Dr. Jerrold M. Post and Robert S. Robins explore the impact of physical and mental illness on political leadership.

Explores the relationship between leadership and neurological illness in several crises of the 20th century, including the effects of hypertension and stroke on the behavior and thought processes of Woodrow Wilson, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the course of peace conferences during and after World War I and II; problems of several leaders following World War I; Hitler's epilepsy and heavy medication; and Anthony Eden's amphetamine abuse during the Suez Crisis of 1956.

"Post is a pioneer in the field of political-personality profiling. He may be the only psychiatrist who has specialized in the self-esteem problems of both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein."--The New Yorker "Policy specialists and academic scholars have long agreed that for U.S. leaders to deal effectively with other actors in the international arena, they need images of their adversaries. Leaders must try to see events, and, indeed, their own behavior, from the perspective of opponents.... Faulty images are a source of misperceptions and miscalculations that have often led to major errors in policy, avoidable catastrophes, and missed opportunities. History supplies all too many examples."--from the ForewordWhat impels leaders to lead and followers to follow? How did Osama bin Laden, the son of a multibillionaire construction magnate in Saudi Arabia, become the world's number-one terrorist? What are the psychological foundations of man's inhumanity to man, ethnic cleansing, and genocide? Jerrold M. Post contends that such questions can be answered only through an understanding of the psychological foundations of leader personality and political behavior.Post was founding director of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior for the CIA. He developed the political personality profiles of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat for President Jimmy Carter's use at the Camp David talks and initiated the U.S. government's research program on the psychology of political terrorism. He was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit in 1979 for his leadership of the center.In this book, he draws on psychological and personality theories, as well as interviews with individual terrorists and those who have interacted with particular leaders, to discuss a range of issues: the effects of illness and age on a leader's political behavior; narcissism and the relationship between followers and a charismatic leader; the impact of crisis-induced stress on policymakers; the mind of the terrorist, with a consideration of "killing in the name of God"; and the need for enemies and the rise of ethnic conflict and terrorism in the post-Cold War environment. The leaders he discusses include Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and Slobodan Milosevic.

Robert S. Robins and Jerrold M. Post, M.D., experts in political psychology, document and interpret the malign power of paranoia in a variety of contexts - in political movements like McCarthyism; in organizations like the John Birch Society; in leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Jim Jones, and David Koresh; and among extreme groups that commit violence in the name of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Indeed, Robins and Post show that the paranoid dynamic has been aggressively present in every social disaster of this century. Robins and Post describe the paranoid personality, explain why paranoia is part of human evolutionary history, and examine the conditions that must exist before the message of the paranoid takes root in a vulnerable population, leading to mass movements and genocidal violence.

Life does not stop simply because someone becomes president. Death, illness, sadness, and scandal affect every president and his family--often during their time in office. Yet the work of the nation and the pressures of the job do not cease simply because a president suffers, though their reaction, suffering, and perseverance often alters the course of American history.

Exhausted? Strung out? Shackled in your own invisible straitjacket of stress? Seventy per cent of us spend most of our day in a state of stress, with our nervous systems in a position of fight, flight or freeze. Modern day stress has become pervasive in all aspects of our lives through constant pressure, the weight of perceived expectations and the drive to be always on. Many live with an energy and nervous system that feels like a tightly clenched fist, rather than an easeful, gently unfurling hand. Staying shackled in a state of overwhelm and stress has far-reaching consequences on our health. We often only pay attention when illness strikes, having tuned out to all the messages our bodies were sending us along the way. Health whispers until one day it screams. Let's not wait for the scream. But how do we do this? By having a nervous system in flow. Everything we do transforms energy in our bodies into something supportive or destructive to us, emotionally or physically. What we need is a more easeful, beneficial energy in our lives. In this book you will learn: What's truly behind your stress, how stress impacts your energy, hormones and nervous system, how to move your nervous system into a state of flow, and how to make choices that support your energy, by living in harmony with your body. Full of practical solutions, wisdom and strategies, 7 Steps to Finding Flow is your guide to lighten the load that stress places on us, and how to move through it with ease when it lands. We can't avoid stress, but we can deal with it differently and access better health, energy and balance. Nicky Rowbotham's 7 Steps to Finding Flow will help you move from being overwhelmed and locked in by stress to a more easeful, resilient and aligned life. Let's flip the script on stress.