The Best Social Scientists & Psychologists Biographies & Memoirs 2024

1. Confessions of a Former Child : A Therapist's Memoir, Used [Paperback]

A hilarious and perceptive examination of the mysteries of childhood and the perils of parenthood From August 1956 through April 1961 I controlled the traffic and streetlights in New York City and northern New Jersey. It was a daunting task for a five-year-old, but by the summer of '56 I realized I had a responsibility I could not ignore. My identity and my mission were top secret. With the exception of terse, encrypted communications to the National Security Council and the CIA, I couldn't breathe a word. In Confessions of a Former Child , Daniel J. Tomasulo chronicles and confesses his childhood delusions, his particularly challenging experiences as a parent, and his life as a psychologist. His memories of being a kid--controlling streetlights, avoiding any foods with seeds lest he get pregnant, enduring his mother's cold love--are vivid, and his life as a parent is riddled with dilemmas. To start, he finds himself locked in a rubber-walled hospital room while his wife is in labor, and later he faces the necessity of giving mouth-to-mouth to his daughter's suffocating Raggedy Ann doll. As a professional who specializes in the highly personal, he traces the unusual and illuminating connections between his own life and evocative scenes from the lives of his patients. With refreshing candor and laugh-out-loud humor, Tomasulo explores the elusive magic of childhood, the complications of parent-child relationships, and the lasting significance of the everyday.

Confessions of a Former Child : A Therapist's Memoir, Used [Paperback]

2. Alfred C. Kinsey: A Life [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Drawing upon never before disclosed facts about Kinsey's childhood, Jones traces the roots of Kinsey's scholarly interest in human sexuality to his tortured upbringing. Between the sexual tensions of the culture and Kinsey's devoutly religious family, Jones depicts Kinsey emerging from childhood with psychological trauma but determined to rescue humanity from the emotional and sexual repression he had suffered. New facts about his marriage, family life, and relationships with students and colleagues enrich this portrait of the complicated, troubled man who transformed the state of public discourse on human sexuality.

Alfred C Kinsey a Life, Used [Paperback]

3. The Education of David Stockman [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. Uses interviews with then budget director David Stockman to depict the implementation of President Reagan's economic policies and describes the effect of the original article

The Education of David Stockman, Used [Paperback]

4. Worldly Economists, Used [Hardcover]

Worldly Economists by Robert Sobel

Worldly Economists, Used [Hardcover]

5. R. D. Laing & anti-psychiatry (Perennial library, P 229) [Paperback - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. R. D. Laing & anti-psychiatry (Perennial library, P 229) by Boyers, Robert

R. D. Laing & anti-psychiatry (Perennial library, P 229), Used [Paperback]

6. The Great Psychologists (5th Edition) [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. The Great Psychologists (5th Edition)

The Great Psychologists (5th Edition), Used [Hardcover]

7. Contemporary Psychoanalysis in America: Leading Analysts Present Their Work [Hardcover - Used]

CONDITION - USED - Pages can include limited notes and highlighting, and the copy can include "From the library of" labels or previous owner inscriptions. Accessories such as CD, codes, toys, may not be included. This book is a unique and superb gateway to current psychoanalytic thinking. Thirty of America's foremost psychoanalysts -- leaders in defining the current pluralistic state of the profession -- have each presented what they consider to be their most significant contribution to the field. No mere anthology, these are the key writings that underlie current discussions of psychoanalytic theory and technique. The chapters cover contemporary ideas of intersubjectivity, object relations theory, self psychology, relational psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, clinical technique, changing concepts of unconscious, empirical research, infant observation, gender and sexuality, and more. While the differences in point of view are profound, there is also a striking coherence on some core issues. Each of the contributions features an introduction by the volume editor and a note by the author explaining the rationale for its selection. The brilliant introduction by Peter Fonagy provides an overview and places each author in the context of contemporary psychoanalysis. A list of the authors may convey the astonishing breadth of this volume: Brenner, Bromberg, Busch, Chodorow, Cooper, Emde, Friedman, Gabbard, Goldberg, Greenberg, Grossman, Hoffman, Jacobs, Kantrowitz, Kernberg, Levenson, Luborsky, Michels, Ogden, Ornstein, Person, Pine, Renik, Schafer, Schwaber, Shapiro, Smith, Stern, Stolorow, Wallerstein This is a "best of the best" volume -- cutting-edge writing, highly accessible and studded with vivid clinical illustrations. Anyone wishing to acquire a comprehensive, authoritative, readily accessible -- even entertaining -- guide to American psychoanalytic thinking will find their goal fulfilled in this monumental collection.

Contemporary Psychoanalysis in America: Leading Analysts Present Their Work [Hardcover - Used]

8. Bourdieu : Critical Perspectives, Used [Hardcover]

Long a dominant figure in the French human sciences, Pierre Bourdieu has become internationally influential in the fields of sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies. A major figure in the development of "practice" as an organizing concept in social research, Bourdieu has emerged as the foremost advocate of reflexive social science; his work combines an astonishing range of empirical work with highly sophisticated theory. American reception of his works, however, has lacked a full understanding of their place within the broad context of French human science. His individual works separated by distinct boundaries between social science fields in American academia, Bourdieu's cohesive thought has come to this country in fragments. "Bourdieu: Critical Perspectives" provides a unified and balanced appraisal of Bourdieu's varied works by both proponents and skeptics. The essays are written from the varied viewpoints of cultural anthropology, ethnomethodology and other varieties of sociology, existential and Wittgensteinian philosophies, linguistics, media studies, and feminism. They work around three main themes: Bourdieu's effort to transcend gaps between practical knowledge and universal structures, his central concept of "reflexivity," and the relations between social structure, systems of classification, and language. Ultimately, the contributors raise a variety of crucial theoretical questions and address problems that are important not only to understanding Bourdieu but to advancing empirical work of the kind he has pioneered. In an essay written especially for this volume, Bourdieu describes his own "mode of intellectual production" and the reasons he sees for its common misunderstanding. The contributors are Hubert Dreyfus, Paul Rabinow, Charles Taylor, Aaron Cicourel, James Collins, William Hanks, Beate Krais, Nicholas Garnham, Scott Lash, Roger Brubaker, and Loic Wacquant, and the editors.

Bourdieu : Critical Perspectives, Used [Hardcover]

9. Crazy: Notes on and Off the Couch, Used [Paperback]

An average day in the life of a psychologist can be a frenetic one. A 9 a.m. appointment to help a woman manage a husband who won't take out the garbage quickly shifts to a session with a convicted rapist at 10 a.m. After talking with a child an hour later about his fears of school, the psychologist meets his therapist to deal with his own fears, followed by lunch with a socially-phobic colleague who's already had four martinis by 1 p.m. And it's only Monday. At turns hilarious and heartbreaking, thoughtful and irreverent, Crazy is the incredibly honest and insightful story of how one mental health professional deals with his own personal problems and those of the people he treats. Part expos , part memoir, it reveals what therapists really think about their profession, their colleagues, their patients, and their own lives.

Crazy : Notes on and off the Couch, Used [Paperback]

10. Marx's General : The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, Used [Hardcover]

A remarkable new biography from one of Britain's leading young historians, "Marx's General" recovers the co-founder of Communism, Friedrich Engels, from the shadows of history and restores this major figure to full importance.

Marx's General : The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels, Used [Hardcover]