A fascinating exploration of a primal human emotion, from its neurological basis to its impact on society. Science writer Dozier (Codes of Evolution, not reviewed) examines the evolutionary beginnings of fear and describes what neuroscience has learned about the three interconnected systems in the brain that process it: the primitive fear system, centered in the limbic system; the rational fear system, occupying the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex; and consciousness itself. The first acts as an alarm, triggering a fight-or-flight response that can lead to panic or violence; when this system misfires, phobias, anxieties, and even psychopathic disorders may result. In one dramatic example, Dozier illustrates the three systems interacting smoothly in a crisis, enabling certain people to behave in such a way as to survive a deadly plane crash. No other species, he claims, feels the fears of human beings or has worked so hard to suppress or control these. Fear of the unknown and fear of death, for example, have together given us religion. Overcoming the fear of fire has transformed human life and led to —civilization.— Dozier ranges widely and illustrates vividly, taking up the origin of such common phobias as fear of snakes, spiders, and heights, the special fears of childhood (the dark, monsters under the bed, etc.), the prominence of fear-related stories in the media, and the pleasures of facing and surmounting fear on, say, a roller coaster. While the neurological discussions of brain anatomy and function occasionally become a trifle technical, Dozier’s anecdotal material about fear is memorable, and his speculations are provocative.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1998
ISBN: 0-312-19412-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Dunne/St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1998
This academic exploration of female sexuality is marred by a facile categorization of feminists. Sexologist McCormick (Psychology/State Univ. of New York, Plattsburgh; Changing Boundaries: Gender Roles and Sexual Behavior, not reviewed) simplistically defines feminists as either ``Liberal'' or ``Radical.'' She constructs the former as focused on women's sexual pleasure and the latter as concerned with protecting girls and women from sexual abuse and exploitation. Placing her work as outside the typical model of sex research centered on white, middle-class heterosexual women, McCormick seeks to widen her readers' conception of female sexuality with her discussion of seduction, intimacy, lesbians and bisexuals, female sex-trade workers, pornography, and models of pleasure and fulfillment. She challenges the popular belief that sex should have orgasm as its goal, asserting that it denies many women their sexuality, especially those who are paralyzed or otherwise disabled. In the context of her research, McCormick encourages us to move beyond the ``dehumanizing [equation of] sexuality with genital juxtapositions and intercourse'' and to view sexuality as ``a whole body and whole mind experience.'' She is at her strongest in her explorations of women sex-trade workers, sexual victimization, and pornography; she advocates the legalization of prostitution and the creation of erotic material that affirms women's sexuality. Unfortunately, McCormick has a tendency to idealize women as more sentimental, affectionate, and desirous of intimacy than men. She sees female sexuality as almost spiritual, which leads her to make some extravagant generalizations. She suggests, for instance, that lesbians value intimacy more than sex, that loving lesbian relationships work better than gay or straight relationships, and while she lists the dangers faced by female participants in the sex-trade industry, she tends to glamorize their agency. A flawed but sometimes astute analysis of power and sexual relations.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-275-94359-3
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Praeger
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1994
Eminently useful, although somewhat contradictory, this admiring intellectual biography of an iconoclastic psychoanalyst recapitulates the strengths and weaknesses of its subject's thought. Karen Horney (18851952) played a key role in the development of psychoanalysis between the wars and transcended her discipline as a feminist thinker. Horney scholar Paris (English/Univ. of Florida) surveys the psychoanalyst's ideas while locating their sources in her personal experiences. He builds on the work of previous biographers Jack Rubins (Karen Horney, 1978) and Susan Quinn (A Mind of Her Own, not reviewed), who brought messy details of Horney's life to light without, he contends, fully relating them to her mature theory. For Paris, Horney's ideas represent her effort to come to grips with her own problems—to perform, as her best-known title has it, a ``self-analysis.'' After a lucid account of Horney's youth in Germany, Paris treats her early, relatively orthodox essays and her subsequent development of a theory of feminine psychology. He shows how pondering social concerns led Horney to consider the cultural dimensions of neurosis and eventually to develop a new paradigm of psychological structure as a complete, ongoing system, rather than an individual story only understandable through recourse to its occluded origins. Her adult life was thorny: Paris discusses her ``female Don Juanism,'' her battles in the bitter psychoanalytic arena, and her difficult affairs with famed rivals like Erich Fromm. Extensive commentaries on Horney's late thought tie these strands together, focusing on ideas about pride and defense strategies expressed in Our Inner Conflicts and Neurosis and Human Growth. Throughout, Paris maintains allegiance to Horney's conviction that we each have a true inner self, even while he depicts stark discontinuities among the facets of her own personality. It will take a grander synthesis than his, one that incorporates wider historical and cultural context, to really resolve this tension between Horney's thought and life. In the interim, however, this serves as a fine introduction to a stimulating thinker whose influence continues to rise as therapy becomes more pragmatic and less dogmatic.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-300-05956-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Yale Univ.
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1994
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