New Books In Psychology

Today I talked to Morris Altman about his book Worker Satisfaction and Economic Performance (Routledge, 2021). What sometimes gets overlooked is that Adam Smith not only became the “father of capitalism” by writing The Wealth of Nations; he also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Empathy matters, and this week’s guest Morris Altman argues that sustainable capitalism practices fairness. Too often the basic, economic needs of rank-and-file workers are being overlooked in a global economic where the wealthy are calling the shots. From anti-immigrant rhetoric to events in Ukraine, this is a timely episode that puts the purported move from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder capitalism under the lens for skeptical examination. Want more engaged workers? Make them more truly empowered, and the beneficiaries of reciprocity whereby their input is acted on and rewarded alike. Morris Altman is the Dean of the University of Dundee’s School of Business. He’s published over 130 referred papers and 17 books. He’s also

Few would disagree that inclusion is both the right thing to do and good for business. Then why are we so terrible at it? If we believe in the morality and the profitability of including people of diverse and underestimated backgrounds in the workplace, why don’t we do it? Because, explains Ruchika Tulshyan in this eye-opening book, we don’t realize that inclusion takes awareness, intention, and regular practice. Inclusion doesn’t just happen; we have to work at it. Tulshyan presents inclusion best practices, showing how leaders and organizations can meaningfully promote inclusion and diversity. Tulshyan centers the workplace experience of women of color, who are subject to both gender and racial bias. It is at the intersection of gender and race, she shows, that we discover the kind of inclusion policies that benefit all. Tulshyan debunks the idea of the “level playing field” and explains how leaders and organizations can use their privilege for good by identifying and exposing bias, knowing that they typica

Today, we will be chatting with EWP core faculty Helge Osterhold about the uniqueness of the EWP container and how he facilitates transformative pedagogy in the classroom. We then explore Jungian notions of East-West spirituality and address the importance of individuation in contemporary approaches to the activist-scholar paradigm. The interview ends with Helge outlining his recent paper “The dance between individuation and death anxiety: an interdisciplinary reflection on cultural polarization in apocalyptic times”. Dr. Helge Osterhold is a psychotherapist and integrative educator. Teaching graduate level psychology courses since 2006, he joined the EWP department as a core faculty member in 2017 and offers courses in Jungian Psychology, Archetypal Psychology, Dreamwork, Spiritual Counseling, and the Psychology of Death and Dying. His theoretical and clinical orientation includes transpersonal, depth and humanistic-existential psychologies with a special appreciation for systemic thinking, indigenous wisdom

How to Do Things with Emotions: The Morality of Anger and Shame across Cultures (Princeton UP, 2021) is an expansive look at how culture shapes our emotions—and how we can benefit, as individuals and a society, from less anger and more shame  The world today is full of anger. Everywhere we look, we see values clashing and tempers rising, in ways that seem frenzied, aimless, and cruel. At the same time, we witness political leaders and others who lack any sense of shame, even as they display carelessness with the truth and the common good. In How to Do Things with Emotions, Owen Flanagan explains that emotions are things we do, and he reminds us that those like anger and shame involve cultural norms and scripts. The ways we do these emotions offer no guarantee of emotionally or ethically balanced lives—but still we can control and change how such emotions are done. Flanagan makes a passionate case for tuning down anger and tuning up shame, and he observes how cultures around the world can show us how to perfor

Today I talked to Karen Joy Hardwick about her book The Connected Leader: 7 Strategies to Empower Your True Self and Inspire Others (Post Hill Press, 2021). We are not leaders having a leadership crisis. We are leaders having a human being crisis. Connection is the antidote to this crisis—yet, many of us do not know how to connect to ourselves in a rigorously honest, self-compassionate way that enhances self-discovery and leads to creating healthy relationships with others. Without this self-connection, we cannot connect—in a meaningful way—to a higher purpose or engage with others in ways that help them step into their gifts. With the help of Karen Hardwick’s connection architecture, we can create the kind of relationships that are transforming and inspiring. By learning how to show up with her seven attributes of connection, we can empower workplaces and relationships through the grace and grit, resilience and empathy, honesty and authenticity that occurs when our connection-wiring is activated in healthy w

Today, we will be speaking with Debashish Banerji, chair of the East-West Psychology department. We will discuss the history and mission of The California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS), of the East-West Psychology Department, and the nature and value of Integral Education. In the conversation, Debashish develops ideas regarding Sri Aurobindo's vision of an Integral consciousness and how that can be approached through an Integral and immanent hermeneutic based on existential goals of becoming. Debashish Banerji is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies. He is also the Program Chair for the East-West Psychology department. Prior to CIIS, he served as Professor of Indian Studies and Dean of Academics at the University of Philosophical Research, Los Angeles. He has taught as adjunct faculty at the Pasadena City College, University of California, Los Angeles and University of California, Irvine.

Nita Sweeney’s struggle with bipolar disorder and grief had overtaken her life when she decided to take her beloved dog and try running, even though she doubted she could make it around the block. Depression Hates a Moving Target: How Running with My Dog Brought Me Back from the Brink (Mango Publishing, 2019) reveals Sweeney’s moving and inspiring story of how every mile she ran brought her closer to wholeness and shares her hard-won wisdom on how you can get up off the couch and take back your own life. Our conversation follows her story from “it just feels good to be moving” to training for a full marathon, how running and meditation impacted her writing and mood, and all the support from her community, husband, and dog along the journey. Sarah Kearns (@annotated_sci) reads about scholarship, the sciences, and philosophy, and is likely drinking mushroom tea. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm

Today I talked to Roberta Moore, author of Emotion at Work: Unleashing the Secret Power of Emotional Intelligence (Conscious Choice, 2018). Much like methodologies that focus on a range of personality traits, the approach taken by today’s guest looks at 16 different skills grouped into five categories. Those categories are self-perception, self-expression, interpersonal, decision-making, and stress management. Which are you best at? Where might you falter? Compare your answers to those Moore shares from two decades of work with clients in leadership roles across a range of industries. One notable client: a high-powered art dealer whose ability to handle stress is challenged anytime a “cargo” of Van Goghs, for instance, run the risk of going unguarded on the tarmac when the flight schedules change! Roberta Ann Moore is a business executive and licensed therapist, certified in Dr. Reuven Bar-On’s model of emotional intelligence. She provides assessments, training and developing using the EQ-I 2.0 and EQ 360 pro

How do we begin to cope with loss that cannot be resolved? The COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us haunted by feelings of anxiety, despair, and even anger. In The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change (W.W. Norton, 2021), pioneering therapist Dr. Pauline Boss identifies these vague feelings of distress as caused by "ambiguous loss," losses that remain unclear and hard to pin down, and thus have no closure. Collectively the world is grieving as the pandemic continues to change our everyday lives. With a loss of trust in the world as a safe place, a loss of certainty about health care, education, employment, lingering anxieties plague many of us, even as parts of the world are opening back up again. Yet after so much loss, our search must be for a sense of meaning, and not something as elusive and impossible as "closure." Dr. Boss also provides strategies for coping: encouraging us to increase our tolerance of ambiguity and acknowledging our resilience as we express a normal grief,

The accusation “you’re deluded” is often used as something of a cheap shot intended to silence an opponent in debate. But what is the nature of a delusion and how can we assess rationality and irrationality? In this podcast, Owen Bennett-Jones talks to Professor Lisa Bortolotti who studies the philosophy of psychology and psychiatry at Birmingham University and is the author of among many other things, Delusions and Other Irrational Beliefs (Oxford UP, 2010) and most recently edited Delusions in Context (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/psychology

In this episode you will meet your podcast hosts, Stephen Julich and Jonathan Kay and learn a little about their journey to the East-West Psychology Department of CIIS. They will introduce the goals and format of the podcast and present a framework which situates academic fields of study and psychological and philosophical questions important to the East-West Psychology discourse community. This can be understood as a mandala of 4 cardinal points: Eastern philosophy, psychology and culture Western religion, philosophy and depth psychology Earth-based ecology, shamanism and indigenous religions World and cross-cultural perspectives on spirituality, psychology and contemporary culture. Stephen Julich has worked as an adjunct instructor in History and Anthropology at the City College of New York, as a lecturer in Jungian Studies at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, and as an adjunct instructor at the California Institute of Integral Studies where he has taught classes on ensouled writing a

A remarkable exploration of the therapeutic relationship, Dr. Mark Epstein reflects on one year’s worth of therapy sessions with his patients to observe how his training in Western psychotherapy and his equally long investigation into Buddhism, in tandem, led to greater awareness—for his patients, and for himself For years, Dr. Mark Epstein kept his beliefs as a Buddhist separate from his work as a psychiatrist. Content to use his training in mindfulness as a private resource, he trusted that the Buddhist influence could, and should, remain invisible. But as he became more forthcoming with his patients about his personal spiritual leanings, he was surprised to learn how many were eager to learn more. The divisions between the psychological, emotional, and the spiritual, he soon realized, were not as distinct as one might think. In The Zen of Therapy: Uncovering a Hidden Kindness in Life (Penguin, 2022), Dr. Epstein reflects on a year’s worth of selected sessions with his patients and observes how, in the inci

For half a century we have been trained to believe that our right brain hemisphere is our emotional brain, while our left brain houses our rational thinking. Now neuroscience shows that it's not that simple: in fact, our emotional limbic tissue is evenly divided between our two hemispheres. Consequently, each hemisphere has both an emotional brain and a thinking brain. In this groundbreaking new book, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor presents these four distinct modules of cells as four characters that make up who we are: Character 1, Left Thinking; Character 2, Left Emotion; Character 3, Right Emotion; and Character 4, Right Thinking. Everything we think, feel, or do is dependent upon brain cells to perform that function. Since each of the Four Characters stems from specific groups of cells that feel unique inside of our body, they each display particular skills, feel specific emotions, or think distinctive thoughts. In Whole Brain Living: The Anatomy of Choice and the Four Characters That Drive Our Life (Hay House, 20

We all want positive, healthy, and genuine relationships whether it's with family, friends, peers, coworkers, or romantic partners. And yet, time and time again, we all seem to get stuck in how we see and relate to certain people, which can limit or even sabotage our relationships. These autopilot reactions are called cognitive biases, and they happen when our brans try to simplify information by making assumptions. Seeing beyond these "blindspots" is essential to building the connections we truly want. But where do we begin?  In this episode, we chat with cognitive neuroscientist and behavioral economist Dr. Gleb Tsipursky about his book The Blindspots Between Us: How to Overcome Unconscious Cognitive Bias and Build Better Relationships (New Harbinger, 2020). We discussed some of the dangerous judgement errors our autopilot systems fall into -- like the halo/horns and attribution errors -- and a few strategies on how to overcome them. Even though they seem straightforward, they're not easy so get ready to be

Today I talked to Clint Pulver about his new book I Love It Here: How Great Leaders Create Organizations Their People Never Want to Leave (Page Two, 2021). If you’ve ever completed an annual employee survey by filling-in-the-bubbles, this episode is for you. Clint Pulver’s approach to knowing what employees are thinking (and feeling) has been to pose as if he’s a job seeker at that company or organization so he can catch the “vibe” in an anonymous, candid conversation with his would-be colleagues. Why is the Great Resignation happening? Clint suggests it’s because workers remember how they were treated when Covid-19 first struck (indifferently) and that a Great Rethinking of careers prompted the Great Resignation. Learn as well about Clint’s perspective on managers, and why the ideal type, the mentor manager, is premised on earned trust and being an advocate for those on staff. Clint Pulver is an Emmy award-wining speaker, aka the Undercover Millennial, and also a musician, pilot, and workforce expert whose s

In the hills north of Rome about a month ago I met a woman, a writer, so blown away by her Dottoressa, her psychoanalyst, that she announced to the surprise of all around her (surprised I want to add that she was in analysis in the first place) that she was writing a book about her treatment. I thought of H.D. I thought of Alison Bechdel. Then I thought of Emma Lieber. The Writing Cure (Bloomsbury, 2020), Lieber’s first book, is a hybrid text—equal parts the work of an analysand, a new clinician, a scholar of Russian literature, and a divorcing mother. It is also the work of a Lacanian-influenced analyst whose analytic credential comes from an institute not especially associated with the work of Lacan; as such, the book functions as a kind of “pass”, a representation of what it is that the author wants to present to a community of analysts who she hopes will see her as a peer. Her writing is creaturely by which I mean her words are close to the ground. She is funny. She is droll. She takes you into a nook and

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: The science that explains our busy minds What mindfulness is The difference between mindfulness and meditation How changing our habits is a small-step by small-step process A discussion of the book Bettter Daily Mindfulness Habits: Simple Changes with Lifelong Impact Today’s book is: Better Daily Mindfulness Habits: Simple Changes with Lifelong Impact Mindfulness by Kristen Manieri. Mindfulness is a powerful tool for staying calm, centered, and steady―but it can be challenging to remember to stay mindful. Better Daily Mindfulness Habits helps practitioners of any level. Rooted in proven habit-building methodology, the book contains 40 practices designed to orient your attention to the present. In as little as a few minutes at a time, it can become easier to practice self-compassion and connect with others, your work, and yourself more mindfully. Our guest is: Kristen Manieri, a certified habits coach as well as a certified mindfulness tea

We are delighted to present All for One and One for All: Public Seminar Series on Mental Health in Academia and Society. All for One and One for All talks will shine the light on and discuss mental health issues in academia across all levels – from students to faculty, as well as in wider society. Seminars are held online once per month on Wednesdays at 5pm CET/ 11am EST and free for all to attend. Speakers include academics, organisations, and health professionals whose work focuses on mental health. Live Q and A sessions will be held after each talk. For live webinar schedule please visit Lashuel lab website. Follow us on Twitter: @LashuelLab Today’s talk is with Dr. Wendy Suzuki, Dr. Hilal Lashuel and Galina Limorenko Collectively, we are living through a time of unprecedented uncertainty including what feels like an endless series of real and existential threats to our health and well-being. These unique times have led to some of the highest levels of anxiety that have been reported in the general populat

In this podcast Owen Bennett-Jones discusses the future of rational decision making with Professor Olivier Sibony who after 25 years with McKinsey & Company in France, is now at HEC Paris and the Saïd Business School in Oxford University. In 2021 he co-wrote the book Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (Little, Brown Spark, 2021) with Cass R. Sunstein and Daniel Kahneman. For those trying to resist the illogicalities of the post truth world, the idea of rational decision-making is perhaps more important than ever. Yet the challenge to rationality comes not only from social media driven myths becoming accepted truths, but also bias and randomness in decision-making. Owen Bennett-Jones is a freelance journalist and writer. A former BBC correspondent and presenter he has been a resident foreign correspondent in Bucharest, Geneva, Islamabad, Hanoi and Beirut. He is recently wrote a history of the Bhutto dynasty which was published by Yale University Press. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoice

Improve your mental health and well-being through guided journaling It's impossible to avoid stress entirely in the hustle and bustle of modern life--but practicing mindfulness can help you maintain a positive mindset and respond to daily challenges in healthy ways. Elizabeth Cronin's Mindfulness Journal for Mental Health Prompts and Practices to Improve Your Well-Being (Rockridge Press, 2022) is filled with prompts and practices that support your mental health, encouraging you to deepen your self-awareness and develop healthier thinking patterns so you can truly thrive. What sets this mental health journal apart: 3 pillars of mental health--Nurture your mental health holistically with exercises for emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Different ways to practice--Explore journal prompts, meditations, positive affirmations, and more, that help you cultivate mindfulness. Room to reflect--Find plenty of space to record your thoughts and feelings, so you can reflect deeply on your journey to better me