I am a Regents Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona. Ever since I was a child growing up in the South Bronx, I have been interested in why people are so driven to believe they are right and good, and why there is so much prejudice in the world. This has led to me to a lifelong exploration of the basic motivations that guide people’s actions, and how these motivations influence how people view themselves and others, and the goals they pursue.
This book presents the co-authors’ ground-breaking psychological research, which shows how the awareness of our mortality influences human action and how cultures keep fear of death at bay by providing worldviews that infuse our lives with order, stability, purpose, and significance, allowing us to pursue our goals without becoming overwhelmed by the knowledge of our ultimate fate. But our efforts to maintain our worldview and be significant contributor to it lead to personal, interpersonal, and societal problems. The Worm at the Core offers ways we can better come to terms with death and lead lives of courage, creativity, and compassion. The reader will come away with a new way of understanding human evolution, child development, history, religion, prejudice, art, science, mental health, war, and politics in the twenty-first century.
This is to me is the best book ever written for understanding what human beings are, how we are similar to and different from other animal species, how we develop from helpless newborns to fully functioning adults, and what we are striving for in our lives. Most nonfiction books make a point and then repeat it over and over with examples and anecdotes. In contrast, The Birth and Death of Meaning begins with evolution and progresses logically from its first page to its last. When you finish this book, you will have a much better understanding of yourself, the people in your life, historical and current events, and problems ranging from anxiety and depression to interpersonal conflict to prejudice.
This is the next step for Becker after The Birth and Death of Meaning. This Pulitzer-Prize-winning book delves deeper into the problem of death and pierces through the reader’s own denial of death. It is a truly harrowing experience, but a very worthwhile, and often a life-changing, one. Becker shows how our efforts to manage the fear of death contribute to the most noble and ignoble things we humans do. He clarifies how it contributes to hero worship and the historical rise and appeal of charismatic leaders such as Hitler, to consumerism, to romantic relationships and sex, to depression, anxiety, and neuroses, to creativity, and to intergroup conflict.
Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work,The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the "why" of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie -- man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. In doing so, he sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates more than twenty years after its writing.
This book summarizes the contributions of Otto Rank, the brilliant and influential psychoanalyst. Rank focused on two core psychological motivations, the desires for psychological security on the one hand, and for stimulation, growth, and creativity on the other. His work illuminates how these desires often work in concert but also often can be in opposition over the course of the lifespan, contributing to guilt, anxiety, and stunting growth. Rank’s analysis inspired the development of both existential psychology and humanistic psychology. Rank’s approach to psychological well-being is based on accepting and even affirming the limitations of life, understanding what you really want in life, and developing the will to move creatively toward achieving those goals so that one can live an authentic and satisfying life.
Contrary to its technical-sounding title, this is a very down-to-earth, readable book focused on four central concerns that everyone must cope within their lives. As with Becker, one of these concerns is how to function well despite the knowledge of our mortality. The second concern is how to lead a meaningful life rather than feel trapped in a meaningless one. The third concern is with isolation. How can we maintain fulfilling relationships even though no one can know fully your inner subjective experience and you can’t know anyone else’s? The final concern is with freedom. How to live autonomously, the way you authentically want to live, despite social pressures and other constraints, and the responsibilities and uncertainties that living freely entail.
Existential therapy has been practiced and continues to be practiced in many forms and situations throughout the world. But until now, it has lacked a coherent structure, and analysis of its tenets, and an evaluation of its usefulness. Irvin Yalom, whose Theory and Practice of Group Psychotherapy has rendered such a service to that discipline since 1970, provides existential psychotherapy with a background, a synthesis, and a framework.Organized around what Yalom identifies as the four ultimate concerns of life",death, freedom, existential isolation, and meaninglessness,the book takes up the meaning of each existential concern and the type of conflict that springs…
Many works of fiction explore the core human motivations and how they guide human behavior, but perhaps none more thoroughly and incisively than this collection of Hawthorne short stories. Hawthorne’s stories undoubtedly inspired The Twilight Zone and countless other works of fantasy and science fiction that convey messages about how human desires and cultural worldviews lead people toward thwarted goals and tragic outcomes. As such, they nicely complement the analyses conveyed by the other four books I have recommended. His stories explore guilt, anxiety, and ambition, as desires for security and growth conflict with the values of prevailing worldviews and often lead to misguided or fruitless efforts of people trying to make a lasting mark on the world.
This compilation of short stories by Nathaniel Hawthorne gained its name from the fact all had appeared in magazines and periodicals before comprising part of this book. Released in 1837, the Twice-Told Tales range in genre from the mystery fiction from which Hawthorne made his name, to sensuous and emotional tales depicting pastoral life and events, to horror stories filled with tension. As with his masterworks, many of the stories pay attention to the distant past; a fascination for Hawthorne. Many are inspired by existing folk tales and allegorical stories, and are placed into the short story form so the…
Gabrielle found her grandfather’s diaries after her mother’s death, only to discover that he had been a Nazi. Born in Berlin in 1942, she and her mother fled the city in 1945, but Api, the one surviving male member of her family, stayed behind to work as a doctor in a city 90% destroyed.
Gabrielle retraces Api’s steps in the Berlin of the 21st century, torn between her love for the man who gave her the happiest years of her childhood and trying to come to terms with his Nazi membership, German guilt, and political responsibility.
Api's Berlin Diaries: My Quest to Understand My Grandfather's Nazi Past
"This is not a book I will forget any time soon."
Story Circle Book Reviews
Moving and provocative, Api's Berlin Diaries offers a personal perspective on the fall of Berlin 1945 and the far-reaching aftershocks of the Third Reich.
After her mother's death, Robinson was thrilled to find her beloved grandfather's war diaries-only to discover that he had been a Nazi.
The award-winning memoir shows Api, a doctor in Berlin, desperately trying to help the wounded in cellars without water or light. He himself was reduced to anxiety and despair, the daily diary his main refuge. As Robinson retraces Api's…
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