The red couch is used as a prop in each portrait of American children, artists, musicians, actresses, disabled veterans, illegal aliens, politicians, farmers, scientists, and business people.

What lies behind America’s historic romance with the gun? Why does it have such a troubled relationship with alcohol and drugs? Why is it so wedded to consumerism and so resistant to the evidence of climate change? What are its enduring myths about individuality, freedom, and independence, and how might we re-imagine our vision of the United States as the “Promised Land” and “The City on the Hill” to reflect a multiculturalism that offers “the last, best hope” for the world? In a two-decades long journey through the American psyche, depth journalist Pythia Peay has asked these and many more questions of no fewer than thirty-six of the world’s leading psychologists and psychoanalysts. From Robert Jay Lifton to Marion Woodman, A. Thomas McLellan to Judith V. Jordan, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi to June Singer, and James Hillman to Mary Pipher, the thinkers in America on the Couch discuss violence, addiction, the environment, capitalism and consumerism, politics and power, and the soul of America. The result is a uniquely comprehensive, wide-ranging, and compelling kaleidoscope of insights into the psychodynamics of a hegemon in peace and at war, as it confronts the shadows of the American century and charts its way into an uncertain, multi-polar future. Featuring Stephen Aizenstat, John Beebe , Bonnie Bright, Gary S. Bobroff , Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Philip Cushman, Larry Decker, Raymond De Young, Edward Edinger, Michael Eigen, Stephen J. Foster, Charles Grob, Bud Harris, A. Chris Heath, James Hillman, Judith V. Jordan, Donald Kalsched, Robert J. Langs, Linda Schierse Leonard, Harriet Lerner, Robert Jay Lifton, A. Thomas McLellan, Thomas Moore, Ginette Paris, Mary Pipher, Ernest Rossi, Andrew Samuels, Erel Shalit, June Singer, Thomas Singer, Lawrence Staples, Murray Stein, Charles B. Strozier, Paul Wachtel, Karen B. Walant, Marion Woodman, and Luigi Zoja.

Living in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where her father is involved in a secret government project in the final months of World War II, thirteen-year-old Mattie carries on a constant debate with her twelve-year-old cousin Virgil about the relative merits of boys versus girls.

Sua Sponte Latin for “Of Their Own Accord” The 75th Ranger Regiment’s Motto Army Rangers are not born. They are made. The modern 75th Ranger Regiment represents the culmination of 250 years of American soldiering. As a fighting force with our nation’s oldest and deepest tradition, the Regiment traces its origins to Richard Rogers’s Rangers during the prerevolutionary French and Indian War, through the likes of Francis Marion and John Mosby, to the five active Ranger battalions of the Second World War, and finally, to the four battalions of the current Ranger regiment engaged in modern combat. Granted unprecedented access to the training of this highly restricted component of America’s Special Operations Forces in a time of war, retired Navy captain Dick Couch tells the personal story of the young men who begin this difficult and dangerous journey to become Rangers. Many will try, but only a select few will survive to serve in the 75th Ranger Regiment. Sua Sponte follows a group of these aspiring young warriors through the crucible that is Ranger training and their preparation for direct-action missions in Afghanistan against America’s enemies, anywhere, any time, and under any conditions. INCLUDES PHOTOGRAPHS

Analyzes Barack Obama's behavior to explain the apparent disconnect between his campaign promises and presidential choices, drawing on factors from his past to illuminate the role of unconscious thoughts on the administration of his policies.

Why are so many of the superhero myths tied up with loss, often violent, of parents or parental figures? What is the significance of the dual identity? What makes some superhuman figures "good" and others "evil"? Why are so many of the prime superheroes white and male? How has the superhero evolved over the course of the 20th and early 21st centuries? And how might the myths be changing? Why is it that the key superhero archetypes - Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man, the X-Men - touch primal needs and experiences in everyone? Why has the superhero moved beyond the pages of comics into other media? All these topics, and more, are covered in this lively and original exploration of the reasons why the superhero - in comic books, films, and TV - is such a potent myth for our times and culture.>

Does critical theory still need psychoanalysis? In Critique on the Couch, Amy Allen offers a cogent and convincing defense of its ongoing relevance. Countering the overly rationalist and progressivist interpretations of psychoanalysis put forward by contemporary critical theorists such as Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth, Allen argues that the work of Melanie Klein offers an underutilized resource. She draws on Freud, Klein, and Lacan to develop a more realistic strand of psychoanalytic thinking that centers on notions of loss, negativity, ambivalence, and mourning. Far from leading to despair, such an understanding of human subjectivity functions as a foundation of creativity, productive self-transformation, and progressive social change. At a time when critical theorists are increasingly returning to psychoanalytic thought to diagnose the dysfunctions of our politics, this book opens up new ways of understanding the political implications of psychoanalysis while preserving the progressive, emancipatory aims of critique.