The angry emotions, and the problems they presented, were an ancient Greek preoccupation from Homer to late antiquity. From the first lines of the Iliad to the church fathers of the fourth century A.D., the control or elimination of rage was an obsessive concern. From the Greek world it passed to the Romans. Drawing on a wide range of ancient texts, and on recent work in anthropology and psychology, Restraining Rage explains the rise and persistence of this concern. W. V. Harris shows that the discourse of anger-control was of crucial importance in several different spheres, in politics--both republican and monarchical--in the family, and in the slave economy. He suggests that it played a special role in maintaining male domination over women. He explores the working out of these themes in Attic tragedy, in the great Greek historians, in Aristotle and the Hellenistic philosophers, and in many other kinds of texts. From the time of Plato onward, educated Greeks developed a strong conscious interest in their own psychic health. Emotional control was part of this. Harris offers a new theory to explain this interest, and a history of the anger-therapy that derived from it. He ends by suggesting some contemporary lessons that can be drawn from the Greek and Roman experience.

This influential book provides an innovative framework for understanding and treating intimate partner violence. Integrating a variety of theoretical and empirical perspectives, Donald G. Dutton demonstrates that male abusiveness is more than just a learned pattern of behavior--it is the outgrowth of a particular personality configuration. He illuminates the development of the abusive personality from early childhood to adulthood and presents an evidence-based treatment approach designed to meet this population's unique needs. The second edition features two new chapters on the neurobiological roots of abusive behavior and the development of abusiveness in females.

This "landmark book" (San Francisco Chronicle) dispels the common myths about the causes and uses of anger as Dr. Carol Tavris expertly examines every facet of that fascinating emotion—from genetics to stress to the rage for justice. Social psychologist Dr. Carol Tavris explores myths around anger—ideas such as expressing anger is always good for you, suppressing anger is always unhealthy, or that women have special "anger problems" that men do not—and provides a helpful guide on how to use anger constructively and how to diminish anger without being aggressive or hostile. Fully revised and updated, Anger now includes: -A new consideration of biological politics: Should testosterone or PMS excuse rotten tempers or aggressive actions? -The five conditions under which anger is likely to be effective—and when it's not. -Strategies for solving specific anger problems—chronic anger, dealing with difficult people, repeated family battles, anger after divorce or victimization, and aggressive children.

Amiri Baraka, formerly known as LeRoi Jones, became known as one of the most militant, anti-white black nationalists of the 1960s Black Power movement. An advocate of Black Cultural Nationalism, Baraka supported the rejection of all things white and western. He helped found and direct the influential Black Arts movement which sought to move black writers away from western aesthetic sensibilities and toward a more complete embrace of the black world. Except perhaps for James Baldwin, no single figure has had more of an impact on black intellectual and artistic life during the last forty years. In this groundbreaking and comprehensive study, the first to interweave Baraka's art and political activities, Jerry Watts takes us from his early immersion in the New York scene through the most dynamic period in the life and work of this controversial figure. Watts situates Baraka within the various worlds through which he travelled including Beat Bohemia, Marxist-Leninism, and Black Nationalism. In the process, he convincingly demonstrates how the 25 years between Baraka's emergence in 1960 and his continued influence in the mid-1980s can also be read as a general commentary on the condition of black intellectuals during the same time. Continually using Baraka as the focal point for a broader analysis, Watts illustrates the link between Baraka's life and the lives of other black writers trying to realize their artistic ambitions, and contrasts him with other key political intellectuals of the time. In a chapter sure to prove controversial, Watts links Baraka's famous misogyny to an attempt to bury his own homosexual past. A work of extraordinary breadth, Amira Baraka is a powerful portrait of one man's lifework and the pivotal time it represents in African-American history. Informed by a wealth of original research, it fills a crucial gap in the lively literature on black thought and history and will continue to be a touchstone work for some time to come.

Provides therapists and counsellors with a comprehensive review of anger and aggression management techniques, presenting specific guidelines to a number of immediately useful methods, detailing treatment options and intervention methods that meet the needs of individual clients, couples, families, and groups. It examines rage, aggression, hostility, resentment, hatred, anger avoidance, and chronic anger and includes fact-based case studies that illustrate effective theory and practice. A process for assessing anger in their clients and determining the reasons for - and the consequences of - anger and aggression is suggested. Individual and group modalities are examined, using behavioural, cognitive, affective, and existential/spiritual treatment approaches to define anger and anger problems and how they relate to social learning, to examine the relationship between anger and aggression and between anger and domestic violence, and to address the concept of "healthy anger." Other topics covered include : four major intervention areas that can help lessen anger; the pros and cons of group versus individual counselling; treating angry children, adolescents, and families; how patterns of resentment and hatred are developed; self-forgiveness; five damaging aspects of anger turned inward; and the neurological aspects of anger.

The struggle to understand the infant-parent bond ranks as one of the great quests of modern psychology, one that touches us deeply because it holds so many clues to how we become who we are. How are our personalities formed? How do our early struggles with our parents reappear in the way we relate to others as adults? Why do we repeat with our own children--seemingly against our will--the very behaviors we most disliked about our parents? In Becoming Attached, psychologist and noted journalist Robert Karen offers fresh insight into some of the most fundamental and fascinating questions of emotional life. Karen begins by tracing the history of attachment theory through the controversial work of John Bowlby, a British psychoanalyst, and Mary Ainsworth, an American developmental psychologist, who together launched a revolution in child psychology. Karen tells about their personal and professional struggles, their groundbreaking discoveries, and the recent flowering of attachment theory research in universities all over the world, making it one of the century's most enduring ideas in developmental psychology. In a world of working parents and makeshift day care, the need to assess the impact of parenting styles and the bond between child and caregiver is more urgent than ever. Karen addresses such issues as: What do children need to feel that the world is a positive place and that they have value? Is day care harmful for children under one year? What experiences in infancy will enable a person to develop healthy relationships as an adult?, and he demonstrates how different approaches to mothering are associated with specific infant behaviors, such as clinginess, avoidance, or secure exploration. He shows how these patterns become ingrained and how they reveal themselves at age two, in the preschool years, in middle childhood, and in adulthood. And, with thought-provoking insights, he gives us a new understanding of how negative patterns and insecure attachment can be changed and resolved throughout a person's life. The infant is in many ways a great mystery to us. Every one of us has been one; many of us have lived with or raised them. Becoming Attached is not just a voyage of discovery in child emotional development and its pertinence to adult life but a voyage of personal discovery as well, for it is impossible to read this book without reflecting on one's own life as a child, a parent, and an intimate partner in love or marriage.