Psychiatry in the 21st century can offer scientific, humane and effective treatments to patients suffering from mental illness: it was not always so. In this book Jeffrey Lieberman, the former president of the American Psychiatric Association, traces the history of ‘the black sheep of medicine’, from its beginnings as a mystic pseudoscience, through ludicrous theories and reckless therapies to breakthroughs such as the discovery of anti-psychotic drugs, brain-imaging technology and open-minded ‘pluralistic psychiatry’.

A teacher of child development and cognitive neuroscience, with a particular interest in dyslexia, Maryanne Wolf invites us to ponder what we do when we read. Beginning with the early history of writing systems and how human beings learned to read, she examines the 'natural history' of ever more sophisticated ways of reading that developed over time, and discusses the science of what happens when the brain cannot learn to read.

Focused on the reciprocal relationship between language and social psychology, this handbook comprises 30 essays in six sections covering the social dimensions of language variation; the social processes involved in language-based interactions; linguistic underpinnings of interpersonal processes; the role of language in social psychological processes; language and meaning; and applied topics, including computer-mediated communication. Oxford Library of Psychology series.

Where does human brilliance come from? Are some of us blessed with certain genetic 'gifts'? Science journalist David Shenk argues that intelligence and talent are not predetermined to the extent that is often claimed, and that we should be aware of how to influence interactions between our genes and our environment. The book's first part sets out this thesis, while the second part provides full details of the evidence used.

William B Irvine, a professor of philosophy, investigates insults, their history, the role they play in social relationships, and the science behind them; concluding that the best way to deal with them is to become 'insult pacifists'.

A physician, professor of neurology and author, Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) has been described by the New York Times as 'a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine'. His books are made up of case histories of his patients, and explore both their neurological disorders and the strategies they adopted to cope with them. The seven cases in this volume include a colour-blind painter, prodigious feats of calculation and draughtsmanship by savants, and an autistic professor of animal science. Slightly off-mint.

A physician, professor of neurology and author, Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) has been described by the New York Times as 'a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine'. His books are made up of case histories of his patients, and explore both their neurological disorders and the strategies they adopted to cope with them. In this book, Sacks draws on the stories of his patients and his own experiences with hallucinogenics to show how hallucinations have influenced every culture's folklore and art, and why the potential for hallucination is in all of us and not confined to the mentally ill. Slightly off-mint.

A physician, professor of neurology and author, Oliver Sacks (1933–2015) has been described by the New York Times as 'a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine'. His books are made up of case histories of his patients, and explore both their neurological disorders and the strategies they adopted to cope with them. In Seeing Voices, a journey into the world of the profoundly deaf, Sacks examines the consequences of living in silence, including the different ways in which the deaf and the hearing learn to categorize and convey the experience of their respective worlds.

People who survive a near-death experience often report encounters with departed relatives and a great feeling of wellbeing. In this book neurologist Kevin Nelson draws on his research into these and similar phenomena, including out-of-body experiences and religious visions, and shows how activity in the primitive brainstem, working in tandem with the limbic system – the most ancient area of our cerebral cortex, may be the biological cause of our sense of the spiritual.

The author of the bestselling Affluenza here examines British society during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, when mental illness grew substantially even though wealth was increasing and education became more accessible. He identifies two causes: pathological comparison of ourselves with others and shifting gender relations. The book was first published in 1998; each chapter in this second edition has a postscript analysing more recent changes in society.

A pioneering work in psychology first published in 1908, this enormously influential book served as a catalyst in the study of the foundations of social behaviour. McDougall's work grounds social behaviour in biology and and he was the first to formulate a theory of human instinctive behaviour. This volume is a reprint of the 1936 (14th) edition.

Why does life speed up as we get older? Why does time seem to slow down when we fear we are about to die? Using research from psychology, neuroscience and biology, the presenter of BBC Radio 4's All In The Mind examines the idea that the experience of time is created by our minds. She also presents her own research into people's visualizations of time and suggests how we can use our brain's warping of it to our advantage.

All animals have some form of memory, but humans are unique in the complexity of our memories and our ability to pass them on to the next generation. Malone's history of human civilization traverses 10,000 years; focusing on those moments when each new technology – from cave paintings to the internet – enhanced our ability to store and communicate information, he reveals the importance of memory as the driving force behind some of the greatest human achievements.

With characteristic wit, honesty and clarity, Ruby Wax draws on her personal experiences of depression as well as her studies in psychotherapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy to introduce practices that can ‘change your mind and how you think’. Explaining why the way we think about our experiences is so important for our mental health, Wax shows how to regulate mind and moods, creating healthier, happier and more flexible ways of thinking.

The founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud transformed the way we understand ourselves. Produced in collaboration with the Freud Museum in London, this handsome, slip-cased biography charts the development of his ideas, his relations with his patients and pupils, his disagreements with colleagues, his practice in Vienna and his exile from the Nazis in London, and assesses his legacy. Period photographs and 15 removable facsimile documents immerse the reader in his life and times.

‘In the brain’s microscopically small circuitry is etched the history and future of our species.’ The neuroscientist David Eagleman looks deeply into what the latest brain science findings mean for our lives. Without presupposing any specialized knowledge, the book challenges readers’ assumptions as it tackles questions such as how we decide, how we perceive reality, who we are, who’s in control and where we are heading as a species.

Drawing on social, political, cognitive and psychodynamic areas of psychology, Laszlo outlines a theory and methodology which provide tools for a better understanding of the relation between the present psychological condition of a society and representations of its past.

A neurologist at Harvard’s Brigham Hospital, Dr Ropper describes the neurologist’s response to cases – such as transient global amnesia or motor neuron disease – in which lives and minds hang in the balance.

Like modern art, psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan’s work is famously difficult to decipher. Accordingly, this study takes an original approach, peering at the man through a prism of ideas, stories and associations drawn not only from Lacan’s theoretical influences, including Hegel, Freud and Saussure, but also from his emotional and professional life. The result is a pleasing matrix of ideas revealing Lacan to be as wilful as he is complex.

Few disciplines have had such a profound influence on the way we see ourselves and one another as psychoanalysis. This magisterial history contextualizes Freud’s early work amid the social and scientific changes of late 19th-century Europe, before charting its development to the end of the Second World War. Lucid, meticulously researched and scrupulously impartial, it describes the bitter split with Jung and Adler, and the eventual acceptance of psychoanalysis throughout the Western world.

Mariano Sigman’s bestselling examination of human thought begins by asking how babies communicate, and goes on to explore how we relate to our unconscious mind, what happens when we dream and why the brain is constantly changing. This concise, approachable guide to neuroscience questions how we perceive, reason, feel and communicate, with the aim of better comprehending the inner workings of the human brain and understanding ourselves and others more deeply.

In 1939 Wilhelm Reich (1897–1957), a disciple of Freud, fled from Nazi Germany to America, where he continued to pursue research into the climate, the effects of radiation and new therapeutic techniques. Presenting material from his diaries, letters and laboratory notebooks, this fourth volume of autobiographical writings covers the final decade of his life, when he was harassed and eventually jailed by the US authorities, who burned his research and banned the use of his experimental orgone energy accumulator.

A bestseller when it was first published in 1985, this is Oliver Sacks’s first collection of patients’ case histories, exploring both their neurological disorders and the strategies they adopted to cope with them. The 24 cases include a man with a special form of visual agnosia, patients with Tourette’s syndrome, and the 'lost mariner', a former sailor with no recent memory, isolated in a single moment of being.

Written by noted experts, these lucid, alphabetically organized handbooks define and discuss the central concepts, thinkers and debates in a broad range of academic disciplines.