Mark O'Connell

This fascinating book examines the use of symbols across all the different ranges and aspects of human experience - from the mundane to the sacred, from the temporal to the eternal. Written by leading authorities in psychology and psychotherapy, the book contains chapters on symbols in society, in nature, in myth and sacred tradition, and in the human life cycle, as well as abstract symbols. The structure of the book is thematic, related signs and symbols are complemented and contrasted, giving a unique guide to their cross-cultural aspects. Some of those symbols that have the most complex meanings - such as the cross, the serpent, the rainbow and the wheel - have been singled out and are discussed in individual essays.

Finalist for the National Indie Excellence Book Awards, 2015 ? LGBT Nonfiction and Marriage Finalist/First Runner Up for the Rainbow Book Award, 2015 ? Best LGBT Debut How to make any wedding liberating, brave, and sexy. This post-DOMA book is for any couple?same or opposite sex?seeking a personalized wedding that dignifies the relationship and the individual self. No ?new normal” here?this guide emboldens you to harness your unique, brazen, queer truth; to be creative; and to plan your wedding your way. Every fiancé faces the question: How do I become something new without losing myself? Using his own story?from how he and his husband connected via MTV’s The Real World to the real world of their marriage?author Mark O’Connell reflects on conflicts that arrive during wedding transitions, as well as various other transitions throughout your lives. As a psychotherapist, O’Connell offers ideas to bridge relational gaps with your partner, family, and friends. As a professional actor, he also offers insight into the ways your wedding is a theatrical production: how this can help you to conceptualize the event, consolidate your efforts, and increase creative collaboration as a couple. This will serve you not only on the day, but also for the rest of your time together. Whether we’re straight, gay, or other, weddings inspire us to carve out more fun, freedom, recognition, life-space, love-space, and connubial space than we’ve ever had before.

This is a fascinating directory of more than 1200 visual images, with an expert analysis of their history and meaning. It offers a magnificent analysis of the way signs and symbols have been interpreted and represented through thousands of years, from earliest times to today. It is a pocket-size encyclopedia of all the different image that shape the world we live in, including the wheel, the cross, the gateway, the rainbow, the dragon and the sun. This title examines how signs and symbols developed as a means of non-verbal communication throughout history in art, religion, psychology, literature and everyday life. It shows how universal signs weave a continuous fabric throughout our cultures, and how modern systems still depend on ancient symbolism. It defines in words and pictures more than 1200 icons, graphic motifs, ideograms, signs and symbols. Signs and symbols are a fundamental part of the way we communicate. This book explores the iconography and symbolism that connect them all, including cave paintings of the circle and the square, the signs of the zodiac and modern computer iconography. It has an extensive directory of hundreds of individual graphics, from astrological signs to symbols from around the world, such as a pentagram, a dove and the Chinese sign of yin yang. An authoritative, accessible text make this a visual sourcebook and one-stop reference encyclopedia for scholars, dream-readers, scientists, psychologists, historians and astrologers of every kind.

From the offbeat vantage point of a gay teenager whose grandfather was chauffeur to legendary 007 producer Albert R Broccoli, this title is a love-letter to James Bond, Duran Duran title songs and bolting down your tea quick enough to watch Roger Moore falling out of a plane without a parachute.

When boomers' marriages come up short on romance and sex, but seems long on disagreements and strife, many boomers choose to leave. But Mark O'Connell believes they should think twice before doing so. THE MARRIAGE BENEFIT is less a book about how to make our relationships better than it is about how our relationships can make us better if we just work on our expectations and improve communications. Harvard professor and psychotherapist O'Connell offers a peek behind the door of a marriage therapist, where readers can see that their problems are not unique, and get good advice on how to solve them. Through wonderfully revealing anecdotes about couples with problems we all face - long-held bitterness, diminished sexuality, the scars of infidelity and the search for authentic meaning - O'Connell shows how by respecting each other's individuality, looking for 'real' sex, and learning how to play with each other again, we can reap the benefits of the long-term emotional investment we've made.