Psychology Memoirs

In February of 1973, Nancy Weber put an ad in the Village Voice offering to trade places with another woman, a stranger, for a month. In hopes of better understanding what was fixed and final in each person - and what was invented, and therefore might be reinvented - they would use each other's names, live in each other's homes, love each other's loves, and do each other's work.

Ted Hughes married Sylvia Plath in 1956, at the outset of their brilliant careers. Plath's suicide six-and-a-half years later, for which many held Hughes accountable, changed his life, his closest relationships, his standing in the literary world, and brought new significance to his poetry.

Simpler government arrived four years ago. It helped put money in your pocket. It saved hours of your time. It improved your children's diet, lengthened your life span, and benefited businesses large and small. It did so by issuing fewer regulations, by insisting on smarter regulations, and by eliminating or improving old regulations. Cass R. Sunstein, as administrator of the most powerful White House office you never heard of, oversaw it and explains how it works, why government will never be the same again (thank goodness), and what must happen in the future. Cutting-edge research in behavioral economics has influenced business and politics.

Texas girl Babe Didrikson never tried a sport too tough and never met a hurdle too high. Despite attempts to keep women from competing, Babe achieved All-American status in basketball and won gold medals in track and field at the 1932 Olympics. Then, Babe attempted to conquer golf. One of the founders of the LPGA, Babe won more consecutive tournaments than any golfer in history. But at the height of her fame, she was diagnosed with cancer. Babe would then take her most daring step of all....

The author describes in detail all the insanity, disturbing behaviors, oppressive symptoms, and various feeling associated with the mental battles within her own mind. The author suffers from clinical depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, and borderline personality disorder. She struggles with suicidal thoughts and attempts, self-mutilating behaviors, mania, paranoia, anxiety, and psychosis with intense hallucinations of all five of her senses, and multiple delusions, including the belief that she is the "second-coming of Christ".

'If you carry on like this, you'll do nothing but play football and cricket all your life.' These were the exasperated words of Mike Brearley's mother, as he once again trod mud into the family home after a long day playing outdoors. They were also an unwitting but half-accurate prediction, for Brearley would become one of the most successful sportsmen of his generation by playing cricket for Cambridge, Middlesex and then becoming one of England's finest captains. But for Brearley, cricket wasn't just a physical activity, it was also an intellectual game.

A un passo dalla felicità, il vivido resoconto di Merkin su che cosa significhi soffrire di depressione clinica, cattura questa strana luce e, attraverso una coraggiosa sequenza di ricordi, ripercorre la vita dell'autrice, dall'infanzia in un numeroso clan che colpiva "l'attenzione altrui come una famiglia di potenziali vincenti, favorita dai soldi e dalla spina dorsale di una tradizione familiare ebraica ortodossa", all'età adulta, con una figlia e un lavoro che la consacra fine intellettuale.

When Alex Stone was five years old, his father bought him a magic kit - a gift that would spark a lifelong love. Years later, while living in New York City, he discovered a vibrant underground magic scene exploding with creativity and innovation and populated by a fascinating cast of characters: from his gruff mentor, who holds court in the back of a rundown pizza shop, to one of the world's greatest card cheats, who also happens to be blind. Captivated, he plunged headlong into this mysterious world.

If the universe, Buddha, Jesus, God, or whatever your religion came together to get this book into your hands, your understanding of the complex world of mental illness will be more advanced, so congratulations! Any person, regardless of their religion, nationality, color, or economic power is subject to this disease or its different symptoms and can also fall into the mistake of believing that absurd, erroneous behaviors, or those that are outside of what is socially accepted, are part of the personality.

From battling a devastating childhood illness to unearthing untold trauma, this healing memoir is one of resilience and transformation.

On June 9, 2008, the butchered body of Travis Alexander was found in his Mesa, Arizona, home. The grisly nature of his death made instant headlines: With 29 knife wounds, his throat slit, and a gunshot to the head, Travis was left to die. The prime suspect in the case was Alexander's ex-girlfriend, the attractive and soft-spoken Jodi Arias. Though Arias initially said that she was nowhere near the scene of crime, little about this case was as it seemed, and before long she had been caught lying to police. As the investigation progressed, her lies evolved multiple times before finally resting on an appalling claim: She had killed Travis in self-defense.

With the nation gripped by Love Island fever, the show's most popular contestant ever shares his unique take on the world in an audiobook that will be hilarious, endearing, heartfelt and as lovable as its author. Chris Hughes walked away from the sizzling hot, smash hit show Love Island as its biggest star. Viewers fell in love with this cheeky, happy-go-lucky guy who surprised people by being unafraid to show his vulnerable side just as readily as having a laugh with his mates in the sun.

At fifteen years old, Daphne Scholinski was committed to a mental institution and awarded the dubious diagnosis of Gender Identity Disorder. For three years and more than a million dollars of insurance, the problem was “treated”—with makeup lessons and instructions in how to walk like a girl. With a new epilogue by Scholinski, whose name is now Dylan and who identifies as nonbinary, this revised edition of The Last Time I Wore a Dress looks back at those experiences and their life since.

Late one night, while Rebecca Fogg was alone in her apartment, her hand was partially amputated in an explosion. Quick thinking saved her life, but the journey to recovery would be a slow one. As the doctors rebuilt her hand, Rebecca (who also survived 9/11) began rebuilding her sense of self by studying the physical and psychological process of recovery.

Marcie was desperate to find out what was wrong with her. The constant depression with antidepressants and tranquilizers since the age of twelve; too many suicide attempts to count; migraines that caused her to hit her head against the wall; lost time she could not remember; and numerous psychiatrists, but no answers. There had to be an answer.

Biographers, journalists, and satirists have long used the subject of sex to define the masculine character and political authority of America's Founding Fathers. Tracing these commentaries on the Revolutionary Era's major political figures in Sex and the Founding Fathers, Thomas Foster shows how continual attempts to reveal the true character of these men instead exposes much more about Americans and American culture than about the Founders themselves.

Babes in the Wood by Graham Bartlett with Peter James takes us to the heart of a murder case that shocked the nation. Both gripping police procedural and an insight into the motivations of a truly evil man, it is a unique account of what became a 32 year fight for justice. On 9 October 1986, nine-year-olds Nicola Fellows and Karen Hadaway went out to play on their Brighton estate. They would never return home, their bodies discovered the next day concealed in a small clearing in a local park. This devastating crime rocked their close-knit community and the whole country.

At the age of 27, married, living in New York, and working in book design, Mary Cregan gives birth to her first child, a daughter she names Anna. But it’s apparent that something is terribly wrong, and two days later, Anna dies - plunging Cregan into suicidal despair. Decades later, sustained by her work, a second marriage, and a son, Cregan reflects on this pivotal experience and attempts to make sense of it. She weaves together literature and research with details from her own ordeal - and the still visible scar of her suicide attempt....

There are many myths about serial killers: that they are all dysfunctional loners; all white males; only motivated by sex; that they all travel and operate across a wide area; cannot stop killing; are all insane, or evil geniuses; and that they all want to get caught. Of course, there are some serial killers who fit into these categories, but the married Green River Killer was not a dysfunctional loner; there are plenty of female and non-Caucasian serial killers, Dr Harold Shipman was certainly not motivated by sex; and many serial killings (such as the Ipswich prostitute murders carried out by Steve Wright) happen within a confined area.

The Thunderbird Motel, 1977. J. J. Wedick and Jack Brennan - two fresh-faced, maverick FBI agents - were about to embark on one of their agency's first wire-wearing undercover missions. Their target? Charismatic, globetrotting con man Phil Kitzer, whom some called the world's greatest swindler. From the Thunderbird, the three men took off to Cleveland, to Miami, to Hawaii, to Frankfurt, to the Bahamas - meeting other members of Kitzer's crime syndicate and powerful politicians and businessmen he fooled at each stop.