A fresh, insightful take on one of our slipperiest emotions that offers readers workable pathways forward.
An accessible framework for understanding shame—both within oneself and within relationships.
This book begins with some personal comments from authors Fern (a trauma and relationship expert and psychotherapist) and Cooley (a professional restorative justice facilitator and diversity awareness trainer) explaining where the ideas for the titular “Shame Triangle” originated. Fern recalls an anecdote from her personal life in which her “competing needs” reminded her of how often she thinks about herself in terms of “parts” that seem to have their own “concerns, priorities and desires.” What follows is a breakdown of the authors’ views on the key components of shame and its impact on people and relationships. They posit that shame is viewable through a triangular framework based on psychiatrist Stephen Karpman’s Drama Triangle, which includes the roles of Victim, Persecutor, and Rescuer. Fern and Cooley’s Shame Triangle, however, includes slightly different roles, as it applies to both internal and external conflicts; these roles are the Inner Critic, Shame, and Escaper. The authors detail the strategies and behavioral impacts of each part of the triangle: Where do they come from? Why do they exist? How can we begin to address them? Each of these ideas is effectively supported by humanizing personal anecdotes and peer-reviewed academic literature. Fern and Cooley have prepared this book with accessibility in mind, seeking to ensure that even readers with limited knowledge of psychology and medicine will be able to use these strategies to start the journey toward self-understanding. They make it clear that the goal is not necessarily to change the self, but rather to work with natural inclinations to find healthier ways to resolve conflicts, both within and outside the mind. This book will be appreciated by anyone searching for new ways of understanding shame and trauma, especially for the purpose of enhancing mental stability and relationships.
A fresh, insightful take on one of our slipperiest emotions that offers readers workable pathways forward.Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2025
ISBN: 9781990869709
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Thornapple Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 25, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.
A noted actor turns to verse: “Poems are a Saturday in the middle of the week.”
McConaughey, author of the gracefully written memoir Greenlights, has been writing poems since his teens, closing with one “written in an Australian bathtub” that reads just as a poem by an 18-year-old (Rimbaud excepted) should read: “Ignorant minds of the fortunate man / Blind of the fate shaping every land.” McConaughey is fearless in his commitment to the rhyme, no matter how slight the result (“Oops, took a quick peek at the sky before I got my glasses, / now I can’t see shit, sure hope this passes”). And, sad to say, the slight is what is most on display throughout, punctuated by some odd koanlike aperçus: “Eating all we can / at the all-we-can-eat buffet, / gives us a 3.8 education / and a 4.2 GPA.” “Never give up your right to do the next right thing. This is how we find our way home.” “Memory never forgets. Even though we do.” The prayer portion of the program is deeply felt, but it’s just as sentimental; only when he writes of life-changing events—a court appearance to file a restraining order against a stalker, his decision to quit smoking weed—do we catch a glimpse of the effortlessly fluent, effortlessly charming McConaughey as exemplified by the David Wooderson (“alright, alright, alright”) of Dazed and Confused. The rest is mostly a soufflé in verse. McConaughey’s heart is very clearly in the right place, but on the whole the book suggests an old saw: Don’t give up your day job.
It’s not Shakespeare, not by a long shot. But at least it’s not James Franco.Pub Date: Sept. 16, 2025
ISBN: 9781984862105
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
