Showing results by publisher "W. F. Howes Ltd" in Psychology

Self-delusion expert and psychology nerd David McRaney sets out to discover not just what it takes to influence others, but why we believe in the first place. Along the way he meets a former Westboro Baptist Church member who was deradicalised on Twitter, goes deep canvassing to see how quickly people will surrender their character-defining views, finds a 9/11 Truther who turns his back on it all, and reveals how, within a few years, half a country can go from opposing the ‘gay agenda' to happily attending same-sex weddings.

In this bestselling psychology book, leading relationship and marriage therapist Robin Norwood reveals why we get into unhealthy relationships and how powerfully addictive they are—and shares her effective framework for finding and sustaining love.

The Courage to Be Happy presents profound insights into living life courageously and finding happiness along the way. It has already sold more than a million copies in Japan and is a sequel to The Courage to Be Disliked, which has changed lives across the globe as an international best-selling sensation. As in The Courage to Be Disliked, we follow a Socratic dialogue between a philosopher and a young man. 

By age 30, Stephanie Foo was successful on paper: she had her dream job as an award-winning radio producer at This American Life and a loving boyfriend. But behind her office door, she was having panic attacks and sobbing at her desk every morning. After years of questioning what was wrong with herself, she was diagnosed with complex PTSD—a condition that occurs when trauma happens continuously, over the course of years. 

In teenagers, powerful emotions are the rule, not the exception. Unfortunately, many of today's parents now regard their teens' negative feelings as disruptive, dangerous, or diagnosable, thanks to the rise of the wellness industry and the widespread use of psychotropic drugs. To make matters worse, the global pandemic, academic pressure, social media stress, and a bleak environmental future have left today's teenagers feeling overwhelmed. This book gives parents the science-based information they need to guide their teens through a challenging developmental phase during challenging times.

Why does one smoker die of lung cancer but another live to 100? The answer is 'The Hidden Half' - those random, unknowable variables that mess up our attempts to comprehend the world. We humans are very clever creatures - but we're idiots about how clever we really are. In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result - from GDP figures to medicine - is that experts know a lot less than they think.

Challenging the listener to take control and to stop hiding behind excuses for a bad night's sleep, neurologist W. Chris Winter explains the basic, often counterintuitive rules of sleep science. Dr Winter explores revolutionary findings, including surprising solutions for insomnia and other sleep disturbances, empowering listeners to stop taking sleeping pills and enjoy the best sleep of their lives.

What if I were to tell you that a psychopathic arsonist might also be the person most likely to save you from a burning building? This book is about a special kind of persuasion: 'flipnosis'. It has an incubation period of just seconds and can instantly disarm even the most discerning mind. Flipnosis is black-belt mind control. It doesn't just turn the tables; it kicks them over.

Our brain is recreating the world in its own way—most of the time for our own good: how hard would it be if, before making a choice, we had to know about all the options available in a given situation? Luckily, our brain can estimate: it allows us to reconstruct the world as we know it, and live in it. However, these very useful mechanisms can sometimes mislead us and have a rather negative impact on our actions, beliefs and opinions: when our brain behaves that way, we say it is biased. Albert Moukheiber gives us tips and tricks to fight against these cognitive biases.

The controversial science that claims to have revolutionised economics. For centuries, economics was dominated by the idea that we are rational individuals who optimise our own ‘utility’. Then, in the 1970s, psychologists demonstrated that the reality is a lot messier. We don’t really know what our utility is, and we care about people other than ourselves. We are susceptible to external nudges. And far from being perfectly rational, we are prone to ‘cognitive biases’ with complex effects on decision-making, such as forgetting to prepare for retirement. 

Brain Power will explain the science behind what really affects our brains, as well as providing practical tips and exercises to improve and maintain brain function into old age. An essential guide for living better for longer. Packed full of exercises and practical tips to keep our most vital organ in shape, and breaking down the science between brain function and how sleep, exercise, diet and even socializing are imperative for maintaining our grey matter.

It's New Year's Eve of 1999 when four teenagers working late are attacked at a Blockbuster video store in New Jersey. Only one inexplicably survives. Police quickly identify a suspect, the boyfriend of one of the victims, who flees and is never seen again. Fifteen years later, four more teenagers are attacked at an ice cream store in the same town, and again only one makes it out alive. In the aftermath of the latest crime, three lives intersect: the lone survivor of the Blockbuster massacre, the brother of the fugitive accused and FBI agent Sarah Keller.

Many of us believe that the best way to treat crises and challenges is to process them: to mull over and analyse the stresses, anxieties and traumas we face. But this perception is misguided. Instead, we should think of our mind as a sieve through which everything slips unless we choose to hold on to it. But how do we let go of those negative thoughts we’ve held on to which are weighing us down? 

In Britain alone, more than 20 per cent of the adult population take a psychiatric drug in any one year. This is an increase of over 500 per cent since 1980 and the numbers continue to grow. Yet, despite this prescription epidemic, levels of mental illness of all types have actually increased in number and severity. Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem.

In this captivating fusion of science and personal memoir, writer David Adam explores the weird thoughts that exist within every mind. David has suffered from OCD for twenty years, and The Man Who Couldn’t Stop is his honest attempt to understand the condition. At what point does a harmless idea become a blinding blizzard of unwanted thoughts? Drawing on the latest research on the brain, as well as historical accounts of patients and their treatments, this is an audiobook that will challenge the way you think.

The Self Illusion provides a fascinating examination of how the latest science shows that our individual concept of a self is in fact an illusion. Most of us believe that we possess a self - an internal individual who resides inside our bodies, making decisions, authoring actions and possessing free will. The feeling that a single, unified, enduring self inhabits the body is compelling and inescapable. But that sovereignty of the self is increasingly under threat from science as our understanding of the brain advances.

Spotting a face in a crowd is so easy, you take it for granted. But how you do it is one of science's great mysteries. And vision is involved with so much of everything your brain does. Explaining how it works reveals more than just how you see. In We Know It When We See It, Harvard neuroscientist Richard Masland tackles vital questions about how the brain processes information - how it perceives, learns and remembers - through a careful study of the inner life of the eye.

Humans are often fearful of the day the world will be ruled by machines, but have they not already taken over? The average person spends 4-5 hours a day on their phone, about a third of the time they are awake. We self-interrupt our work and social lives, forgo sleep, procrastinate important tasks and opt for digital distraction when we're bored or feel uncomfortable. NHS neurology doctor and neuroscientist Faye Begeti describes what is happening in our brain when we use our phones and why we have formed so many fixed and negative habits around them.

Until very recently, scientists believed our brains were fully developed in childhood. Now, thanks to imaging technology, we know that the brain goes on developing and changing right through adolescence into adulthood. So, what makes the adolescent brain different? Why does an easy child become a challenging teenager? And why is it that many mental illnesses begin during these formative years? Drawing upon her cutting-edge research, award-winning neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explains how adolescence is fundamental to how we invent ourselves.

Our ability to make choices is fundamental to our sense of ourselves as human beings and essential to the political values of freedom-protecting nations. Whom we love; where we work; how we spend our time; what we buy: such choices define us in the eyes of ourselves and others, and much blood and ink has been spilt to establish and protect our rights to make them freely. Choice can also be a burden. Our cognitive capacity to research and make the best decisions is limited, so every active choice comes at a cost.