Mental Health Science

Based on a far-reaching study of thousands of individuals, Finding Flow contends that we often walk through our days unaware of and out of touch with our emotional lives. Our inattention makes us constantly bounce between two extremes: During much of the day, we live filled with the anxiety and pressures of our work and obligations, and during our leisure moments, we tend to live in passive boredom.

By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on the important ones and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make.

We live in a time of vast changes that include accelerating globalization, mounting quantities of information, the growing hegemony of science and technology, and the clash of civilizations. Those changes call for new ways of learning and thinking in school, business, and the professions. Listen as psychologist Howard Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead.

Status signaling isn’t just the province of the immature or insecure but a fundamental human need to secure social standing. It drives our behavior, forms our tastes, determines what we buy, and ultimately shapes who we are. It’s what’s behind “cool” and what drives fashion, music, food, sports, slang, travel, hairstyles, and dog breeds—and even the outsize influence of unpopular things with the “right” audience.

Most people, including many policy makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers, have encouraged us to be more empathetic - to feel the pain and pleasure of others. Yale researcher and author Paul Bloom argues that this is a mistake. Far from leading us to improve the lives of others, empathy is a capricious and irrational emotion that appeals to our narrow prejudices. It muddles our judgment and often leads to cruelty. We are at our best when we are smart enough not to rely on it and draw upon a more distanced compassion.

From the author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller The Female Brain, here is the eagerly awaited follow-up book that demystifies the puzzling male brain.

Dr. Louann Brizendine, the founder of the first clinic in the country to study gender differences in brain, behavior, and hormones, turns her attention to the male brain, showing how, through every phase of life, the "male reality" is fundamentally different from the female one. Exploring the latest breakthroughs in male psychology and neurology with her trademark accessibility and candor, she reveals that the male brain:

*is a lean, mean, problem-solving machine. Faced with a personal problem, a man will use his analytical brain structures, not his emotional ones, to find a solution.

*thrives under competition, instinctively plays rough and is obsessed with rank and hierarchy.

*has an area for sexual pursuit that is 2.5 times larger than the female brain, consuming him with sexual fantasies about female body parts.

*experiences such a massive increase in testosterone at puberty that he perceive others' faces to be more aggressive.


The Male Brain finally overturns the stereotypes. Impeccably researched and at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, this is a book that every man, and especially every woman bedeviled by a man, will need to own.

Praise for The Female Brain:
"Louann Brizendine has done a great favor for every man who wants to understand the puzzling women in his life. A breezy and enlightening guide to women and a must-read for men."
—Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence






From the Hardcover edition.

There's nothing more frustrating than watching your bright, talented son or daughter struggle with everyday tasks like finishing homework, putting away toys, or following instructions at school. Your "smart but scattered" child might also have trouble coping with disappointment or managing anger. Drs. Peg Dawson and Richard Guare have great news: There's a lot you can do to help.

Does your dog get sad when you leave for the day? Does your cat purr because she loves you? Do bears attack when they’re angry? You can’t very well ask them. In fact, scientists haven’t been able to reach a consensus on whether animals even have emotions like humans do, let alone how to study them. Yet studies of animal emotion are critical for understanding human emotion and mental illness. In The Nature of the Beast, pioneering neuroscientist David J. Anderson describes a new approach to solving this problem.

Your guide to the emotions of pregnancy and early motherhood, from two of America’s top reproductive psychiatrists. With a combined 30 years of counseling new and expectant mothers, Dr. Sacks and Dr. Birndorf have seen firsthand how the pressure to be perfect, and perfectly happy, leaves women feeling confused and even ashamed of the emotions that can bubble up during pregnancy. Now, in What No One Tells You, the two psychiatrists show why it’s natural for “matrescence” - the birth of a mother - to be as stressful and transformative a period as adolescence.

The Ketamine Papers opens the door to a broad understanding of this medicine’s growing use in psychiatry and its decades of history providing transformative personal experiences.

Dr. Brian Goldman always believed that caring came naturally to physicians but over time was left wondering if he might not be the same caring doctor he was at the beginning of his career. The Power of Kindness takes us far from the theatre of medicine and into the world at large and investigates why kindness is so vital to our existence.

In Bodies That Matter, renowned theorist and philosopher Judith Butler argues that theories of gender need to return to the most material dimension of sex and sexuality: the body. Butler offers a brilliant reworking of the body, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain sex from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex.

How to learn effectively when you have to be both the teacher and student. Work smarter and save yourself countless hours. Self-learning is not just about performing better in the classroom or the office. It’s about being able to aim your life in whatever direction you choose and conquering the obstacles in front of you.

Americans precede anything negative with three nice comments; French, Dutch, Israelis, and Germans get straight to the point; Latin Americans and Asians are steeped in hierarchy; Scandinavians think the best boss is just one of the crowd. It's no surprise that when they try and talk to each other, chaos breaks out. In The Culture Map, INSEAD professor Erin Meyer is your guide through this subtle, sometimes treacherous terrain in which people from starkly different backgrounds are expected to work harmoniously together.

"Ninety-five days, and then I'll be safe. I wonder whether the procedure will hurt. I want to get it over with. It's hard to be patient. It's hard not to be afraid while I'm still uncured, though so far the deliria hasn't touched me yet. Still, I worry. They say that in the old days, love drove people to madness. The deadliest of all deadly things: It kills you both when you have it and when you don't."

Contrary to popular belief, our predecessors had all sorts of obscene hobbies long before Christian Grey hit the scene. In this enlightening romp, learn about the first instances of homosexuality on record from the ancient world and the diverse history of nonbinary gender; encounter a thousand years’ worth of hilarious and horrifying contraceptive methods; consider the positive and negative effects of the widespread availability of pornography in the digital age; and more.

Half-angel Trinity and her bonded gargoyle protector, Zayne, have been working with demons to stop the apocalypse while avoiding falling in love. The Harbinger is coming…but who or what is it? All of humankind may fall if Trinity and Zayne can’t win the race against time as sinister forces gather. As tensions rise, they must stay close together and patrol the DC streets at night, seeking signs of the Harbinger, an entity that is killing Wardens and demons with no seeming rhyme or reason.

In the New York Times bestseller Brain Rules, Dr. John Medina, a molecular biologist, shares his lifelong interest in how the brain sciences might influence the way we teach our children and the way we work. In each chapter, he describes a brain rule - what scientists know for sure about how our brains work - and then offers transformative ideas for our daily lives. Medina’s fascinating stories and infectious sense of humor breathe life into brain science.

Have you ever wondered why you have a brain? Let renowned neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett demystify that big gray blob between your ears. In seven short essays (plus a bite-sized story about how brains evolved), this slim, entertaining, and accessible collection reveals mind-expanding lessons from the front lines of neuroscience research. You'll learn where brains came from, how they're structured (and why it matters), and how yours works in tandem with other brains to create everything you experience.

In I Used to Be a Miserable F*ck, Kim delivers the dos and don’ts for stepping up and into manhood, which he defines by transparency and strength of character, not six-pack abs or a corner office. With his signature no-nonsense approach that will make you laugh and think, Kim takes you on a rugged, rough-and-tumble road trip of self-exploration and discovery, sharing his wisdom and insights.