A book explores the psychological implications of climate change.
With all of the literature surrounding climate shifts, it is a rare work that addresses their often profound emotional impact on humans. Medical practitioner and educator Davenport (Transformative Imagery, 2016, etc.) views weather cycles through a different lens, offering both an overview of climate change psychology and pertinent tactics for clinicians to apply in caring for their clients. The first part of the book examines specific “clinical themes.” “The Psychology of Climate Change Denial,” for example, touches on current beliefs and explains how the typical stress responses, “fight, flight, and freeze,” relate to the global disruptions. “Mindful Disaster Response,” a chapter that moves out of the clinician’s office into the field, discusses how to deal on-site with individuals going through the three stages of climate catastrophe recovery. These two chapters and the other four in Part I provide a solid overview of climate change’s impact, accompanied by additional resources and a worksheet tailored to each chapter’s content. The text and worksheets deliver specific “practices” the therapist can employ with clients, including thorough, step-by-step instructions. Part II is a uniquely structured resource comprised of 12 practices geared toward developing an “ecoharmonious life.” Every practice includes three sections—“Body Wise,” “Heart/Mind Wise,” and “World Wise”—each designed to sensitize a client to different transformative areas. The practices themselves are simple yet compelling: “Garden State,” for example, is designed to create an appreciation of one’s natural environment, particularly flora and the physical earth, so the client can become “an active steward of life.” An appendix features an exercise for “progressive relaxation,” and extensive references are included. Davenport demonstrates a deep knowledge of clinical practices but, more important, relates these directly to ecological issues and outcomes. Consistently positive and encouraging, she writes with an understanding of a therapist’s challenges and a sense of empathy for clients.
An insightful approach to the far-reaching effects of climate shifts and their impact on the human psyche; likely to become a valuable, targeted resource facilitating clinicians’ treatment in this specialized area.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-78592-719-5
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Categories: PSYCHOLOGY
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A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 31, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
Categories: PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP
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Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
Categories: PSYCHOLOGY | SELF-HELP
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