative potential of understanding and acceptance.  With The Devil's Castle, Antonetta not only unearths the failures of our past, but also envisions a more compassionate, enlightened approach to consciousness and mental health care. This is a story of tragedy, resilience, and hope—a rallying cry for change that dares to challenge the limits of how we define and support the human mind. Susanne Paola Antonetta is the author of The Devil's Castle: Eugenics, Nazi Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Hurts Us Now. She is also the author of The Terrible Unlikelihood of Our Being Here, Make Me a Mother, Entangled Objects, Body Toxic, A Mind Apart, and four books of poetry. Her awards include a New York Times Notable Book, an American Book Award, an Amazon Best Memoir of the Year award, and others. Her essays and poems have appeared in The New York Times, Ms., The Huffington Post, The UK Independent, The Hill, Orion, Psychology Today, and The New Republic and have been featured on CNN as well as the CBC Ideas documentary series. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina. For more information about her work please visit her website here and sign up for notifications about her regular contributions to Psychology Today. Elizabeth Cronin, Psy.D., is a clinical psychologist and mindfulness meditation teacher in Massachusetts. You can follow her on Instagram, Insight Timer, YouTube (@drelizabethcronin) or visit her website. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

NB: This episode contains a discussion of suicide and may not be appropriate for all listeners. If you are thinking about hurting yourself, help is always available at 988 in the United States. Suicide in Popular Media and Culture: Studies in Framing a Social Catastrophe (Bristol University Press, 2026) brings together scholars from across disciplines to examine how suicide is mythologized, politicized, and challenged across film, TV, young adult literature, digital platforms, online communities, and more. From news coverage of celebrity suicide to social media interventions with at-risk youth, this wide-ranging collection explores suicide's intersections with class, gender, chronic illness, and cultural identity. The book is co-edited by Mike F. Alvarez (Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of New Hampshire), Warren J. Bareiss (Professor of Communication at the University of South Carolina Upstate), and Jolane Flanigan (Professor of Communication Studies at Rocky Mountain College and a licensed mental health counselor). Some Crisis Resources *Note: some of these may utilize emergency services or law enforcement to conduct wellness/welfare checks or active rescues. Ask if these are possibilities at any point during your conversation. 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Website Dial 988 The Trevor Project Website Provides support for LGBTQ+ youth facing crisis 1-866-488-7386 Text: 678678 Chat: Here Crisis Text Line Text HOME to 741-741 Trans Lifeline 1-877-565-8860 (U.S.) 1-877-330-6366 (Canada) Warmline.org Website Contains links to warmlines in every state Provides peer support Find a Helpline Website For those not in the U.S. Search for links to crisis centers worldwide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

A creative, body-based guide to healing for queer, trans, and gender-expansive readers—somatic tools and expressive arts to feel safer in your body, rewrite your story, and sustain connection. Queer Expressions: Expressive Art and Somatic Therapy Practices for Healing Body Trauma (North Atlantic Books, 2026) is a practical, consent-centered guide to healing body trauma through embodiment and creativity. Drawing on somatic therapy—grounding, breath, orientation, gentle movement—and expressive arts—collage, drawing, clay, movement, music, voice—within a harm-reduction frame of pacing, choice, and safety plans, Wednesdae Reim Ifrach (REAT, ATR-BC, LPC) shares grounded practices, case vignettes, and simple rituals to help you move from shut down or on high alert into steadier, more connected living. The book follows a simple arc: first, feel and steady your nervous system; next, turn those sensations into art and story; and finally, build rituals and relationships that help the changes last—whether you're navigating dysphoria, ED recovery, chronic stress, or nervous system dysregulation. Inside you'll find: Body check-ins (quick prompts to name sensations and needs), short breath & movement practices (1–10 minutes), and sensory prompts (sight/sound/touch/smell/taste) Art invitations (collage, drawing, movement, sound/voice) with step-by-step guidance and safety notes Consent & harm-reduction tools (opt-in/out menus, pacing, crisis planning) to keep the work manageable Community practices & rituals (altar-making, release-writing, witness circles) to anchor change in daily lif A queer-centered lens on healing, embodiment, and creativity Warm, inclusive, and usable on your own or with a therapist, Queer Expressions helps you build a more livable relationship with your body—and a story big enough to hold who you are becoming. Wednesdae Reim Ifrach is a trans/non-binary art therapist and counselor dedicated to providing gender-affirming, trauma-informed care that emphasizes healing-centered engagement, body justice, intersectional social justice, and equitable access to eating disorder treatment. They co-own and operate Rainbow Recovery, offering clinical supervision, consultations, trainings, workshops, counseling, and art therapy services to clients in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. As a full-time professor at Moravian University, Wednesdae teaches mental health counseling, social work, and expressive art courses, inspiring future professionals. Over the past decade, they have led trainings and workshops for organizations such as the American Art Therapy Association, National Alliance for Eating Disorders, and Yale University, among others. Previously, Wednesdae founded the country's first 2sLGBTQIA+ Eating Disorder Program, served on Project HEAL's Board, and presided over the Connecticut Art Therapy Association. They currently co-chair the Health Professionals in Training Program on the GLMA Board. Their expertise addresses LGBTQ+ concerns and trauma, honoring each client's identity. Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

All of life is profoundly shaped by the daily, monthly, and yearly cycles of our planet, and all creatures have internal timekeeping systems that rely on cues from the surrounding environment. With modern technology, we are changing our environments—and by proxy, the ecosystems around us—to override these innate rhythms of life. But at what cost? Life in Sync: The Science of Internal Clocks and How We're Disrupting Them (Princeton University Press, 2025) reveals how Earth's rotations shape our biology, what human sleep cycles looked like before the advent of artificial light, and why technology can't free us from the constraints of our circadian clocks. Philippa Gander explores the science behind the biological rhythms that animate us and our world, blending captivating storytelling with illuminating examples ranging from migratory birds and hibernating squirrels to jet-lagged pilots and astronauts in space. She shows how genetic circadian clocks are an ancient evolutionary adaptation that we share with all life on the planet, and how our rapidly expanding use of artificial light at night disrupts the time cues for entire ecosystems. Gander explains why cutting back on sleep adversely affects our well-being, safety, and longevity, and how breakthroughs in sleep science offer solutions to bring our lives more in harmony with nature's rhythms. An astonishing journey of scientific discovery, Life in Sync unlocks the mysteries of biological time—and offers new perspectives for anyone who has ever given up a good night's sleep for the sake of their hectic waking hours. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Children who grow up in troubled circumstances―experiencing deprivation or instability, living in a dangerous neighborhood or an abusive family―are more prone to aggression, recklessness, and sexual promiscuity later in life. To most of us, the lesson is clear: adverse childhood conditions make human development go awry. In The Nature of Nurture: Rethinking Why and How Childhood Adversity Shapes Development (Harvard University Press, 2026), renowned developmental psychologist Jay Belsky challenges this interpretation and offers an exciting alternative based on Darwinian theory. There is no reason to assume, he points out, that the psychology of “well-behaved” people is normal while that of “antisocial” adults is aberrant. Instead, the supposedly dysfunctional behaviors correlated with childhood adversity could well be ingenious adaptations to harsh environments. If you are surrounded by danger and uncertainty, then being quick to lash out at potential threats and having lots of offspring at an early age are good ways to maximize your reproductive chances. From an evolutionary perspective, having just a few children and lavishing care on each works well in a stable world, but not in a perilous one. Belsky exposes the romanticism underlying our idealized notions that “natural” equals “good” and that nature intends to maximize human happiness and well-being. When instead we take seriously the fact that humans, too, have been shaped by evolutionary pressures, we can better understand why, how, and for whom childhood experience shapes later life. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

A fascinating introductory volume, Existential Psychoanalysis: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2025) integrates existential philosophy with psychoanalysis, drawing on key theorists from both areas and expertly guiding the reader on how to incorporate these two disciplines, which may appear disparate on the surface, into their clinical and theoretical work. This unique and accessible book sees M. Guy Thompson explore key concepts, such as experience, authenticity, freedom, psychic change, agency, and the pervasive role of suffering in our lives. Throughout, he draws on a wide range of thinkers from both fields, including Sartre, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Freud, Winnicott, Bion, Laing, and Lacan. Exquisitely lucid and engaging, Thompson deftly brings the reader into thoughtful and enlightening territory typically inaccessible to the general reader. Although existential philosophy and psychoanalysis are often thought of as incompatible fields, Thompson shows how they share far more in common than is usually supposed. This volume will help clinicians, scholars, and students of all persuasions learn how integrating the two disciplines introduces a more personal and revolutionary understanding of what psychoanalysis can be in the twenty-first century. This compelling assimilation of continental philosophy and psychoanalysis will be of interest to psychoanalytic practitioners and psychotherapists, as well as philosophers, social scientists and any student of the human condition Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

A new paradigm that honors the wisdom and wholeness of neurodivergent clients. Focusing on autism and what is medically known as ADHD, neurodivergent author Nyck Walsh takes readers on an anti-oppressive, intersectional journey into a new standard of care for neurodivergent clients and their therapists. Whether new to or well-versed in the neurodiversity paradigm, readers will learn how to best support their neurodivergent clients in a way that prioritizes their well-being, honors their self-expertise, encourages their anti-ableist embodiment, and celebrates their joy. Bridging the theoretical with the practical, Walsh's model offers a tangible framework that can be applied on its own or in tandem with other modalities. Neurodivergent Somatics in Therapy (Norton, 2026) is an intimate and engaging guide to providing accessible, liberatory, whole-person care that will benefit clients and therapists of all neurotypes. Nyck Walsh, MA, LPC, (he/they) brings a whole person, anti-oppressive, intersectional, somatic lens to working with Autistic and KCS/VAST (what is commonly known as ADHD) folx. An Autistic and VAST counselor, Nyck is the director of Nyck Walsh Counseling & Training Center and creator of the Neurodivergent Somatics model. He curates reparative experiences for late identified Autistic and VAST folx to connect with their innate wisdom, dismantle ableism, be supported in their challenges, and unpack their lives through their unidentified and misunderstood Neurodivergent (ND) experience. His counselor education programs have created an international following, and both ND and neurotypical counselors alike report feeling deeply validated by his approach. Registration for Public Programs event with Nyck at CIIS on July 16. waHelena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies in the Somatic Psychology program. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

UberTherapy: The New Business of Mental Health (Policy Press, 2025) is the essential guide to the rise of digital therapy for anyone working in, researching or using mental health services. This timely book explores the emerging uberization of therapy through algorithmic control, datafication of despair and attrition by design. Analysing the deployment of e-commerce business models, this book makes a compelling case that the rise of 'therapeutic Tinder' allows would-be clients to sidestep the deep, uncomfortable work of therapy. UberTherapy offers a defence for the irreplaceable value of human therapists and a roadmap for preserving the legacies of real therapy in the digital world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

I spoke with author Aliza Einhorn about her new book Tarot of the Unconscious: Uncovering the Hidden Link Between Psychoanalysis and the Cards (Weiser Books, 2026) United States: Red Wheel Weiser. Aliza Einhorn is a Psychoanalyst in training at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies in New York City. She's a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a longtime tarot reader, tarot teacher, and astrologer. “My book is a method” Einhorn tells me. The method is free association. This is the link to psychoanalysis. Einhorn wants us to free associate to the cards as one free associates to dream imagery. “Let's break it down. In any given Tarot card, as in a dream, there are images, visual details (what Freud might call the manifest meaning), and then there are the hidden meanings beneath those images (what Freud might call the latent meaning), which we only discover after we analyze it.” (p.44) She is enthusiastic about the “infinite” meanings of the cards. In Einhorn's world Card 7, The Chariot, is on Freud's royal road to the unconscious. While Tarot books have historically engaged with Jungian though, Einhorn's book is a “love letter to Freud.” One of the book's most striking ideas is that people develop a transference to their deck — that how you treat your cards mirrors relational patterns from your past. In this interview we discussed an approach to transference adopted by Modern Psychoanalysis and referenced a foundational paper on countertransference. Listeners interested in the specifics of this approach to transference can find it here Clevans, E. L. (1983) On Countertransference. Modern Psychoanalysis 8:129-130. Einhorn concludes “if there's one thing I want to teach you in this book, one thing I hope you will remember, it's that your unconscious is your friend. It's good to get to know it.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Movement and Identity: Multiculturalism, Somatic Awareness and Embodied Code-Switching (Singing Dragon, 2025) is a trauma-informed approach to counselling and bodywork explores the ways in which varying facets of identity and culture manifest in the body, allowing a much more nuanced, person-centred approach to client care. Marcia Bonato Warren, MA, MA, LPC describes how our bodies interpret our identities, often informed by cultural norms, communication styles, trauma, and systems of power and oppression. Therapists and bodyworkers reading this book will have the opportunity to engage personally and professionally, learning to build on their own somatic awareness in order to engage with compassionate curiosity rather than resistance when confronted with identity-based differences. Each section uses the SIA Loop, a mechanism representing three entry-points we use to process information: Sensation, Interpretation, Action, which supports the deeper work offered by the Identity Expression Infinity Loop, where identities are invited to move with strength and skill. These pioneering tools allow readers to examine their own somatic experiences, beliefs, behaviours, and choices, all of which is supplemented with journal prompts and questions. In guiding readers in how to interpret the body's expression of identity, this unique guide maximises the potential of therapists to foster change, increase empathy, and nurture connection through trauma-informed, somatically aware bodywork. Marcia Bonato Warren, MA, MA, LPC is a Somatic Counselor/Body Psychotherapist and Interculturalist with over 10 years of experience in the fields of somatic counseling and education, as well as 15 years of experience in international educational exchange and Native American policy and advocacy. She works with individuals and groups in the areas of cultural awareness, social justice, and intercultural communication through a trauma-informed lens, and is passionate about developing the potential in human beings to embrace diversity through cultural embodiment and the sharing of stories and creativity. Marcia is an enrolled member of the Santa Clara Pueblo (Tewa) in the state of New Mexico, U.S. and is of Brazilian-Italian heritage. Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Mandela's Leadership Legacy: Emotional and Existential Wisdom (Routledge, 2026) Steven Segal explores Nelson Mandela's extraordinary ability to lead through moments of existential crisis and uncertainty. Central to Mandela's leadership was his attunement to mood—the emotional and existential atmosphere through which people experience disruption. Long overlooked in leadership studies, mood shaped the way Mandela created trust, defused fear, and opened possibilities when conventional strategies failed. Mandela's wisdom was forged not only in prison but in the existential challenges he faced upon leaving the familiarity of his ancestral homeland and confronting the disorientation of city life. From this early rupture through to his imprisonment, the collapse of apartheid, and the assassination of Chris Hani, he demonstrated a rare capacity to transform existential threats into opportunities for renewal and unity. This book examines how Mandela combined strategic foresight with therapeutic sensitivity, allowing him to guide individuals and nations through disruption with ethical resolve and visionary clarity. Drawing on frameworks from Heidegger and Ubuntu it highlights Mandela's "existential practical wisdom"—the ability to embrace uncertainty, work with paradox, and foster collective transformation through attuned presence. By investigating Mandela's profound relational sensitivity, including his ability to turn estrangement and enmity into trust and collaboration, the book offers timeless lessons for navigating today's global crises. It is ideal for professionals seeking inspiration for leading in turbulent times and for students interested in leadership, philosophy, or history. Steven Segal was formerly an Associate Professor of Management at Macquarie University, Australia and is currently in private practice as a psychologist and leadership coach. He also runs professional development workshops for coaches and psychotherapists. Elena Sobrino is an anthropologist studying environmental emotions and politics. Her current writing projects focus on the Flint water crisis, and she regularly teaches undergraduate courses on environment, race and racism, crisis, and science and technology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Children and teens who experience sensory differences often find it difficult to understand their sensory system and sensory/regulation needs they may be experiencing. Understanding Sensory Differences: A Guidebook for Children and Teens is designed for professionals and parents to work with children to help them understand their sensory system and address any sensory needs. The guidebook offers an overview of sensory differences from a neurodiversity affirming perspective. Neurodiversity affirming constructs are provided and instructions for developing a regulation play time to help address sensory and regulation needs is provided. The guidebook also contains several worksheets and resources specifically designed to help the child or teen explore their questions, feelings, and thoughts about sensory differences. Each worksheet covers a different topic related to gaining awareness about sensory differences (needs and strengths) and helping children and teens better understand what it means to be neurodivergent and sensory different. The guidebook also provides a guide for professionals and parents offering instructions, information, and suggestions for implementing and processing through each worksheet page. Additionally, several sensory different professionals share their lived experience being a neurodivergent child and suggestions for being neurodiversity affirming Dr. Grant is a Licensed Professional Counselor, National Certified Counselor, Registered Play Therapist Supervisor, and Certified Autism Specialist. Dr. Grant completed his education from Missouri State University receiving a B.A. in Psychology and M.A. in Counseling. Dr. Grant further received his doctorate degree in Education from the University of Missouri-Columbia. Dr. Grant specializes in Play Therapy techniques with children, adolescents, adults, couples, and families. Dr. Grant also specializes in working with Autism Spectrum Disorders (Autism, Aspergers Disorder and Pervasive Development Disorder) and is the creator of AutPlay Therapy, an autism treatment using Play Therapy, cognitive and behavioral therapy and relationship development approaches. Dr. Grant serves as mentor and is a professional board member for The Southwest Autism Network of Missouri and is a contributing writer for the Missouri Autism Report. Dr. Grant is the author of AutPlay Therapy: A Play Therapy Based Approach for Treating Autism Disorders, The Handbook for Parent-Led Social Skills Groups for Children and Adolescents with Autism Disorders, and Play Therapy Techniques for Autism Disorders. Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies, in the Somatic Psychology program. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

The Concept of Emotional Disorder (Oxford University Press, 2025) is a philosophical and academic exploration of how society determines whether emotions are considered normal human experiences or emotional disorders. The book examines the concern that some ordinary emotions may be “over pathologized,” meaning they are increasingly treated as medical or psychiatric problems rather than understandable human responses to life circumstances. Drawing from philosophy, psychology, and mental health theory, Dr. Ayob explores how people evaluate emotions and how those evaluations shape our understanding of emotional disorder. In the author's framing, the concept of “emotional disorder” is not simple or straightforward. It is built upon many smaller judgments we make about emotions, including whether emotions are reasonable, excessive, disruptive, socially acceptable, or connected to a person's lived experience. Key Ideas: The book examines how emotional disorders are conceptually defined. Explores whether modern society sometimes medicalizes ordinary emotional experiences too quickly. Lived experience, personal meaning, and context all influence how emotions are understood. Encourages deeper reflection about the assumptions society makes when labeling emotions as healthy or pathological. Emotional awareness and reasoning are connected. Understanding our emotions can help us better understand ourselves and the world around us. One of the strongest ideas from the discussion was that human beings process emotions through their own lived reality and personal experiences. What may feel distressing or emotionally overwhelming does not automatically mean it is a disorder. Sometimes emotional pain is part of being human, especially during difficult life experiences, loss, uncertainty, stress, or change. The conversation also emphasized the importance of emotional self-awareness and reasoning. Being informed about our emotions may help us better understand our reactions rather than immediately viewing every difficult emotional experience through a strictly medical lens. Angela Marie Hutchinson is the author of “Create Your Yes! When You Keep Hearing No,” named a Forbes No. 4 book to advance your career. She is a podcast host for New Books Network, where she leads conversations for the neuroscience and Christianity channels. Hutchinson is also a talent and intellectual property executive, former social media professor and BBC commentator. She resides in Los Angeles with her husband and three children. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Free Association: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge, 2026), Barnaby Barratt presents a compelling and much-needed exploration of the method of free association within psychoanalytic treatment. This concise yet comprehensive book examines the historical roots, philosophical implications and transformative impact on the human psyche of free association, making it an essential resource for understanding the deep unconscious forces that shape our lives. Barratt demonstrates how free association uniquely reveals dimensions of the human condition that remain hidden in ordinary therapeutic approaches. Readers will gain insight into the distinctions between psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, the significance of repression and psychic energy, and the profound shifts in being that free association facilitates. Barratt's critical analysis of prevailing theories and alternative methods, such as somatic and shamanic practices, highlights the unparalleled ability of free association to reinvigorate psychic energies and existential freedom. This book is a vital resource for psychoanalysts in training and practice, and anyone deeply curious about the human psyche. It is also a valuable tool for instructors and researchers in psychoanalysis, psychotherapy and related fields. Barnaby B. Barratt is a research and training psychoanalyst in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. Philip Lance, PhD, is a psychoanalyst in private practice in Los Angeles. He can be reached at PhilipJLance@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Jeffrey Whyte's book The Birth of Psychological War: Propaganda, Espionage, and Military Violence from WWII to the Vietnam War (Oxford UP, 2023) explores the history, politics, and geography of United States psychological warfare in the 20th century against the backdrop of the contemporary 'post-truth era'. From its origins in the Second World War, to the United States' counterinsurgency campaigns in Vietnam, Whyte traces how the theory and practice of psychological warfare transformed the relationship between the home front and theatres of war. Whyte interrogates the broader political mythologies that animate popular conceptions of psychological war, such as its claim to make war more humane and less violent.  On the contrary, The Birth of Psychological War demonstrates the role of psychological warfare in expanding the scope and scale of military violence amidst ostensible efforts to 'win hearts and minds'. While casting a critical eye on psychological warfare, Whyte establishes its continued significance for the contemporary student of international relations. Dr. Whyte earned his Ph.D. with the Department of Geography, University of British Columbia and before that a MA with School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, also in beautiful British Columbia. He is currently Lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion, Lancaster University. Michael G. Vann is a professor of world history at California State University, Sacramento. A specialist in imperialism and the Cold War in Southeast Asia, he is the author of The Great Hanoi Rat Hunt: Empires, Disease, and Modernity in French Colonial Vietnam (Oxford University Press, 2018). When he's not reading or talking about new books with smart people, Mike can be found surfing in Santa Cruz, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Explores the profound power of music to influence brain function and well-being. IPA 2026 Distinguished Favorite in the Music Category Why does music influence how we feel so deeply--and what are the scientific mechanisms behind this phenomenon? In Music Between Your Ears: How Musical Engagement Powers the Human Brain (JHU Press, 2025) Dr. Samuel Markind explores the intriguing relationship between music and brain function. Using evolutionary theory, he illuminates the pivotal role that music plays in human survival and procreation. From communication and caregiving to social bonding and partner selection, music has molded the human species and continues to shape our lives in remarkable ways. This book combines insights from neuroscience and psychology with helpful drawings and vivid examples to present compelling evidence for music's life-enhancing potential. Dr. Markind highlights the brain's instinctive capacity for music: from newborns' natural affinity for rhythm and melody to the effect that music has on brain development throughout the lifespan. Music also helps people learn at any age and in any condition, so it can improve speech, movement, and memory in both healthy individuals and those suffering from illness or injury. Dr. Markind encourages readers to engage actively with music. Whether through singing, dancing, or instrument playing, the benefits of active participation are profound and accessible to everyone, regardless of musical background. This book, filled with straightforward and practical suggestions, is an inspiring guide for anyone seeking to enrich their life through music. Music Between Your Ears shows how the act of engaging with music can profoundly impact your mental, physical, and emotional well-being. And the benefits of music go far beyond entertainment--they're essential to the very fabric of what makes us human. Samuel Markind's website here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Still Here is a powerful and unflinching novel about chronic suicidal ideation—not as a moment of crisis, but as a daily presence. Daniel is a husband, a father, and a respected professional. He shows up. He functions. He is, by every external measure, fine. But every morning begins the same way. A thought.A negotiation.A choice. Told with striking emotional precision, Still Here takes readers inside an experience that is often hidden, misunderstood, or reduced to moments of emergency. This is not that story. This is the story of what it means to live with it over years, across a lifetime, while continuing to build a life, a family, and a sense of purpose. Interwoven throughout the novel are clinical sidebars that offer insight into the psychology of suicidal thinking, making this book not only deeply human but also deeply informative for: those who struggle silently those who love someone who does clinicians, educators, and helpers This is not a rescue manual.It is something rarer. A book that stays. If you are in immediate distress, please seek support. Crisis resources are included at the end of the book. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Psychoanalysis is rising in popularity, but it's not helping patients navigate the pressures and harms of modern capitalism. Instead, it continues to enforce oppressive structures, state power, and reactionary politics. In From the Clinic to the Streets: Psychoanalysis for Revolutionary Futures (Pluto Press, 2026) Dr. Lara Sheehi reimagines what psychoanalysis could be. She shows how it can help us understand the ways our emotions, relationships, and sense of self are shaped by capitalism, state power, and ongoing injustice, even genocide. Arguing for a new, liberatory psychoanalysis, she calls for us to harness its revolutionary power, from the clinic to the streets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

A Brilliant Adaptation: How Dissociative Identity Disorder and the Power of the Therapeutic Bond Saved Me (New Harbinger Publications, 2026) is a searing and profound memoir of one woman's journey through dissociative identity disorder and childhood sexual abuse--and how she found hope, healing, and recovery.  Sally Maslansky is living the perfect life: a beautiful home in Malibu, California, a successful Hollywood producer husband who adores her, and a recently adopted son she treasures. But when Sally begins to remember the trauma she endured as a child, her world begins to unravel. In this gripping and provocative memoir, psychotherapist Maslansky shares how childhood sexual abuse led her to develop dissociative identity disorder (DID), and how, with the help of renowned therapist Daniel J. Siegel, she ultimately recovers. The book reveals the power of therapeutic bond to heal deep attachment wounds, the science of neuroplasticity in healing the traumatized mind, and our capacity as human beings to reconcile unspeakable experiences in order to grow, change, and live vibrant, loving, and joyful lives against all odds. Together with Siegel, Maslansky slowly recovers her childhood memories and reconnects with the forgotten parts of herself--parts that she grows to admire, respect, honor, and love, because they literally saved her young mind from unimaginable horrors. In the book, Siegel describes Maslansky's DID as a brilliant adaptation of the mind--a protective force that kept her mentally safe when the people she should have trusted most were the ones responsible for her abuse. Whether you have struggled with DID yourself, love someone who has DID, or are simply looking to be inspired by the tenacity of the human spirit, this memoir offers a provocative glimpse into an often pathologized and misunderstood condition, and shows the profound and healing possibilities of therapy, human understanding, and the will to survive. Sally Maslansky, LMFT has been in private practice for twenty years in Chapel Hill, NC. She treats families, adoption, trauma, parenting, and adult individuals. Her training is in interpersonal neurobiology (IPNB), mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), adult attachment interview (AAI), attachment theory, polyvagal theory practices, mindfulness, and the wheel of awareness practice. For more information on Sally and her work, please visit her website sallymaslansky.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

An essential guide to healing from oppression-based trauma, for everyone left outside of mainstream conversations There are many books on trauma healing that can change people's lives. Yet when queer and trans people, people of color, and all of us living at the margins look for books that reflect our own experiences and that specifically name the oppression we experience as trauma, we're left empty-handed. There's little that speaks to the specific traumas we experience: homophobia, transphobia, institutional injustices, isolation, medical trauma, and discrimination at every turn. We deserve to have ourselves reflected and considered in the world of trauma recovery. In Healing the Oppressed Body: A Therapeutic Guide for Radical Self-Liberation (Penguin, 2026), somatic therapist Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik provides the best tools and approaches to healing trauma and filters them through an anti-oppression lens, making sure they're uniquely impactful for all of us at the margins. In these pages, you'll learn how trauma is stored and processed by our minds and bodies and how we can work with our amazingly flexible brains and nervous systems to create pathways to healing. You'll understand just how and why trauma that occurs in our earliest days can affect us throughout our lives. You'll learn to embrace your Internal Family, making yourself whole. In Healing the Oppressed Body, Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik lovingly offers us the best, most radical solutions to tap into our sources of healing. Along the way, you'll discover tools and techniques for emotional regulation and therapeutic modalities to heal from oppression-based trauma. Whether inside the therapy room or on your own, in the pages of Healing the Oppressed Body, you'll learn how to heal through growing compassion for all parts of yourself and others, finding community support and love, and celebrating the freedom to be your true self.Andrea Gutiérrez-Glik, LCSW, is a psychotherapist specializing in treating OCD, cPTSD, and PTSD, prioritizing women, survivors, and queer and trans folks. She utilizes EMDR, IFS, I-CBT, and ERP to help clients feel safe in the present and come home to themselves. Gutiérrez-Glik is also an EMDRIA-approved consultant for therapists getting certified in EMDR and a regular teacher at Alma, the Trauma of Money(tm), and other mental health organizations. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, on occupied Osage and Kaskaskia land, with her wife and their child. Helena Vissing, PsyD, SEP, PMH-C is a Licensed Psychologist practicing in California and Associate Professor at California Institute of Integral Studies. She can be reached at contact@helenavissing.com. She is the author of Somatic Maternal Healing: Psychodynamic and Somatic Treatment of Trauma in the Perinatal Period (Routledge, 2023). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

MacArthur Fellow and National Humanities Medalist Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, author of Plato at the Googleplex and The Mind-Body Problem, returns with a revelatory book about the primal drive that in our species alone has been transformed into one of our most persistent and universal motivations: the longing to matter. Drawing on biology, psychology, and philosophy, in The Mattering Instinct: How Our Deepest Longing Drives Us and Divides Us (Liveright Publishing, 2026) Goldstein argues that this need to matter―and the various “mattering projects” it inspires―is the source of our greatest progress and our deepest conflicts: the very crux of the human experience.Goldstein brings this profound idea to life through unforgettable stories of famous and not-so-famous people pursuing their unique mattering projects: the ragtime genius Scott Joplin, whose dedication to his ignored masterpiece, Treemonisha, ended in tragedy; the pioneering psychologist William James, who rose above the depression of his young adulthood to become perhaps the first great theorist of mattering; an impoverished Chinese woman who rescued abandoned newborns from the trash; and a neo-Nazi skinhead who as a young man dealt racial violence to feel he mattered but ultimately renounced that hateful past after realizing that mattering isn't a zero-sum game. These portraits illuminate how our instinct for significance shapes identity, relationships, culture, and conflict―and they point the way to a future where we all might see that there is, fundamentally, enough mattering to go around.Deeply revealing and insightful, and decades in the making, The Mattering Instinct is a must read for those curious about why we seek to matter to ourselves and others―and how this insatiable longing that drives us apart may be the key to finally understanding each other. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today Pierce Salguero sit down with Prof. Jeff Kripal, noted scholar of religion at Rice University, to talk about extraordinary, mysterious, and “impossible” experiences. This is a conversation I've been waiting a few years to have. Together we explore what you can or can't talk about in the humanities — and what we risk when we break the rules. Along the way, we touch on paranormal phenomena, epistemological pluralism, conspiracy theories, Plato's cave, and why no one dresses up as a humanities professor for Halloween. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Enjoy the show! Resources related to this conversation: Jeff Kripal's website Archives of the Impossible & Conferences Pierce Salguero, "Secret Lives of Buddhist Studies Scholars" (2024) Pierce Salguero, "The Fractal of Humanities" (2021) Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes, "On the need for metaphysics in psychedelic therapy and research" (2023) Jeff Kripal, The Flip (2020) Jeff Kripal, Secret Body (2019) Commonweal Podcast Subscribe here to unlock our members-only benefits, including: PDF of the introduction of Jeff's book, How to Think Impossibly: About Souls, UFOs, Time, Belief, and Everything Else (2024) Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Mainstream psychology has long accepted that some people (like those with autism) are naturally more logical and unemotional, while others (like so-called empaths) intuitively experience the feelings of those around them as deeply as their own. But this is wrong. Aimee Cliff, an autistic psychotherapist who empathizes for a living, knows this firsthand. We are all are capable of empathy, because empathy is something you do, not something you are—meaning you can get better at it if you choose to practice. Drawing on scientific research, clinical experience, and interviews with neurodivergent people, Aimee Cliff examines how empathy works in the brain and body and lays out the five pillars of true empathy: Empathy is humble, empathy is embodied, empathy is amoral, empathy is radical, and empathy is work. At the heart of this expansive new definition is the promise that every one of us can learn to improve our relationships with our fellow humans. We just have to be willing to do the work to close the space between us. Empathy Takes Action shows us the way to build more loving, kind, and supportive communities and to make room for every kind of mind. Our guest is: Aimee Cliff, who is a writer and therapist based in London. As a freelance writer, she has bylines in The Guardian, Pitchfork, The Independent, Vice, and more. She currently works for a disability charity. She is the author of Empathy Takes Action. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Community-Building and How We Show Up How To Organize Inclusive Events And Conferences Doing the Work of Equity Leadership The Burnout Workbook Being Well in Academia What Might Be A Pedagogy Of Kindness Belonging How To Make Your Brain Your Best Friend Designing and Facilitating Workshops With Intentionality Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Identity Building Among Role-Playing Gamers: Slaying Goblins in the Real World (Bloomsbury 2025), Heather Shay draws from 19 months of participant-observation and 20 in-depth interviews with players. She found that gamers derive significant social and psychological benefits from table-top role-playing games-not least in that players often feel the hobby makes them better people. Playing these games allow players to depict themselves as good, moral actors through their in-game actions as well as by making the game enjoyable for their fellow players in real life. Table-top role-playing games also serve a psychological function by allowing participants to take imaginary risks with their characters, which in turn make them feel more alive than their everyday experiences allow them to. As they pretend to be fictional characters in fictional worlds, players use these games to create identities that make their lives more meaningful. Michael O. Johnston, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor of Sociology at William Penn University, where he focuses on the cultural and interpretive analysis of space, behavior, and identity. His work examines how built and designed environments shape social interaction, networks, and morality in everyday life across a range of settings. He is the author of The Social Construction of a Cultural Spectacle: Floatzilla (Lexington Books, 2023), Community Media Representations of Place and Identity at Tug Fest: Reconstructing the Mississippi River (Lexington Books, 2022), and his most recent book Smalltown Urban: Performing the City in Rural America (Bloomsbury, under contract). His current research advances several interconnected projects, including the study of escape rooms as emotion-structured environments, the production of temporary urbanism in rural historic towns, and the ways students experience “hanging out” and feeling at home in higher education. He is also developing new work on the social organization and cultural meaning of rodeo. More broadly, his scholarship is united by an interest in how people actively produce meaning, attachment, and identity within specific spatial and temporal contexts. To learn more about his work, visit his personal website or Google Scholar, connect with him on Bluesky (@professorjohnst.bsky.social) or X (@ProfessorJohnst), or reach out directly via email (johnstonmo@wmpenn.edu). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

How many times have you wanted to object, disagree, or opt out of something but ended up swallowing your words, shaking your head, and just going along? Featuring groundbreaking research, gripping stories, and easy everyday strategies, Defy reveals how to show up for yourself and others personally, professionally, and beyond. Sah's data-driven approach shows why everyone needs the power of defiance and how to build this essential skill. In a moment when we are anxious and unsure what to do—whether we're confronting injustice on a social scale or facing something closer to home—here are strategies to activate your values. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

What makes us who we are?Through the stories of seven of his patients, acclaimed Oxford University neurologist Masud Husain shows us how our brains create, change and can even restore our identity. Husain introduces us to a man who ran out of words, a woman who lost all inhibitions and another who believed she was having an affair with the man who was really her husband.These compelling human dramas reveal how our identities are created by different functions within the brain. It will ignite new ideas about who we really are – and why we act in the ways we do. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Bibliotherapy in The Bronx (Row House, 2025) by Emely Rumble, LCSW, is a groundbreaking exploration of the healing power of literature in the lives of marginalized communities. Drawing from her personal and professional experiences, Rumble masterfully intertwines storytelling with therapeutic insights to reveal how reading can be a potent tool for self-discovery, emotional transformation, and social change.In this transformative work, Rumble offers readers an intimate glimpse into her journey as a psychotherapist in the Bronx, where she has spent over 14 years using books to help clients navigate complex emotions, heal from trauma, and find their voices. Through vivid anecdotes and real-world case studies, she demonstrates how literature can serve as a bridge between personal pain and collective healing.Rich with practical tips, reflective exercises, and book recommendations, Bibliotherapy in The Bronx is a valuable resource for anyone interested in the power of words to change lives. Whether you're a therapist, educator, bibliophile, or simply someone seeking deeper understanding and growth, this book offers a compassionate, culturally affirming guide to the transformative potential of storytelling.Rumble's work is a testament to the enduring power of books to heal, empower, and liberate. In a time when the world feels increasingly divided, Bibliotherapy in The Bronx reminds us that the stories we tell—and the stories we read—can unite us in our shared humanity. -Raymond Williams, PhD is a political scientist, blogger, and book club administrator with an interest in American History and Politics. You can find Raymond on Instagram, Threads, and Twitter at @rtwilliams16. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Tension: Mental Distress and Embodied Inequality in the Western Himalayas (Duke UP, 2026), Dr. Nikita Kaur Simpson examines the effects of rapid development in the Himalayas on the minds and bodies of the Gaddi people who inhabit them through attention to the multifaceted state of distress they call “tension.” This “tension” takes many forms: Kamzori, or weakness, in the bodies of elderly women; “Future tension” accumulating in the minds of young girls; or Opara, or black magic, afflicting whole families. Through her long-term ethnographic fieldwork, Dr. Simpson follows the ways in which Gaddi people tie this distress to broader structural changes, such as land dispossession and caste, class, tribal and gender inequality, which are growing alongside modernity and prosperity. In doing so, she shows how “tension” acts as an everyday diagnostic of the problems of cultural, economic and environmental change as they shape intimate life. At once a lived historical account, a cartography of care relations, and a multi-sensory exploration of the intimate experiences of atmosphere and body, Tension puts forth a novel theory of distress, that inequality is often determined by who is made to feel, hold, and absorb distress. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda's interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Recall This Book's second episode (January 2019) John and Elizabeth spoke with their brilliant Brandeis colleague, the MacArthur-winning neuroscientist Gina Turrigiano, about a number of different facets of addiction. The conversation seems as timely as ever. What makes an addiction to a morning constitutional different from–or similar to–an addiction to Fentanyl? What are the biological and social factors to consider? Should the addict be thought of in binary terms, or addiction as a state that people move into and out of? They contemplate these questions through biological, anthropological, and literary lenses, drawing on Marc Lewis, Angela Garcia, and Thomas de Quincey. Late in the episode, there's also a Sprockets joke. Then, in Recallable Books, Gina recommends David Linden's The Compass of Pleasure, Elizabeth recommends When I Wear My Alligator Boots by Shaylih Muehlmann, and John recommends Sam Quinones's Dreamland. Discussed in this episode: Marc Lewis, The Biology of Desire: Why Addiction Is Not a Disease Angela Garcia, The Pastoral Clinic: Addiction and Dispossession Along the Rio Grande Thomas de Quincey, Confessions of an English Opium Eater: Being an Extract from the Life of a Scholar David Linden, The Compass of Pleasure: How Our Brains Make Fatty Foods, Orgasm, Exercise, Marijuana, Generosity, Vodka, Learning, and Gambling Feel So Good Shaylih Muehlmann, When I Wear My Alligator Boots: Narco-Culture in the U.S. Mexico Borderlands Sam Quinones, Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Common knowledge is necessary for coordination, for making arbitrary but complementary choices like driving on the right, using paper currency, and coalescing behind a political leader or movement. It's also necessary for social coordination: everything from rendezvousing at a time and place to speaking the same language to forming enduring relationships of friendship, romance, or authority. Humans have a sixth sense for common knowledge, and we create it with signals like laughter, tears, blushing, eye contact, and blunt speech. But people also go to great lengths to avoid common knowledge—to ensure that even if everyone knows something, they can't know that everyone else knows they know it. And so we get rituals like benign hypocrisy, veiled bribes and threats, sexual innuendo, and pretending not to see the elephant in the room. In When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows…: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life (Scribner, 2026) Pinker shows how the hidden logic of common knowledge can make sense of many of life's enigmas: financial bubbles and crashes, revolutions that come out of nowhere, the posturing and pretense of diplomacy, the eruption of social media shaming mobs and academic cancel culture, the awkwardness of a first date. Artists and humorists have long mined the intrigues of common knowledge, and Pinker liberally uses their novels, jokes, cartoons, films, and sitcom dialogues to illuminate social life's tragedies and comedies. Along the way he answers questions like: -Why do people hoard toilet paper at the first sign of an emergency? -Why are Super Bowl ads dominated by crypto? -Why, in American presidential primary voting, do citizens typically select the candidate they believe is preferred by others rather than their favorite? -Why did Russian authorities arrest a protester who carried a blank sign? -Why is it so hard for nervous lovers to say goodbye at the end of a phone call? -Why does everyone agree that if we were completely honest all the time, life would be unbearable? Steven Pinker is the Johnstone Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Renee Garfinkel, Ph.D. is a psychologist, writer, Middle East television commentator, and host of the New Books Network's Van Leer Jerusalem Series on Ideas. Write her at reneeg@vanleer.org.il. She's on Twitter @embracingwisdom. She blogs here and also contributes here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Solitude is part of the human experience. But just like other relationships, your relationship with solitude can be satisfying, intimate, and enhance your well-being, or it can leave you wanting, stuck in a cycle of sadness, anxiety, or anger. Regardless of whether you're starved for “me time” or struggling with loneliness, most of us have never thought carefully about how to get the most out of the time we spend by ourselves. As a result, we're missing out on what could be a deeply enriching aspect of our lives. But how can we unlock the positive power of solitude?  In The Joy of Solitude: How to Reconnect with Yourself in an Overconnected World (Simon and Schuster, 2025) Robert Coplan draws from diverse fields including psychology, neuroscience, literature, and sociology to guide readers through solitude's many dimensions and its profound effects on mental health and well-being. In this enlightening book, you will discover:  The many different types of solitude, ranging from enjoyable to challenging, each influencing personal experiences in unique ways. Why choosing to spend even fifteen minutes alone each day can help stabilize your mood, recharge your battery, and spark creativity. A deeper understanding of extraverts and introverts and their (often misunderstood) relationship to solitude. -What alone time looks like in a world where social connection is always a click away.  Groundbreaking scientific insights into the effects of both loneliness and “aloneliness.” The surprising ways that time alone can enhance relationships with others. Practical strategies for harmonizing moments of social engagement and solitude, crucial for achieving optimal life satisfaction.  The Joy of Solitude is a vital resource for those who wish to understand the complexities of solitude and its potential to enhance mental health, creativity, and self-discovery. Whether you seek affirmation for your love of solitude or strive to find balance within it, Coplan's insights are indispensable tools for enriching your relationship with yourself and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today I sit down with Dr. Tawni Tidwell, a biocultural anthropologist and Tibetan medicine doctor at the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Together we discuss how Tibetan medicine approaches the challenges that arise in the course of meditation. Along the way, we talk about reconnecting with indigenous knowledge, establishing a more intimate relationship with the body and the land, and the importance of social context in supporting spiritual practice. If you want to hear scholars and practitioners engaging in deep conversations about the dark side of Asian religions and medicines, then subscribe to Black Beryl wherever you get your podcasts. Also check out our members-only benefits on Substack.com to see what our guests have shared with you. Enjoy the show! Resources related to this conversation: Tawni Tidwell, “Life in Suspension with Death: Biocultural Ontologies, Perceptual Cues, and Biomarkers for Tibetan Tukdam Postmortem Meditative State” (2024) Tawni Tidwell et al, “Effect of Tibetan Herbal Formulas on Symptom Duration Among Ambulatory Patients with Native SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Retrospective Cohort Study” (2024) Tawni Tidwell, “Tibetan Medical Paradigms for the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: Understanding COVID-19, Microbiome Links, and Its Sowa Rigpa Nosology” (2021) New open access book! Crafting Potency: Sowa Rigpa Artisanship Across the Himalayas Tawni's research profile at the Center for Healthy Minds Please note that Tawni is not taking new patients at this time, but she recommends the American Tibetan Medical Association Become a paid subscriber on blackberyl.substack.com to unlock our members-only benefits, including downloading scholarly articles by Dr Tidwell Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In their book The Creative Self: Beyond Individualism (Columbia UP, 2025) Mari Ruti and Gail N. Newman offer our beleaguered souls a breather. Together they tackle the question of what makes life worth living, and before you recoil at the sound of that question, which intentionally has a little neoliberal ring to it, emphasis mine, let me say that this book studies and challenges the neoliberal way of, if you will, “being” and does so beautifully. Lamenting how perfecting, polishing and pushing ourselves beyond the beyond has become de rigeur—(with our overfull email boxes, demands for more, more, more that keep piling in, and how we are doing it all proudly on our own, no side to fall into) Newman and Ruti plumb the works of Marion Milner and Donal Winnicott, two analytic thinkers, both members of the British Psychoanalytical Society, contemporaries in fact, in search of an escape hatch. It is important to note that Ruti was dying, knew she was dying, when she wrote this book, in which she fearlessly lays some blame for her demise at the feet of neoliberal modes of relating. At one point she describes the pressures of academia to attend to too much outside the realm of the classroom and scholarship, driving her to want to exclaim “Stop just stop.” Who has not had this experience where we are called upon to be on all the time, available, responsive, game?  Today I listened to a patient who was very ill with a cold moments before he trudged into work. Sure he has sick days but the new ethos is not to take them. We must not give in. His partner whose father died within the last six months is also back at work where she is expected to plow though her grief: “you must feel better by now right?', her boss asks nervously. Not a one of us lives outside this realm. Ruti and Newman study the ways in which our loss of the ability to stop, feel emptiness, or seek isolation can foment a kind of psychic deformation that threatens to trounce our creativity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today host Pierce Salguero sits down with Marleen Thaler, a researcher at the University of Vienna and University of Graz. Together, we investigate the history of the transformation of Kundalini from a Hindu goddess resting at the base of the spine to her modern manifestation as a psychiatric syndrome. Along the way, we discuss the central importance of the Theosophical society, the anti-psychiatry movement of the 1970s, spiritual emergencies, and kundalini as a meeting point for religion and medicine. Resources mentioned in this episode: Arthur Avalon, The Serpent Power: The Secrets of Tantric and Shaktic Yoga Gopi Krishna, Kundalini: The Evolutionary Energy in Man Lee Sennella, The Kundalini Experience: Psychosis or Transcendence Spiritual Emergence Network (USA | International) Marleen's publications: Academia.edu Become a paid subscriber on Black Beryl Substack to unlock our members-only benefits, including PDFs of these resources. Pierce Salguero is a transdisciplinary scholar of health humanities who is fascinated by historical and contemporary intersections between Buddhism, medicine, and crosscultural exchange. He has a Ph.D. in History of Medicine from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and teaches Asian history, medicine, and religion at Penn State University's Abington College, located near Philadelphia. See www.piercesalguero.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

How do video games and mental health intersect from the perspectives of psychology and game design? In recent years, the topic of mental health has gained tremendous importance for the games industry, affecting both the applied and entertainment games sectors. The former draws from established practices in diagnostics, digital medicine, therapy, and self-help to develop innovative and accessible tools; the latter follows in the tradition of games d'auteur, addressing the topic of mental health from a personal perspective. The contributors to Video Games and Mental Health: Perspectives of Psychology and Game Design (Transcript Publishing, 2024)(also in Open Access) inspect current trends and future perspectives related to these phenomena to inform the work of psychologists and game designers. Rudolf Thomas Inderst (*1978) enjoys video games since 1985. He received a master's degree in political science, American cultural studies as well as contemporary and recent history from Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich and holds two PhDs in game studies (LMU & University of Passau). Currently, he's teaching as a professor for game design and game studies at the HNU University of Applied Sciences Neu-Ulm, Germany, has submitted his third dissertation at the University of Vechta, holds the position as lead editor at the online journal Titel kulturmagazin for the game section, and is editor of the weekly game research newsletter Game Studies Watchlist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Today I spoke with Dr. Louis Rothschild about his new book Rapprochement Between Fathers and Sons Breakdowns, Reunions, Potentialities (Karnac, 2024). Our conversation moved freely between theory, generational attitudes, thinkers, and personal vignettes. What is a good enough father? What is the difference between a man of achievement and a man of power? Who is the father of the mother's mind? What happens when a father enables holding? How is masculinity valued by other men? What is meant by phrases such as a “man's gotta do what a man's gotta do?” Why exactly do we need to “call the boy's father?” How is the father's role rendered invisible? These are some of the questions subsumed in the broader question of “Who nurtures and who is nurtured?” (And does the myth of the “self-made-man” indicate a man who exists without nurturing?) “What I'm arguing”, says Rothschild, “is that that sexist dichotomy is a mirage in its own right and that attachment strings needn't be severed. They can be reworked over the lifespan and this idea of having this clean tidy break and going off to live your life where liberating the kid from this regressive maternal bond is the path to individuation, I think that's just patently false.” Like an analyst, the book has been in formation for many years. “Percolating and distilling” as Dr. Rothschild says at the top of the interview. Motivated by the “way the culture was shifting” he sensed “that things I take for granted are actually a minority opinion.” Rothschild's survey of sons includes mythology; Oedipus scripture; Issac. As well as the sons of literature; Sendak's Max, Silverstein's Boy, White's Swan, and others. Affect rich case illustrations are also presented. The issues addressed in the book are the ones we are contending with in in analysis. They are the discussions we are having with our fathers, sons, and families. Rothschild's book is essential and meets the clinical moment. “Louis Rothschild's book is both an outstanding representative of ‘return to the father' and a unique explication of psychoanalytic thought on its own. This is a book of great literary elegance and impressive psychological wisdom.” Salman Akhtar, MD Christopher Russell, LP is a psychoanalyst in Chelsea, Manhattan. He is a member of the faculty and supervising analyst at The Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies and The New York Graduate School of Psychoanalysis. His primary theorists are Sándor Ferenczi and Hyman Spotnitz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Is culture good for you? In Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Save Lives (Cornerstone Press, 2026) Daisy Fancourt, a Professor of Psychobiology & Epidemiology and head of the Social Biobehavioural Research Group at University College London offers a comprehensive and compelling argument for the ways arts and culture offer health and social benefits for individuals and societies. The book offers both the evidence for the benefits of arts and culture, whilst at the same time showing how many people and places are missing out and excluded from the positive impact of engagement and experiences. A powerful call for the importance of art and culture, backed by a blend of rigorous scientific and medical evidence, as well as engaging personal stories and narratives, the book is essential reading across the arts, humanities and sciences. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

As a graduate student at MIT, Steve Ramirez successfully created false memories in the lab. Now, as a neuroscientist working at the frontiers of brain science, he foresees a future where we can replace our negative memories with positive ones. In How to Change a Memory, Ramirez draws on his own memories--of friendship, family, loss, and recovery--to reveal how memory can be turned on and off like a switch, edited, and even constructed from nothing. A future in which we can change our memories of the past may seem improbable, but in fact, the everyday act of remembering is one of transformation. Intentionally editing memory to improve our lives takes advantage of the brain's natural capacity for change. In How to Change a Memory: One Neuroscientist's Quest to Alter the Past (Princeton UP, 2025), Ramirez explores how scientists discovered that memories are fluid--they change over time, can be erased, reactivated, and even falsely implanted in the lab. Reflecting on his own path as a scientist, he examines how memory manipulation shapes our imagination and sense of self. If we can erase a deeply traumatic memory, would it change who we are? And what would that change mean anyway? Throughout, Ramirez carefully considers the ethics of artificially controlling memory, exploring how we might use this tool responsibly--for both personal healing and the greater good. A masterful blend of memoir and cutting-edge science, How to Change a Memory explores how neuroscience has reached a critical juncture, where scientists can see the potential of memory manipulation to help people suffering from the debilitating effects of PTSD, anxiety, Alzheimer's, addiction, and a host of other neurological and behavioral disorders. Steve Ramirez has been featured on CNN, NPR, and the BBC and in leading publications such as The New York Times, National Geographic, Wired, Forbes, The Guardian, The Economist, and Nature. An award-winning neuroscientist who has given TED talks on his groundbreaking work on memory manipulation, he is associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Boston University. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence, yet human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sword. With our unique cognitive prowess comes severe consequences, including existential angst, violence, discrimination, and the creation of a world teetering towards climate catastrophe. What if human exceptionalism is more of a curse than a blessing? As Dr. Justin Gregg puts it in his book If Nietzsche Were a Narwhal: What Animal Intelligence Reveals About Human Stupidity (Little, Brown (US), 2022, Hodder (UK), 2023), there's an evolutionary reason why human intelligence isn't more prevalent in the animal kingdom. Simply put, non-human animals don't need it to be successful. And, miraculously, their success arrives without the added baggage of destroying themselves and the planet in the process. In seven mind-bending and hilarious chapters, Dr. Gregg highlights features seemingly unique to humans – our use of language, our rationality, our moral systems, our so-called sophisticated consciousness – and compares them to our animal brethren. What emerges is both demystifying and remarkable, and will change how you look at animals, humans, and the meaning of life itself. This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose doctoral work focused on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In Everything Is Fine, I'll Just Work Harder: Confessions of A Former Badass (Street Noise Books, 2025), Professor Cara Gormally draws us into the familiar academic world of chronic busyness. In panel after panel, Cara brings us into a life numbed by overwork. Then, as this graphic memoir shows us, during an ordinary early-morning run, Cara's watch dings with a Facebook friend request. Their rapist wants to “friend” them. Cara always had a long to-do list; always had many projects; always was busy. But as their rapist continued to send friend requests and tried to reconnect with them, they began to lose their grip on their work, projects, and relationships. But then Cara connects with a therapist who guides them through a long but powerful process of healing. And Cara works to desensitize, reprocess, excavate and relive the old wounds in order to move past them and heal. This episode explores: Cara's path to academia; how she discovered her love of science; how art and writing can help us heal; the work of going to therapy; what radical self-acceptance is; why overwork can be a sign of a trauma response; the risks and rewards of changing; and the importance of writing communities. This episode does not discuss sexual assault. Our guest is: Dr. Cara Gormally (they/them), who is a professor at Gallaudet University, in Washington, D.C. Their interdisciplinary research focuses on questions related to making science relevant and accessible to increase students' belonging in STEM. Their new book is Everything Is Fine, I'll Just Work Harder: Confessions of a Former Badass. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: Being Well in Academia How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters Tw-Eats: A Little Book with Big Feelings Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection Parenting and Personal Life in Academia What is burnout and how do you recover from it? What Do You Want Out of Life? Make Your Art No Matter What Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Your brain is the most remarkable thing in the known universe. Always trying to mend itself, and always trying to protect you, it's in a constant state of flux — adapting, reconfiguring, finding new pathways. And it has an astonishing capacity for recovery.  Rachel Barr struggled through years of devastating loss, heartache, and uncertainty until neuroscience gave her the first spark of self-belief she had felt in her adult life — and proof that, because of the brain's near-infinite potential for neuroplastic change, it's never too late to carve out neural pathways to form new habits, new skills, and new ways of thinking.Whether you want to nerd-out on neuroscientific acronyms, finally understand what's going on in your head, or take refuge in a book that's like a warm hug for your mind, How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend is a delight-filled, evidence-based guide to taking better care of your brain — so it, in turn, will take better care of you. Our guest is: Rachel Barr, who holds a master's degree in molecular neuroscience. She wrote How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend while working on her Ph.D. Her videos as “Rachel the Neuroscientist” demystify the fundamental principles of brain science, empowering people to make informed decisions about their mental health. She was born and raised in Fife, studied in Bristol, and is now based in Quebec, with Gnocchi the cat. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: The Well-Gardened Mind Breaking free from overworking and underliving The Burnout Workbook In The Garden Behind the Moon My What-if Year A Meaningful Life Gender and Our Brains Managing Your Mental Health During Your Ph.D. Being Well in Academia The Good- Enough Life Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You help support the show by downloading and sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

Dr. Marc Berman, the pioneering creator of the field of environmental neuroscience, has discovered the surprising connection between mind, body, and environment, with a special emphasis on the natural environment. He has devoted his life to studying it. If you sometimes feel drained, distracted, or depressed, Dr. Berman has identified the elements of a “nature prescription” that can boost your energy, sharpen your focus, change your mood, and improve your mental and physical health. He also reveals how central attention is to all of these functions, and how interactions with nature can restore it. Nature and the Mind is both an introduction to a revolutionary new scientific field and a helpful guide to better living. In these pages, he draws on his original research and research from others and shares life-altering findings such as:-Just eleven more trees on your street can decrease cardio-metabolic disorders like stroke, diabetes, and heart disease.-A short walk in nature can improve attention by almost twenty percent, decrease depression symptoms, and make people feel more spiritual and self-reflective.-More greenspace around schools and homes is related to better school performance, reduced crime, and improved working memory.-Many of these effects can be achieved even if you don't like nature.With an engaging and approachable style, Dr. Berman offers the nature prescription for physical health, mental health, and social health. Importantly, you don't have to pack up your house and move to the country to participate. The nature prescription includes practical ways to bring the outside indoors and to “naturize” our spaces, no matter where you live. The positive effects of nature don't just end at the individual; contact with nature can make people more caring towards one another, encourage people to care more for the environment, and more.This groundbreaking guide explains why and how nature is good for our brains and bodies and gives us a window into fundamental aspects of our psychology and physiology that can be improved through interactions with nature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology