Psychology - Recent Titles from Ohio University Press

Disarming Manhood

Tue, 31 May 2005

Disarming Manhood (2005)
Roots of Ethical Resistance

By David A. J. Richards

Masculine codes of honor and dominance often are expressed in acts of violence, including war and terrorism. In Disarming Manhood: Roots of Ethical Resistance, David A. J. Richards examines the lives of five famous men—great leaders and crusaders—who actively resisted violence and presented more humane alternatives to further their causes.

Richards argues that William Lloyd Garrison, Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas Gandhi, Winston Churchill, and Martin Luther King Jr. shared a psychology whose nonviolent roots were deeply influenced by a loving, maternalistic ethos. Drawing upon psychology, history, political theory, and literature, Richards traces a connection between these leaders and the maternal figures who profoundly shaped their responses to conflict, often on the basis of an original interpretation of the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

The voice of nonviolent masculinity has empowered ethical transformations, including civil disobedience in South Africa, India, and the United States. Disarming Manhood demonstrates that as Garrison, Tolstoy, Gandhi, Churchill, and King carried out their various missions, they were galvanized by teachings whose ethical foundations rejected unjust violence. Accessibly written and free of jargon, Disarming Manhood will interest a wide audience as it furthers the understanding of human nature itself and contributes to the fields of developmental psychology and feminist scholarship.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Disarming+Manhood.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Subjects on Display

Fri, 23 Apr 2004

Subjects on Display (2004)
Psychoanalysis, Social Expectation, and Victorian Femininity

By Beth Newman

Subjects on Display explores a recurrent figure at the heart of many nineteenth-century English novels: the retiring, self-effacing woman who is conspicuous for her inconspicuousness. Beth Newman draws upon both psychoanalytic theory and recent work in social history as she argues that this paradoxical figure, who often triumphs over more dazzling, eye-catching rivals, is a response to the forces that made personal display a vexed issue for Victorian women. Chief among these is the changing socioeconomic landscape that made the ideal of the modest woman outlive its usefulness as a class signifier even as it continued to exert moral authority.

This problem cannot be grasped in its full complexity, Newman shows, without considering how the unstable social meanings of display interacted with psychical forces-specifically, the desire to be seen by others that is central to both masculine and feminine subjectivity. This desire raises an issue that feminist theorists have been reluctant to address: the importance of pleasure in being the object of the look. Their reluctance is characteristic of cultural theory, which has tended to equate subjectivity with the position of the observer rather than the observed.

Through a consideration of fiction by Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, and Henry James, Newman shifts the inquiry toward the observed in the experience of being seen. In the process she reopens the question of the gaze and its relation to subjectivity.

Subjects on Display will appeal to scholars and students in several disciplines as it returns psychoanalysis to a central position within literary and cultural studies.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Subjects+on+Display.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Aquamarine Blue 5

Sat, 30 Nov 2002

Aquamarine Blue 5 (2002)
Personal Stories of College Students with Autism

By Dawn Prince-Hughes

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Aquamarine+Blue+5.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Man’s Soul

Fri, 01 Jan 1993

Man’s Soul (1993)
An Introductory Essay in Philosophical Psychology

By S.L. Frank

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Man%E2%80%99s+Soul.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Faces in the Revolution

Wed, 01 Jan 1992

Faces in the Revolution (1992)
The Psychological Effects of Violence on Township Youth in South Africa

By Gill Straker

One of South Africa’s most serious problems is the large number of youths in the black townships who have been exposed to an incredible depth and complexity of trauma. Not only have they lived through severe poverty, the deterioration of family and social structures, and an inferior education system, but they have also been involved in catastrophic levels of violence, both as victims and as perpetrators. What are the effects of the milieu? What future is there for this generation? Above all, who are they?

In the mid-1980s Gill Straker, Professor of Psychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, was called in by the South African Council of Churches as part of a counseling team to provide therapeutic services for a group of young blacks who had been driven out of their township by vigilantes. Their lives had been threatened, and many had participated in various forms of violence – stoning of vehicles, burning of houses belonging to local counselors, some even taking part in “necklacing.”

This counseling experience, together with a follow-up study of the same group three years later, is the basis of Gill Straker’s book, Faces in the Revolution, a fascinating psychological profile of the youngsters involved. In her moving and highly readable account, she penetrates beyond the media-generated stereotype of township youth as a brutalized generation, showing instead the processes that motivate the leaders, the conformists and the psychological casualties of the civil war that has raged in South Africa’s townships. Faces in the Revolution will bring a great deal of clarity to concerned readers seeking informed insight into the lives of the young black people at the forefront of this undeclared war.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Faces+in+the+Revolution.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

The Wounded Woman

Fri, 01 Jan 1982

The Wounded Woman (1982)
Healing the Father-Daughter Relationship

By Linda Schierse Leonard

This book is an invaluable key to self-understanding. Using examples from her own life and those of her clients, as well as from dreams, fairy tales, myths, films, and literature, Leonard, a Jungian analyst, exposes the wound of the spirit that both men and women of our culture bear – a wound that is grounded in a poor relationship between masculine and feminine principles.

Leonard speculates that when a father is wounded in his own psychological development, he is not able to give his daughter the care and guidance she needs. Inheriting this wound, she may find that her ability to express herself professionally, intellectually, sexually, and socially is impaired. On a broader scale, Leonard discusses how women compensate for cultural devaluation, resorting to passive submission (“the Eternal Girl”), or a defensive imitation of the masculine (“the Armored Amazon”).

The Wounded Woman shows that by understanding the father-daughter wound and working to transform it psychologically, it is possible to achieve a fruitful, caring relationship between men and women, between fathers and daughters – a relationship that honors both the mutuality and the uniqueness of the sexes.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/The+Wounded+Woman.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.

Creative Journal

Tue, 01 Jan 1980

Creative Journal (1980)
The Art of Finding Yourself

By Lucia Capacchione

A recognized classic in the field of art therapy and creativity, this book is a perfect guide to discovering and releasing your inner potential through writing and drawing. It contains over 50 writing and drawing exercises to help you find and love one's self, get in touch with ones' feelings, and dreams. It will also show you how to:

* Play with new media of expression (color, images, symbols).
* Sort out the seemingly random experiences in your life.
* Deal with creative blocks to get a clearer picture of your potential and how to use it.
* Define and implement changes.
* Enrich your relationship with yourself and others.

Written for both novice and veteran journal keeper, as well as group leaders and counselors, it is a visually stunning book illustrated by the author, her students and clients.

For more information about this book visit ohioswallow.com/book/Creative+Journal.
For a look at new releases from Ohio University Press visit ohioswallow.com/new_releases.