A neuroscientist explores the biological bases of schizophrenia and tells the heartbreaking story of his own brother's battle with the disease.When bright lives are derailed by schizophrenia, bewildered and anxious families struggle to help, and to cope, even as scientists search for causes and treatments that prove elusive. Painful and often misunderstood, schizophrenia profoundly affects people who have the disease and their loved ones. Here Ronald Chase, an accom...

This accessible volume sets an ambitious goal: to help people better understand the nature of mental illness. The term itself is a problem for most who believe, consciously or not, that individuals have both a mind and a body. Ronald Chase is interested in the roots of this thinking about mental illness, and finds it in philosophical dualism, famously promoted by Rene Descartes in the seventeenth century. Chase believes this perspective contributes to the stigma associated with mental illn...

On November 12, 1971, Bernard Patterson, a much decorated Vietnam War hero, turned a real-life version of Don Quixote, Butch Cassidy, and Robin Hood all rolled into one package, robbed the Northern National Bank in Mars Hill, Maine. He escaped with $110,000; at the time, the largest bank robbery in the history of the state. A tunnel rat and paratrooper in Vietnam who rose to the rank of Sergeant, he was awarded four bronze stars and recommended for a silver star for valor. He returned home...

"Robert M. Sapolsky is one of the best science writers of our time."—Oliver SacksThe author of New York Times Bestseller Determined offers a completely revised and updated edition of his most popular work, with over 225,000 copies in print.Now in a third edition, the renowned primatologist Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras...

A leading brain scientist's look at the neurobiology of pleasure-and how pleasures can become addictions.Whether eating, taking drugs, engaging in sex, or doing good deeds, the pursuit of pleasure is a central drive of the human animal. In The Compass of Pleasure Johns Hopkins neuroscientist David J. Linden explains how pleasure affects us at the most fundamental level: in our brain.As he did in his award-winning book, The Accidental Mind,...

What is dreaming, and what causes it? Why are dreams so strange and why are they so hard to remember? Replacing dream mystique with modern dream science, J. Allan Hobson provides a new and increasingly complete picture of how dreaming is created by the brain. Focusing on dreaming to explain the mechanisms of sleep, this book explores how the new science of dreaming is affecting theories in psychoanalysis, and how it is helping our understanding of the causes of mental illness. J. Allan Hob...

A Harvard psychiatrist uses biology, genetics, psychology, and advances in molecular neuroscience and neuroimaging to examine what it means to be normal."Move over Oliver Sacks—I couldn't put this fascinating book down! Path-breaking and witty, as entertaining as it is informative, The Other Side of Normal is filled with insights into why we behave as we do and how biology determines so much of our emotional makeup." —Amy Chua, Yale Law Professor an...

When first published in 1999, Your Drug May Be Your Problem was ahead of its time. The only book to provide an uncensored description of the dangers involved in taking every kind of psychiatric medication, it was also the first and only book to explain how to safely stop taking them. In the time elapsed, there have been numerous studies suggesting or proving the dangers of some psychiatric medications and even the FDA now acknowledges the problems; more studies are under way to de...

A comprehensive overview of the neurobiology behind addictions. Neuroscience is clarifying the causes of compulsive alcohol and drug use––while also shedding light on what addiction is, what it is not, and how it can best be treated––in exciting and innovative ways. Current neurobiological research complements and enhances the approaches to addiction traditionally taken in social work and psychology. However, this important research is generally not presented in a forthright, jargon-free w...

Temperament is the single most pervasive aspect of us and our fellow human beings. We notice it; we gossip about it; we make judgments based on it; we unconsciously shape our lives around it.In The Temperamental Thread, developmental psychologist Jerome Kagan draws on decades of research to describe the nature of temperament—the in-born traits that underlie our responses to experience. Along the way he answers such questions as, How does the temperament we are born with af...

In Gut Feminism Elizabeth A. Wilson urges feminists to rethink their resistance to biological and pharmaceutical data. Turning her attention to the gut and depression, she asks what conceptual and methodological innovations become possible when feminist theory isn’t so instinctively antibiological. She examines research on anti-depressants, placebos, transference, phantasy, eating disorders and suicidality with two goals in mind: to show how pharmaceutical data can be useful for f...

This version is now out of print. An edition with e-book is available under ISBN 97880702041365.Psychiatric Drugs Explained contains a clear and comprehensive guide to the uses, benefits and impact of psychotropic drugs. It explains how people taking the drugs experience their side effects compared to the benefits they may bring. The fifth edition has been fully revised and updated to include the latest thinking on the rationale for drug treatements to help mental ...