Affect and Emotion

Our emotions and feelings are central to who we are and the quality of our lives. Some people manage by denying or getting rid of their feelings, some cannot control their emotions, and others seem unable to feel very much at all. This book shows how psychoanalysis can illuminate the emotional and affective aspects of our beings. Using everyday examples, Graham Music describes the ways in which p…

Anxiety

Anxiety is a feeling that is familiar to all of us. But what exactly is it, and what function does it have in the development of the human personality? Anxiety serves as a signal that danger in some form is present. However, this danger may be perceived as arising from external or internal sources, and may be the conscious symptom of a variety of powerful fantasies in the unconscious mind. Ricky …

Castration

From fashion to football, in our dreams and epiphanies, through jealous rages and moments of genius, the effects of castration anxiety, so claims Ivan Ward, are ever-present. Freud's famous 'castration complex' is met with continually in analytic experience. Yet it seems an unbelievable idea. Taking his evidence from myth, clinical practice and the sexual theories of children, Freud esta…

Chomsky and Globalisation

  THIS BOOK IS CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK. Please email info@iconbooks.co.uk if you would like more information. Noam Chomsky, the 'Einstein of modern linguistics', is equally well- known as an uncompromising political dissident and social critic. This book summarises Chomsky's recently published views on Globalization and the New world Order. His position is an unusual one. Where Global Free …

Darwin and Fundamentalism

Darwin's Origin of Species is undoubtedly one of the most important books in the scientific pantheon. But can we take Darwin's theory of evolution as a confirmed scientific fact? Contrary to myth, the famed Scopes 'Monkey Trials' of 1925 failed to establish the truth of science and the falsehood of creationism. Biblical literalism has now returned with renewed vigour in the guise of 'creation scie…

Dawkins and the Selfish Gene

  THIS BOOK IS CURRENTLY OUT OF STOCK. Please email info@iconbooks.co.uk if you would like more information. The biologist Richard Dawkins is renowned for his theory of 'the selfish gene'. But what does this theory really say, and why do so many people object to it? In this thought-provoking book, Ed Sexton explains Dawkins' ideas and shows how they have been widely misunderstood. By separ…

Depression

Most of the time most of us feel mostly OK. Yet depression is now recognised as the commonest cause of disability and death of any disease. How can we understand this epidemic of human misery, and in what ways can psychotherapy contribute to our knowledge of its causes and treatment? This essay looks at a range of psychotherapies - cognitive, systemic and psychoanalytic - and their contributions …

Envy

Branded as one of the seven deadly sins and the reason in Christian mythology for Satan's fall from grace, envy is endemic in modern life. Although recognised as a pivotal state of mind centuries before psychoanalysis, in contemporary times it has been fostered relentlessly through advertising and the media. No wonder then, that in the new millennium it has reached crisis proportions. Many psycho…

Eros

Sex can be some of the best and worst of what happens between people - from love affairs to paedophilia. So how are we to understand sexual excitement and its relationship to love and concern? Freud gave the name Eros to his concept of the Life Instinct - the drive to endure and procreate. At best, imaginative activity, sexual desire and love all involve a multitude of connections within and betw…