In the tradition of Atul Gawande and Sherwin Nuland, Marc Agronin writes luminously and unforgettably of life as he sees it as a doctor. His beat is a nursing home in Miami that some would dismiss as God's waiting room. Nothing in the young doctor's medical training had quite prepared him for what he was to discover there. As Agronin first learned from ninety-eight-year-old Esther and, later, from countless others, the true scales of aging aren't one-sided -- you can't list the problems wi...

Who is the devil you know?Is it your lying, cheating ex-husband?Your sadistic high school gym teacher?Your boss who loves to humiliate people in meetings?The colleague who stole your idea and passed it off as her own?In the pages of The Sociopath Next Door, you will realize that your ex was not just misunderstood. He’s a sociopath. And your boss, teacher, and colleague? They may be sociopaths too.We are accusto...

A riveting, revelatory, and moving account of the author’s struggles with anxiety, and of the history of efforts by scientists, philosophers, and writers to understand the conditionAs recently as thirty-five years ago, anxiety did not exist as a diagnostic category. Today, it is the most common form of officially classified mental illness. Scott Stossel gracefully guides us across the terrain of an affliction that is pervasive yet too often misunderstood.Dr...

The Noonday Demon is Andrew Solomon’s National Book Award-winning, bestselling, and transformative masterpiece on depression—“the book for a generation, elegantly written, meticulously researched, empathetic, and enlightening” (Time)—now with a chapter covering recently introduced and novel treatments, suicide prevention and anti-depressants including SSRIs, pregnancy and postpartum depression, and much more.The Noonday Demon examines dep...

Psychology: The Stuff You Can Really Use offers a thought-provoking description of some of the basics of psychology that can be used to enhance your life and to understand yourself and others better. Having worked as a psychologist for over thirty years, and having had the opportunity to teach the subject at the college level for the same amount of time, author Brad Rasch has discovered what this field has to offer that is useful and interesting. This practical reference guide pro...

Based on former FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro's experience as a criminal profiler and behavior specialist, "Borderline Personality Disorder How to Spot it - A Checklist", provides the average person the tools necessary for identifying and assessing individuals who suffer from Borderline Personality Disorder.This short practical guide and checklist includes the 100 behaviors that are closely associated with this prevalent disorder. It is easy to use and intended for the average layp...

A "courageous and singular book" (Andrew Solomon), Memory's Last Breath is an unsparing, beautifully written memoir -- "an intimate, revealing account of living with dementia" ( Shelf Awareness).Based on the "field notes" she keeps in her journal, Memory's Last Breath is Gerda Saunders' astonishing window into a life distorted by dementia. She writes about shopping trips cut short by unintentional shoplifting, car journeys derailed when sh...

"An outstanding contribution to the study of aging" from a psychiatrist and professor at Harvard Medical School ( Publishers Weekly).In an unprecedented series of studies, Harvard Medical School has followed 824 subjects—men and women, some rich, some poor—from their teens to old age. Harvard's George Vaillant now uses these studies—the most complete ever done anywhere in the world—and the subjects' individual histories to illustrate the factors involved in...

Top 25 Books of 2011 by the American Library Association, Choice ReviewsNamed one of the 11 Best Psychology Books of 2011 by The Atlantic"A balanced and considered approach to this often inflammatory topic." —NatureLively and brilliantly argued, The Belief Instinct explains the psychology behind belief. Drawing on surprising new studies as well as on literature, philosophy, and even pop culture, The Belief Instinct will reward read...

The inspiration for the PBS series Mysterious of Mental Illness, Shrinks brilliantly tells the groundbreaking story of psychiatry's origins, demise, and redemption.Psychiatry has come a long way since the days of chaining "lunatics" in cold cells and parading them as freakish marvels before a gaping public.But, as Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, the former president of the American Psychiatric Association, reveals in his extraordinary and eye-opening book,...

Am I depressed or just unhappy? In the last two decades, antidepressants have become staples of our medicine cabinets—doctors now write 120 million prescriptions annually, at a cost of more than 10 billion dollars. At the same time, depression rates have skyrocketed; twenty percent of Americans are now expected to suffer from it during their lives. Doctors, and drug companies, claim that this convergence is a public health triumph: the recognition and treatment of...

**Designed for psychotherapists and their clients, Peter Levine's latest best-seller continues his groundbreaking exploration of the central role of the body in processing—and healing—trauma.With foreword by Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score**In Trauma and Memory, bestselling author Dr. Peter Levine (creator of the Somatic Experiencing approach) tackles one of the most difficult and controversial questions of PTSD/trauma therapy: Can ...