Kirjahaku

Examining the assertions and fallacies of the theories conceived (or contrived) by some of today's most brilliant scientists and thinkers (including Dan Ariely, John Barrow, Pascal Boyer, Frank Close, Nicholas Humphrey, Richard Dawkins, Stanley Milgram, Oliver Sacks, and Carl Sagan), the author explores why these varied attempts at joining the world of experience and the world of measurement so regularly fail, how consciousness explained is really a concentrated effort to explain away the subjective phenomena of consciousness. From the psychic rat to the gorilla in the room, from British double-agent Kim Philby to comedian Steve Martin, The Incredible Shrinking Mind not only offers a provocative and entertaining critique, but also a profound and practical solution: the psychodynamic approach, which takes seriously the question of meaning and not solely observable behaviour, which combines the quantitative and the experimental with the human and multidimensional, which seeks to understand not just how but why.

Self Defense in a Narcissistic World explores a new, basically unrecognized and highly prevalent everyday addiction: power trips. Author Gerald Alper examines the disastrous consequences of this simple but insidious, and largely unconscious, cultural and psychological phenomenon. Discussed in the book are vivid everyday occurrences of power trips, including myriads of "therapy trips," or subtle power transactions between therapist and patient. A key section is then devoted to revealing the strategies and dynamics of power trips. The author also offers a sober consideration of consequences suffered when the psychodynamics of a power trip are performed on the world stage.

In this exciting and original work, Gerald Alper, illuminates the crucial elements that together constitute intimacy. Knowing If It's the Real Thing offers a radical departure from today's popular, yet mythological belief that if two people stay together, in an adaptive, productive, and moderately mutually enhancing way, they will achieve the most a relationship can offer. Some issues discussed in the book are the basic ingredients and rudimentary ground rules of "postmodern intimacy;" how to discover the arena in which one feels most comfortable in expressing intimate feelings; the many ways that sincere efforts to connect can completely misfire; and how to build up defenses, dodge self-reproach, and retain one's dignity and sense of trust following a serious break-up.

Power Games is a brilliant exploration of the psychodynamic strategies unconsciously enacted to spare the person the imagined pain and frustration of an authentic encounter. Although such strategic power operations can be characterological, they do not have to be: all people, even those rare individuals who are capable of ongoing intimacy, are forced at moments of fraility or interpersonal indecisiveness to play power games, and certainly the culture at large pervasively sponsors the enactment of opportunistic interpersonal strategies. In this new book, Gerald Alper, whose Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patientwas called by the New England Review of Books "one of the most important modern studies of the psyche of the creative personality that we have," continues his profound examination of the obstacles that stand in the path of the true intimacy.

In his latest work Professor Alper explores how his innovative concept of narcissistic giving that is, the dysfunctional art in which one gives without actually giving---manifests itself all too often in the social transactions and interactions that compose everyay existence. This sense of grandiosely promising a world of happiness and satisfaction while giving so very little makes narcissistic giving not only an apt description for a pervasive, implicit philosophy of our culture but elevates it to a dynamic theory of dysfunctional psychic energy.

In his latest work Professor Alper explores how his innovative concept of narcissistic giving that is, the dysfunctional art in which one gives without actually giving manifests itself all too often in the social transactions and interactions that compose everyday existence. This sense of grandiosely promising a world of happiness and satisfaction while giving so very little makes narcissistic giving not only an apt description for a pervasive, implicit philosophy of our culture but elevates it to a dynamic theory of dysfunctional psychic energy. This is the first book that shows how evolutionary psychology...the ethos of the selfish gene...gets unconsciously played out in the emotional lives of ordinary people. THE SELFISH GENE PHILOSOPHY examines how narcissistic giving intersects with and illuminates the current conflicts surrounding science and society, psychology and personal fulfillment, and the desire for simplicity in a complex world. Based on decades of clinical experience, this culminating work uses fascinating case studies and classic archetypical films, from Open Water to The King of Comedy, to reveal the inner workings and impact of narcissistic giving on our inner lives and outer world.

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Patient, the first book of non-fiction written by Gerald Alper, is also the first serious attempt to explore in depth the dynamics of the yet-to-be recognized, unfulfilled and usually perplexed fledgling artist. The artist tries to live in two separate worlds: a factual, linear, banal, reality-driven outer world that is best kept at arm's length; and a creatively organized, aesthetically orchestrated, dramatically engaging inner world that is forever being obsessively cultivated. Indeed, facilitating the patient in his or her efforts to forge a usable bridge between these generally discontinuous worlds is no small part of the task of the therapist who elects to work with such young artists.