Health Sociology

Em Farrell is a psychotherapist with many years of experience working with eating disorders. She originally set up a center for women with eating problems in London and used CBT and massage to help them. This book takes you deep into the troubled mind and body of an anorexic. It explains why anorexia occurs, what it does to the mind and body of the sufferer and how they can recover. It will benefit parents, friends, partners of anorexics and sufferers themselves, if they want to change.

The national best seller that defines a new economic class and shows how it is key to the future of our cities. The Rise of the Creative Class gives us a provocative new way to think about why we live as we do today - and where we might be headed. Weaving storytelling with masses of new and updated research, Richard Florida traces the fundamental theme that runs through a host of seemingly unrelated changes in American society: the growing role of creativity in our economy.

The different ways that social change happens, from unleashing to nudging to social cascades. How does social change happen? When do social movements take off? Sexual harassment was once something that women had to endure; now a movement has risen up against it. White nationalist sentiments, on the other hand, were largely kept out of mainstream discourse; now there is no shortage of media outlets for them. In this book, with the help of behavioral economics, psychology and other fields, Cass Sunstein casts a bright new light on how change happens.

Parker describes the discovery of tetrahydocannbinol (THC), the main psychoactive component of cannabis, and the further discovery of cannabinoid receptors in the brain. She explains that the brain produces chemicals similar to THC, which act on the same receptors as THC, and shows that the endocannabinoid system is involved in all aspects of brain functioning.

The desire for dignity is universal and powerful. It is a motivating force behind all human interaction - in families, in communities, in the business world, and in relationships at the international level. When dignity is violated, the response is likely to involve aggression, even violence, hatred, and vengeance. On the other hand, when people treat one another with dignity, they become more connected and are able to create more meaningful relationships.

This extraordinary book presents scenarios of one family's therapy experience and explains what underlies each encounter. You will discover the general patterns that are common to all families - stress, polarization and escalation, scapegoating, triangulation, blaming, and the diffusion of identity - and you will gain a vivid understanding of the intriguing field of family therapy.

UFOs are a myth, says David J. Halperin, but myths are real. The power and fascination of the UFO has nothing to do with space travel or life on other planets. It’s about us, our longings and terrors, especially the greatest terror of all: the end of our existence. This is a book about UFOs that goes beyond believing in them or debunking them, to a fresh understanding of what they tell us about ourselves as individuals, as a culture, as a species.

The founder of the international Transition Towns movement asks why true creative, positive thinking is in decline, asserts that it's more important now than ever, and suggests ways our communities can revive and reclaim it.

How did human societies scale up from small, tight-knit groups of hunter-gatherers to the large, anonymous, cooperative societies of today - even though anonymity is the enemy of cooperation? How did organized religions with "Big Gods" - the great monotheistic and polytheistic faiths - spread to colonize most minds in the world? In Big Gods, Ara Norenzayan makes the surprising and provocative argument that these fundamental puzzles about the origins of civilization are one and the same, and answer each other.

Every day, we make decisions on topics ranging from personal investments to schools for our children to the meals we eat to the causes we champion. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. The reason, the authors explain, is that, being human, we are all susceptible to various biases that can lead us to blunder. Our mistakes can make us poor and unhealthy. We often make bad decisions about education, personal finance, health care, family, and the environment.

For over 3,000 years, practitioners of Chinese medicine have known that food is health-giving. Now, path-breaking nutritionist Linda Prout synthesizes the basic principles of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) with the science of Western nutrition. With a clear focus to help listeners achieve balance, Prout introduces the concept of balance and describes the signs and symptoms of various patterns of imbalance from a TCM perspective.

When Kristin Meekhof lost her husband to cancer, she discovered what all widows learn: the moment you lose your partner, you must make crucial decisions that will impact the rest of your life. But where do you begin? This inspiring audiobook shows grieving widows what to expect and how to deal with the challenges of losing a life partner.

A landmark book by marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols on the remarkable effects of water on our health and well-being. Why are we drawn to the ocean each summer? Why does being near water set our minds and bodies at ease? In Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols revolutionizes how we think about these...

Inner speech, also known as self-talk, is distinct from ordinary language. It has several functions and structures, from everyday thinking and self-regulation to stream of consciousness and daydreaming. Inner Speech and the Dialogical Self provides a comprehensive analysis of this internal conversation that people have with themselves to think about problems, clarify goals and guide their way through life.

Norbert Wiley shrewdly emphasizes the semiotic and dialogical features of the inner speech, rather than the biological and neurological issues. He also examines people who lack control of their inner speech — such as some autistics and many emotionally disturbed people who use trial and error rather than self-control — to show the power and effectiveness of inner speech.

In recent years, we have gained unprecedented control over choices about our health. But these choices are hard and often full of psychological traps. As a result, we’re liable to misuse medication, fall for pseudoscientific cure-alls, and undergo needless procedures. In Your Life Depends on It, Talya Miron-Shatz explores the preventable ways we make bad choices about everything from nutrition to medication, from pregnancy to end-of-life care.

The search for hope is most urgent at the patient's bedside. The Anatomy of Hope takes us there, bringing us into the lives of people at pivotal moments when they reach for and find hope, or when it eludes their grasp. Through these intimate portraits, we learn how to distinguish true hope from false, why some people feel they are undeserving of it, and whether we should ever abandon our search.

Dr Kelsy Burke has spent the last five years researching and interviewing internet pornography’s opponents and its sympathizers. In The Pornography Wars, Burke does a deep dive into the long history of pornography in America and then turns her gaze on our present society to examine the ways this industry touches on the most intimate parts of American lives. She offers a complete understanding of the major players in the debates around porn's place in society.

For thousands of years, religion has woven its way through societies and people as if it were part and parcel to that society or person. In large measure it was left unexplained and unchallenged, it simply existed. Those who attempted to challenge and expose religion were often persecuted, excommunicated, shunned, or even executed. It could be fatal to explain that which the church, priest, or imam said was unexplainable. Before the germ, viral, and parasite theory of disease, physicians had no tools to understand disease and its propagation.

This fascinating book shares the real-life success stories of men of all ages who suffered from low testosterone for years before they finally consulted Dr. Joe Swartz. Dr. Joe asked the right questions, listened, and got the right tests before arriving at a treatment plan that worked to address the different causes of each man’s low testosterone.

There is currently an epidemic of 'affluenza' throughout the world - an obsessive, envious, keeping-up-with-the-Joneses - that has resulted in huge increases in depression and anxiety among millions. Over a nine-month period, bestselling author Oliver James travelled around the world to try and find out why. He discovered how, despite very different cultures and levels of wealth, affluenza is spreading.