We are all more primitive and irrational than we care to acknowledge, says Dr. Leonard Shengold in this profound and eloquent book. We all suffer to some degree from delusions--vestiges of infantile mental functioning that continue into adult life and that at times of crisis manifest themselves in narcissistic thoughts of omnipotence, immortality, or perfection. Dr. Shengold argues that we can never eliminate these delusions of everyday life, but we can lessen their effect if we acknowledge, or "own", them. He asserts that insight into what we are and what has happened to us is a prerequisite for caring about others and for accepting the transient conditions of life--both necessary to attain happiness. Dr. Shengold discusses delusions we all experience as well as delusions associated with paranoia, perversions, being in love, and identification with delusional parents. He illustrates his ideas by referring to the lives and works of such literary figures as Shakespeare, Swift, Tolstoy, Pascal, Rilke, Randall Jarrell, Dickens, Hardy, and, especially, Samuel Butler. Dr. Shengold also brings in relevant clinical material because, as he points out, delusions of everyday life are at the heart of misunderstanding and conflict in life and of resistance to change in psychological treatment. These delusions must be attenuated if therapy is to be successful.

Sexually active young people urgently need this book. A 2009 Book of the Year, USA Book News “It can’t happen to me.” Many high school students and young adults, seduced by their sense of invincibility, are stunned when they are diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection (STI). But the fact is that anyone can catch an STI: no age group, social class, economic class, culture, religion, gender, or ethnic group is immune. To drive home the risks and realities of unprotected sex, Dr. Jill Grimes shares real-life stories of young people—medical students, college freshmen, teenagers, young parents, talented entrepreneurs—who have gotten an STI. Dr. Grimes narrates the story of Liz, who got syphilis; Sofia, diagnosed with gonorrhea and chlamydia; and Zoe, with pubic lice. She describes how Justin got herpes, Sean got trichomoniasis, and Luke contracted hepatitis C. The accounts of these young men and women and their exam-room conversations with their doctors evoke both the physical symptoms and complicated emotional reactions that often go together with infection. Fact sheets throughout the book explain each sexually transmitted infection and answer frequently asked questions about symptoms, treatment, and prevention. Used in high schools for the past five years, this new edition of Seductive Delusions shows how technological advances have speeded doctor-patient communication, including test results and treatment recommendations. It explains simplified STI testing, explores the frighteningly high incidence of date sexual assault, examines dramatic changes in cervical cancer prevention and Pap tests, and clarifies why HPV vaccines are now routinely recommended for all children—boys and girls. Whether reading the book from cover to cover or jumping directly to a specific disease, readers will relate to the dramatic stories while learning medically reliable information. Making emotionally and physically safe decisions about sex is easier when you know how STIs are spread, how to avoid getting one, what their symptoms are, and how they are diagnosed and treated.

A Behavioral Scientist Notable Book of 2021 A Next Big Idea Club Best Nonfiction of 2021 From the New York Times best-selling author and host of Hidden Brain comes a thought-provoking look at the role of self-deception in human flourishing. Self-deception does terrible harm to us, to our communities, and to the planet. But if it is so bad for us, why is it ubiquitous? In Useful Delusions, Shankar Vedantam and Bill Mesler argue that, paradoxically, self-deception can also play a vital role in our success and well-being. The lies we tell ourselves sustain our daily interactions with friends, lovers, and coworkers. They can explain why some people live longer than others, why some couples remain in love and others don’t, why some nations hold together while others splinter. Filled with powerful personal stories and drawing on new insights in psychology, neuroscience, and philosophy, Useful Delusions offers a fascinating tour of what it really means to be human.

Whatever are your beliefs, background, education, political views or interests, one thing is sure: this book will engage you, teach you something new, and more importantly make you to re-think deeply about critical aspects of your daily-life, including sex, love, food, physical activities, diseases, work and stress, and how you see and deal with other people, other animals, and the planet in general. Indeed, it focuses on topics that have fascinated people from all places and historical periods since times immemorial: Why are we here? What is the meaning of life? Are we progressing, and will we thrive? It does this by integrating in a unique fashion information from ancient Greek, Sumerian, Hindu, Jewish, Buddhist, Christian and Muslim texts to high-tech brain research, facts about near-death experiences, Covid-19, QAnon conspiracies, virtual reality and dating aps; from Adam and Eve to the rise of misogyny and racism to Black Lives Matter, Me-Too, Hollywood romantic movies and Disney fairy-tales. Contrary to notions about 'human progress' and 'Homo Deus' defended by authors such as Harari, Pinker and Dawkins, it shows that human history instead involves the repetition of similar imaginary tales created by a combination of traits found in other animals and the uniquely human obsession about 'cosmic purpose' stories related to our awareness of death's inevitability. Organized religions appeared later, chiefly during the rise of agriculture and 'civilizations'. Diogo navigates mesmerizing untold stories revealing a paradox: these events and the industrial 'revolution' increased inequality, oppression, slavery, subjugation of women, famines, plagues, 'work', stress, and suicides. Data from psychology, biology, neurobiology, and cross-cultural studies of hunter-gatherers and so-called 'developed' societies reveal an even more profound paradox: within all forms of life, the 'sapient being' is the one immersed in Neverland's world of unreality - truly a Homo irrationalis, fictus and socialis believing in fictional tales about cosmic 'duties', 'romantic meant to be', demons, inferior 'races' and 'genders', conspiracies, and 'justified' slavery, warfare, genocides, and animal abuses. Importantly, such tales play, on the other hand, crucial functions such as help coping with death and a plethora of societal troubles, decreasing stress, or preventing drug and alcohol abuse. An optimist and passionate wondered and wanderer, Diogo provides enthralling details about the history of religion, discrimination, romantic love, warfare, diseases and Earth's biodiversity illustrating how 'virtue is in the middle' and that we - with our intriguing combination of beliefs, bodily needs and desires, artistic abilities, and mismatches between our senses' illusions and the cosmos' reality - are not 'better' or 'worse' than the other millions of captivating living species. This powerful and urgently needed message has critical repercussions for how we understand, care about, and mindfully enjoy living in this splendid planet, in the reality of here and now. Pre-publication comments: "I applaud the enormous work that Diogo has invested in this follow-up to his widely acclaimed Evolution driven by organismal behavior book, and the challenge of getting people to think beyond and outside of our usual set of definitions and expectations. The case-studies provided in the book are fascinating and insightful" (Drew Noden, Award-winning Emeritus Professor, Cornell University) "Rui Diogo is becoming the Slavoj Zizek of evolutionary biology" (Marcelo Sanchez-Villagra, Director of the Paleontological Institute and Museum of the University of Zurich)

We all think that we can tell the difference between someone who is mad, or whom psychiatrists call psychotic, and someone who is sane. But can we really tell who is mad and who is not? Do we really know what madness is and how it should be recognized? Have psychiatrists made a sensible distinction between the patient who believes that aliens are beaming messages to him from a foreign planet, and the religious fanatic who believes God communicates to him via automatic writing? Is there a difference between the paranoid patient who believes that the FBI is after him, and the sizeable proportion of our normal population that believe that the US government orchestrated the 9-11 bombings? Here, Reznek hopes to shed light on the delusions of the masses-those delusions that are common to everyday people living so-called ordinary lives. He provides an understanding of madness and the psychological processes that drive us to adopt delusions, arguing that it is a mistake to view only schizophrenic patients as delusional, while excluding large groups of society from such an analysis. If we abandon the idea that whole communities cannot share a delusion, we can come to a better understanding about why the world is such a dangerous place.

Sex discrimination is supposedly a distant memory. Yet popular books, magazines and even scientific articles defend inequalities by citing immutable biological differences between the male and female brain. Why are there so few women in science and engineering, so few men in the laundry room? Well, they say, it's our brains.