A smart, sympathetic, and detailed overview of the most vulnerable patients.
A therapist examines how to help some of the most at-risk psychiatric patients in this health care book.
This latest work from Frederickson dissects the nature of extreme vulnerability in patients, the factors that go into producing a particular delicacy in some people, and the added duties caregivers have toward this group. “Our task as therapists is to help the fragile patients recover their freedom to love, to live, and to create a life that matters,” the author writes. Therapists can complacently imagine that their patients are composed entirely of their histories, diagnoses, and genetics, but Frederickson stresses that this would be a mistake. If he and his fellow therapists do this, “we relate to dead concepts rather than living persons.” Instead, therapists must “mobilize the self-creative capacity to act.” The goal is not to steamroll patient anxiety in order to commence therapy but rather to create the feeling of personal safety necessary for healing. If the therapist rushes ahead without taking care to regulate the patient’s anxiety, Frederickson points out, the caregiver will become a source of danger rather than a fount of help. He makes a comparison with a shattered plate. No one would equate any of the broken pieces with the whole plate, and therapists need to differentiate between the symptoms of anxiety and the signs of the more severe “splitting” and “dissociation” that the condition often presages. The author uses an array of techniques in order to convey a large amount of complicated information: charts, graphs, anecdotes, dialogue examples, extensive secondary references, and bullet points fill the text. Frederickson’s tone is affirming throughout and always on the side of the patient. “No therapist should act as the captain,” he writes. “Our task is to help the patient become the skipper of her own ship.” The author’s fellow professionals will learn a great deal from these pages, but the layperson will find them very informative as well.
A smart, sympathetic, and detailed overview of the most vulnerable patients.Pub Date: Dec. 15, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9883788-0-3
Page Count: 568
Publisher: Seven Leaves Press
Review Posted Online: Feb. 3, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
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The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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