Mental Development

The beloved actor shares fascinating and powerful lessons from the science of communication and teaches listeners to improve the way they relate to others using improv games, storytelling, and their own innate mind-reading abilities. With his trademark humor and frankness, Alan Alda explains what makes the out-of-the-box techniques he developed after his years as the host of Scientific American Frontiers so effective.

About a third of the world population suffers from an anxiety disorder, and half of Americans have had at least one traumatic experience like rape, assault, shooting, or natural disasters. Fear and anxiety are with us everywhere we go. Fear is deeply woven into our biology, culture, politics, and day to day life. We sometimes don't even know what we are afraid of. What we know for sure is that we are afraid too often.But why are we so scared? How does fear work in our brains? What is the evolutionary purpose of fear? In this book, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist answers these questions.

For women today, achieving a successful career, a fulfilling romantic relationship, and a rewarding personal life can feel like opposing goals, leaving their deepest yearnings just beyond reach. It has even become difficult to enjoy the simplest pleasures of our lives. We are stuck in “go mode", damaging our romantic relationships, pleasure, and creativity. But what if there were a way to experience the simplest pleasures of our lives on a deeper level, freeing the body and psyche from these damaging patterns?

Debbie Ford explains that the dark side of our personality should not be hidden. By denying our dark side, we reject aspects of our true natures rather than giving ourselves the freedom to live authentically. Here she shows that it is possible to acknowledge and accept our so-called weaknesses, proving that these qualities may be hidden strengths. Full of illuminating stories and practical exercises, Debbie Ford shows us how to reconcile our darker impulses and find the gifts they offer.

When facing contentious issues such as screen time, food choices, and bedtime, children often act out or shut down, responding with reactivity instead of receptivity. This is what New York Times best-selling authors Daniel J. Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson call a No Brain response. But our kids can be taught to approach life with openness and curiosity. When kids work from a Yes Brain, they’re more willing to take chances and explore. They’re more curious and imaginative. They’re better at relationships and handling adversity.

While on a research trip in Peru, science journalist Alice Robb became hooked on lucid dreaming - the uncanny phenomenon in which a sleeping person can realize that they're dreaming and even control the dreamed experience. Finding these forays both puzzling and exhilarating, Robb dug deeper into the science of dreams at an extremely opportune moment: just as researchers began to understand why dreams exist. They aren't just random events; they have clear purposes. They help us learn and even overcome psychic trauma.

At 74, Yalom has penned a book that is the climax of his lifework, focusing on the universal human issues of mortality and death. He suggests that what he calls the "awakening experience" can help us acknowledge, accept, and utilize our fear of death in a very positive manner. Such an awakening experience can be as simple as a dream, or quick as a sudden insight. It is often a loss, a trauma, or just plain aging that can prompt an awakening experience that is a turning point for a more meaningful life.

We used to think of failure as the opposite of success. Now, we’re often torn between two “failure cultures”: one that says to avoid failure at all costs, the other that says fail fast, fail often. The trouble is that both approaches lack the crucial distinctions to help us separate good failure from bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail well. After decades of award-winning research, Amy Edmondson is here to upend our understanding of failure and make it work for us. In Right Kind of Wrong, Edmondson provides the framework to think, discuss, and practice failure wisely.

Parenting and neuroscience expert Robyn Gobbel is here to reveal how all behavior, no matter how baffling, can be explained and remedied. You just need to look past the behavior and understand what's going on inside. Robyn decodes the latest brain science into easy-to-understand principles and metaphors to help you become an expert in your child's behavior. She reveals simple ways to help you regulate and connect with your child, with brain-, body- and sensory-based strategies to overcome day-to-day challenges.

In this special 25th anniversary edition of Thomas Moore's best-selling book, Care of the Soul, listeners are presented with a revolutionary approach to thinking about daily life - everyday activities, events, problems, and creative opportunities - and a therapeutic lifestyle is proposed that focuses on looking more deeply into emotional problems and learning how to sense sacredness in even ordinary things.

If you have a child with borderline personality disorder (BPD), you are all-too-aware of the behavioral and emotional issues that are linked to this disorder-including rages, self-harm, sexual acting out, substance abuse, suicidal behaviors, physical and emotional attacks, and more. Traditional parenting strategies that work on other kids just don't work with a borderline child. But you shouldn't lose hope. The good news is that there are parenting strategies that do work.

According to Freud, our unconscious impulses are not random, but packed with meaning, taking on color, form, and even a storyline. All dreams are actually wish fulfillments, and interpreting them can bridge the gap to the conscious, resulting in more meaningful living.

Narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) has a profoundly dehumanizing effect on those subject to its distortions, manipulations, and rage. The Narcissist in Your Life illuminates the emotionally annihilating experience of narcissistic abuse in families and relationships, acknowledges the complex emotional and physical trauma that results, and assists survivors with compassionate, practical advice on the path of recovery.

We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play.

Sara suffered a debilitating fear of asserting herself. Spencer experienced crippling social anxiety. Bonnie was shut down, disconnected from her feelings. These patients all came to psychotherapist Hilary Jacobs Hendel seeking treatment for depression, but in fact none of them were chemically depressed. Rather, Jacobs Hendel found that they’d all experienced traumas in their youth that caused them to put up emotional defenses that masqueraded as symptoms of depression. Jacobs Hendel led these patients and others toward lives newly capable of joy and fulfillment....

Here's an eye-opening examination of the "hookup" culture, seen through the experiences of high-school- and college-age women who confront the hard lessons of dating, love, and sex. Stepp follows three groups of young women and comes away with some disturbing insights. Relationships and romance are seen as messy and time-consuming, and love is postponed or, worse, seen as impossible. Many young women can't handle this, and they're being battered physically and emotionally by the new dating landscape.

Do you wish there was a way to raise well-behaved children without punishment? Are you afraid the only alternative is being overly indulgent? With Positive Discipline, an encouragement model based on both kindness and firmness, you don't have to choose between these two extremes. Using these 49 Positive Discipline tools honed and perfected after years of real-world research and feedback, you'll be able to work with your children instead of against them.

From witnessing family members actions throughout the job and then becoming a public servant himself, The Salty Paramedic has developed a playbook that has worked for him to navigate this stressful career and balance home and work life to the best of his ability.

The refreshingly original and “startlingly hopeful” (Lisa Taddeo) debut memoir of an over-achieving young lawyer who reluctantly agrees to group therapy and gets psychologically and emotionally naked in a room of six complete strangers - and finds human connection, and herself.

Men Chase, Women Choose is the first book to offer cutting-edge research that explains how the brain works when two people first meet, start to date, fall in love, and then move into real long-term love. Maslar's unique approach brings together the latest and most relevant neurological, physiological, and biochemical research on the science of love while incorporating stories and examples of composite characters based on participants of her popular classes and seminars.