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50 Things You Can Do Today to Manage Stress (Personal Health Guides)
by Wendy GreenIn this reassuring and easy-to-follow book, find out 50 things you can do to help you manage stress, such as identifying your stress triggers and learning how to manage them, choosing beneficial foods and supplements, and reducing stress through aromatherapy and therapeutic massage.
Where it Hurts: An Introduction to Sociology for Health Workers (Routledge Revivals)
by Toni Schofield Cherry RussellFirst published in 1986, Where it hurts provides a straightforward and accessible introduction to sociology for beginning students. In dealing with key areas of sociology (such as class, gender, race and ethnicity, age, work, and the state) and grounding theory and concepts in real issues, it demonstrates how sociology works in a specific application- the social history of health and health care.Students for whom sociology is part of a health or welfare-related course will find this a lively and thought-provoking text. But in its style and content, it responds equally well to the demands of all beginning students in sociology for a clear and relevant introduction to the critical tradition.
Where it Hurts: An Introduction to Sociology for Health Workers (Routledge Revivals)
by Toni Schofield Cherry RussellFirst published in 1986, Where it hurts provides a straightforward and accessible introduction to sociology for beginning students. In dealing with key areas of sociology (such as class, gender, race and ethnicity, age, work, and the state) and grounding theory and concepts in real issues, it demonstrates how sociology works in a specific application- the social history of health and health care.Students for whom sociology is part of a health or welfare-related course will find this a lively and thought-provoking text. But in its style and content, it responds equally well to the demands of all beginning students in sociology for a clear and relevant introduction to the critical tradition.
Medical and Healthcare Interactions: Members' Competence and Socialization (ISSN)
by Sara KeelPresenting a series of empirical studies by scholars working with approaches from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, Medical and Healthcare Interactions studies real-life work and training encounters among medical and healthcare professionals and trainees or between professionals and patients.Using video analysis and detailed description, it considers the methods and procedures through which professionals, trainees, and patients produce actions and interpret those of others, exploring questions of member competence and socialization within situated courses of interaction.The book offers fruitful contributions for training and education in the field of healthcare and will appeal to scholars in the human and social sciences with interests in interaction, ethnomethodology, and conversation analysis.Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.
The Interest in Disinterestedness: Lectures at the College de France 1987-1989
by Pierre BourdieuA key feature of those who work for the state, in the legal system and in public services is that they claim to be putting their own personal interests aside and working in a disinterested fashion, for the public good. But is disinterested behaviour possible? Can law be treated as a set of universal rules that are independent of particular interests, or is this mere ideology? Is the state bureaucracy a universal class, as Hegel thought, or a structure that serves the interests of the dominant class, as Marx claimed?In his lecture courses at the Collège de France in 1987–88 and 1988–89, Pierre Bourdieu addressed these questions by examining the formation of the legal and bureaucratic fields characteristic of the modern state, uncovering the historical and social conditions that enable a social group to form and find its own interests in the very fact of serving interests that go beyond it. For a disinterested universe to emerge, it needs both the invention of a public service, or a spirit of service to the public cause, and the creation of a social universe in which individuals can pursue a career devoted to public service and be rewarded for it. In other words, it requires a process of specialization whereby autonomous, specific fields become established in the social cosmos within which a special kind of game that follows the rules of disinterest can be played out.By reconstructing the conditions under which an interest in disinterestedness emerged, Bourdieu sheds new light on the formation of the modern state and legal system and provides a fresh perspective on the many professions in modern societies that are oriented towards the service of the common good.
Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don’t Find) Work Today
by Ilana GershonWhat does it mean to market yourself as a business in today's job search world? Finding a job used to be simple. Now . . . well, it’s complicated. In today’s economy, you can’t just be an employee looking to get hired—you have to market yourself as a business, one that can help another business achieve its goals. That’s a radical transformation in how we think about work and employment, says Ilana Gershon. And with Down and Out in the New Economy, she digs deep into that change and what it means, not just for job seekers, but for businesses and our very culture. In telling this story, Gershon covers all parts of the employment spectrum: she interviews hiring managers about how they assess candidates; attends personal branding seminars; talks with managers at companies around the United States to suss out regional differences—like how Silicon Valley firms look askance at the lengthier employment tenures of applicants from the Midwest. And she finds that not everything has changed: though the technological trappings may be glitzier, in a lot of cases, who you know remains more important than what you know. Rich in the voices of people deeply involved with all parts of the employment process, Down and Out in the New Economy offers a snapshot of the quest for work today—and a pointed analysis of its larger meaning.
A Decade of Research Activities at the Department of Industrial Engineering: From Five Existing Departments to the Excellence in Research (Springer Aerospace Technology)
by Sergio De Rosa Nicola Bianco Agostino De Marco Michele GrassiThis open access book celebrates the decennial of the Department of Industrial Engineering of Università di Napoli Federico II, Italy. It covers the main research achievements developed at the department in the fields of aerospace, marine, energy, statistical, mechanical and management engineering. Five pre-existing departments merged in 2013, and the research results are here summarized to certify how important it was to join skills, expertise, and projects. The industrial engineering area is huge, but it is now dominated by the need to conceive and analyze new solutions, human and climate oriented to face with the actual challenges which dictate the new paradigm, which evolved from “is it feasible?” to “is it compatible with the environment and the human beings?”. There is still a lot to do, but the contents of this book demonstrate that the first steps have been done. All the researchers of the department have contributed to this book, more than 140 authors, and thus, it isthe collective outcome of the path they were able to perform all together, including administrative officers and technicians. It highlights the international relevance and multidisciplinarity of research at the university as well as the planned research lines for the next years.
Decided Return Migration: Emotions, Citizenship, Home and Belonging in Bosnia and Herzegovina (IMISCOE Research Series)
by Aida IbričevićThis open access book creates conceptual links between political emotions, citizenship, home and belonging. The book describes that, in the case of decided return and reintegration to a post-conflict society and a fragmented state, like Bosnia and Herzegovina, the returnees do not conceptualize the emotional dimension of their BiH citizenship as home and belonging as this citizenship does not make them feel safe and secure. Instead, “feeling at home” is found in family, place and time, while belonging is categorized as ethnic, religious, relational, landscape, linguistic, and economic. The emotional dimension of the home state citizenship is constituted through a wide spectrum of emotions, ranging from anger, frustration, fear, guilt, shame, disappointment, nostalgia, powerlessness, to patriotic love, pride, defiance, joy, happiness and hope. This book provides a valuable resource to students and scholars of migration and diaspora studies, as well as political scientists, human geographers and anthropologists.
The Psychology Behind Design: A Marketing Perspective
by Chris Baumann Jeongmin Lee Wujin ChuThis book explains the psychology theory behind design using plain language. The inspiration came from the "democratic design" philosophy of IKEA. This book attempts to help people enjoy designs more, by explaining consumer psychology that lurks behind designs of everyday things. Another purpose of the book is to aid designers and marketers in understanding consumer behavior and to help them leverage this knowledge in their respective fields. Marketers and designers often find it hard to communicate effectively due to their disparate fields. However, this book aims to bridge this gap by showing that activities in both design and marketing can be better understood through the lens of design psychology, promoting better communication and collaboration. Although the book contains more than a hundred psychology theories that can affect design, it is structured in a reader-friendly manner, and chapters are segmented such that each chapter contains about 7~15 theories. Despite the large amount of academic research behind the theories, the application of these theories comes from commonplace consumer behaviors and daily design examples, promising an easy, relatable read.
Racist Regimes, Forced Labour and Death: British Slavery in the Caribbean and the Holocaust in Germany and Occupied Europe (Global Diversities)
by Colin ClarkeThis book compares the systems of exploitative race relations associated with two racist regimes – slavery in the British colonial Caribbean and forced labour in the Holocaust in Germany and the Nazi-occupied lands in Europe. Although each system was introduced by expansionist European powers, through racist enslavement, transportation, dehumanisation and the destruction of human life, the construction and operation of sugar plantations by African and Creole slave labour for the export of tropical products in the period 1650 to 1838 was different from the mass murder of Jewish and Gypsy civilians with the intention of creating a forced-labour regime and colonial-style ethnic cleansing during the Second World War.Though differentiated in time and place, the four principal common denominators that make feasible the detailed comparison of British Caribbean slavery and the Holocaust in Europe are racism, colonialism/occupation, slavery/forced labour, and death. Juxtaposition of these two companion studies will reveal comparisons and contrasts previously unexplored in the field of race relations under colonialism and the Holocaust. The book will be of interest to scholars and students of the social sciences and history, particularly those with an engagement with slavery and forced labour, the sociology of race and racism, and Holocaust studies.
The Mind Possessed: The Cognition of Spirit Possession in an Afro-Brazilian Religious Tradition
by Emma CohenThe cognitive science of religion has made a persuasive case for the view that a number of different psychological systems are involved in the construction and transmission of notions of extranatural agency such as deities and spirits. Until now this work has been based largely on findings in experimental psychology, illustrated mainly with hypothetical or anecdotal examples. In The Mind Possessed, Emma Cohen considers how the psychological systems undergirding spirit concepts are activated in real-world settings. Spirit possession practices have long had a magnetizing effect on academic researchers but there have been few, if any, satisfactory theoretical treatments of spirit possession that attempt to account for its emergence and spread globally. Drawing on ethnographic data collected during eighteen months of fieldwork in Bel?m, northern Brazil, Cohen combines fine-grained descriptions and analyses of mediumistic activities in an Afro-Brazilian cult house with a scientifically-grounded explanation for the emergence and spread of ideas about spirits, possession and healing. Cohen shows why spirit possession and its associated activities are inherently attention-grabbing. Making a radical departure from traditional anthropological, medicalist and sociological analyses, she argues that a cognitive approach offers more precise and testable hypotheses concerning the spread and appeal of spirit concepts and possession activities. This timely book presents new lines of enquiry for the cognitive science of religion (a rapidly growing field of interdisciplinary scholarship) and challenges the theoretical frameworks within which spirit possession practices have traditionally been understood.
Beyond Idols: The Shape of a Secular Society
by Richard K. FennThis book attempts to articulate the nature of a secular society, describe its benefits, and suggests the conditions under which such a society could emerge. To become secular, argues Fenn, is to open oneself and one's society to a wide range of possibilities, some interesting and exciting, some burdensome and dreadful. While some sociologists have argued that a "Civil Religion" is necessary to hold together our newly "religionless" society, Fenn urges that there is nothing to fear--and everything to gain--from living in a society that is not bound together by sacred memories and beliefs, or by sacred institutions and practices.
Are We Free? Psychology and Free Will
by John Baer, James C. Kaufman, Roy F. BaumeisterDo people have free will, or this universal belief an illusion? If free will is more than an illusion, what kind of free will do people have? How can free will influence behavior? Can free will be studied, verified, and understood scientifically? How and why might a sense of free will have evolved? These are a few of the questions this book attempts to answer. People generally act as though they believe in their own free will: they don't feel like automatons, and they don't treat one another as they might treat robots. While acknowledging many constraints and influences on behavior, people nonetheless act as if they (and their neighbors) are largely in control of many if not most of the decisions they make. Belief in free will also underpins the sense that people are responsible for their actions. Psychological explanations of behavior rarely mention free will as a factor, however. Can psychological science find room for free will? How do leading psychologists conceptualize free will, and what role do they believe free will plays in shaping behavior? In recent years a number of psychologists have tried to solve one or more of the puzzles surrounding free will. This book looks both at recent experimental and theoretical work directly related to free will and at ways leading psychologists from all branches of psychology deal with the philosophical problems long associated with the question of free will, such as the relationship between determinism and free will and the importance of consciousness in free will. It also includes commentaries by leading philosophers on what psychologists can contribute to long-running philosophical struggles with this most distinctly human belief. These essays should be of interest not only to social scientists, but to intelligent and thoughtful readers everywhere.
Capitalists Against Markets: The Making of Labor Markets and Welfare States in the United States and Sweden
by Peter A. SwensonConventional wisdom argues that welfare state builders in the US and Sweden in the 1930s took their cues from labor and labor movements. Swenson makes the startling argument that pragmatic social reformers looked for support not only from below but also from above, taking into account capitalist interests and preferences. Juxtaposing two widely recognized extremes of welfare, the US and Sweden, Swenson shows that employer interests played a role in welfare state development in both countries.
Beyond the Congregation: The World of Christian Nonprofits
by Christopher P. ScheitleChristianity in the United States has long been organized around congregations and denominations. However, a different type of organization operating outside of these traditional structures is claiming an increasingly important place in the religious market. The growth of Christian nonprofits, popularly called "parachurch" organizations, has been recognized by churchgoers and social scientists alike as an important development that is transforming the composition and dynamics of American Christianity. The size, resources, and activities of this population have made it the public face of American Christianity and altered the relationship between individuals, churches and denominations. Beyond the Congregation utilizes data on almost 2,000 of the largest and most influential Christian nonprofits in the United States to answer some of the key questions raised by these organizations. What explains the growth of Christian nonprofits? What activities are they pursuing? How are they funded and how do they use those funds? Beyond the Congregation provides a much needed examination of these issues that is accessible and informative for scholars, nonprofit executives, religious leaders and the general public.
When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law
by Shawn Francis PetersRelying on religious traditions that are as old as their faith itself, many devout Christians turn to prayer rather than medicine when their children fall victim to illness or injury. Faith healers claim that their practices are effective in restoring health - more effective, they say, than modern medicine. But, over the past century, hundreds of children have died after being denied the basic medical treatments furnished by physicians because of their parents' intense religious beliefs. The tragic deaths of these youngsters have received intense scrutiny from both the news media and public authorities seeking to protect the health and welfare of children. When Prayer Fails: Faith Healing, Children, and the Law is the first book to fully examine the complex web of legal and ethical questions that arise when criminal prosecutions are mounted against parents whose children die as a result of the phenomenon known by experts as religion-based medical neglect. Do constitutional protections for religious liberty shield parents who fail to provide adequate medical treatment for their sick children? Are parents likewise shielded by state child-neglect faith laws that seem to include exemptions for healing practices? What purpose do prosecutions really serve when it's clear that many deeply religious parents harbor no fear of temporal punishment? Peters offers a review of important legal cases in both England and America from the 19th century to the present day. He devotes special attention to cases involving Christian Science, the source of many religion-based medical neglect deaths, but also considers cases arising from the refusal of Jehovah's witnesses to allow blood transfusions or inoculations. Individual cases dating back to the mid-19th century illuminate not only the legal issues at stake but also the profound human drama of religion-based medical neglect of children. Based on a wide array of primary and secondary source materials - among them judicial opinions, trial transcripts, police and medical examiner reports, news accounts, personal interviews, and scholarly studies - this book explores efforts by the legal system to balance judicial protections for the religious liberty of faith-healers against the state's obligation to safeguard the rights of children.
Free Will and Consciousness: How Might They Work?
by Roy F. BaumeisterThis volume is aimed at readers who wish to move beyond debates about the existence of free will and the efficacy of consciousness and closer to appreciating how free will and consciousness might operate. It draws from philosophy and psychology, the two fields that have grappled most fundamentally with these issues. In this wide-ranging volume, the contributors explore such issues as how free will is connected to rational choice, planning, and self-control; roles for consciousness in decision making; the nature and power of conscious deciding; connections among free will, consciousness, and quantum mechanics; why free will and consciousness might have evolved; how consciousness develops in individuals; the experience of free will; effects on behavior of the belief that free will is an illusion; and connections between free will and moral responsibility in lay thinking. Collectively, these state-of-the-art chapters by accomplished psychologists and philosophers provide a glimpse into the future of research on free will and consciousness.
Discourse on Civility and Barbarity
by Timothy FitzgeraldIn recent years scholars have begun to question the usefulness of the category of ''religion'' to describe a distinctive form of human experience and behavior. In his last book, The Ideology of Religious Studies (OUP 2000), Timothy Fitzgerald argued that ''religion'' was not a private area of human existence that could be separated from the public realm and that the study of religion as such was thus impossibility. In this new book he examines a wide range of English-language texts to show how religion became transformed from a very specific category indigenous to Christian culture into a universalist claim about human nature and society. These claims, he shows, are implied by and frequently explicit in theories and methods of comparative religion. But they are also tacitly reproduced throughout the humanities in the relatively indiscriminate use of ''religion'' as an a priori valid cross-cultural analytical concept, for example in historiography, sociology, and social anthropology. Fitzgerald seeks to link the argument about religion to the parallel formation of the ''non-religious'' and such dichotomies as church-state, sacred-profane, ecclesiastical-civil, spiritual-temporal, supernatural-natural, and irrational-rational. Part of his argument is that the category ''religion'' has a different logic compared to the category ''sacred,'' but the two have been consistently confused by major writers, including Durkheim and Eliade. Fitzgerald contends that ''religion'' imagined as a private belief in the supernatural was a necessary conceptual space for the simultaneous imagining of ''secular'' practices and institutions such as politics, economics, and the Nation State. The invention of ''religion'' as a universal type of experience, practice, and institution was partly the result of sacralizing new concepts of exchange, ownership, and labor practices, applying ''scientific'' rationality to human behavior, administering the colonies and classifying native institutions. In contrast, shows Fitzgerald, the sacred-profane dichotomy has a different logic of use.
The Oxford Handbook of Urban Economics and Planning (Oxford Handbooks)
This volume embodies a problem-driven and theoretically informed approach to bridging frontier research in urban economics and urban/regional planning. The authors focus on the interface between these two subdisciplines that have historically had an uneasy relationship. Although economists were among the early contributors to the literature on urban planning, many economists have been dismissive of a discipline whose leading scholars frequently favor regulations over market institutions, equity over efficiency, and normative prescriptions over positive analysis. Planners, meanwhile, even as they draw upon economic principles, often view the work of economists as abstract, not sensitive to institutional contexts, and communicated in a formal language spoken by few with decision making authority. Not surprisingly, papers in the leading economic journals rarely cite clearly pertinent papers in planning journals, and vice versa. Despite the historical divergence in perspectives and methods, urban economics and urban planning share an intense interest in many topic areas: the nature of cities, the prosperity of urban economies, the provision of urban services, efficient systems of transportation, and the proper allocation of land between urban and environmental uses. In bridging this gap, this book highlights the best scholarship in planning and economics that addresses the most pressing urban problems of our day and will stimulate further dialog between scholars in urban planning and urban economics.
Celibacy and Religious Traditions
by Carl OlsonIf sexuality is inherently social, the same thing can be said about celibacy. An understanding of celibacy, argues Carl Olson, can be a useful way to view the significance of the human body within a social context. The purpose of this book is to examine how the practice of celibacy differs cross-culturally as well as historically within a particular religious tradition. The essays (all previously unpublished) will demonstrate that celibacy is a complex religious phenomenon. The control of sexual desire can be used to divorce oneself from a basic human biological drive, to separate oneself from what is perceived as impure, or to distance oneself from a transient world. Within different religious traditions there can be found the practice of temporary celibacy, commitment to long-term permanent celibacy, and outright condemnations of it. By maintaining a state of virginity, members of some religious traditions imitate divine models; other traditions do not admit the possibility of emulating such paradigms. Whether or not a religious tradition encourages or discourages it, the practice of celibacy gives us insight into its worldview, social values, gender relations, ethics, religious roles, and understanding of the physical body. Celibacy can contribute to the creation of a certain status and play a role in the construction of identity, while serving as a source of charisma. In some religious traditions, it is possible to renounce sex and gain sacred status and economic support from society. Each essay in the collection will be written by an expert in a particular religious tradition. Each will address such questions as: Why do some members of a religious community decide to maintain a celibate style of religious life? Is celibacy a prerequisite for religious office or status? Are there different contexts within a given religious tradition for the practice of celibacy? What does the choice of celibacy tell us about the human body in a particular religious culture? What is the symbolic significance of celibacy? What is its connection to the acquisition of power? What are its physical or spiritual benefits? The first collection of its kind, this book will be a valuable resource for courses in world religions, as well as a contribution to our understanding of this very widespread but puzzling human phenomenon.
Silencing the Self Across Cultures: Depression and Gender in the Social World
by Dana Crowley Jack Alisha AliWinner of the 2011 Ursula Gielen Global Psychology Book Award! This award is presented by APA Division 52 to the authors or editors of a book that makes the greatest contribution to psychology as an international discipline and profession. This international volume offers new perspectives on social and psychological aspects of depression. The twenty-one contributors hailing from thirteen countries represent contexts with very different histories, political and economic structures, and gender role disparities. Authors rely on Silencing the Self theory, which details the negative psychological effects that result when individuals silence themselves in close relationships, and the importance of social context in precipitating depression. Specific patterns of thought on how to achieve closeness in relationships (self-silencing schema) are known to predict depression. This book breaks new ground by demonstrating that the link between depressive symptoms and self-silencing occurs across a range of cultures. ISilencing the Self Across Cultures/I explains why women's depression is more widespread than men's, and why the treatment of depression lies in understanding that a person's individual psychology is inextricably related to the social world and close relationships. Several chapters describe the transformative possibilities of community-driven movements for disadvantaged women that support healing through a recovery of voice, as well as the need to counter violations of human rights as a means of reducing women's risk of depression. Bringing the work of these researchers together in one collection furthers international dialogue about critical social factors that affect the rising rates of depression around the globe.
Race, Nation, and Religion in the Americas
by Henry Goldschmidt and Elizabeth McalisterThis collection of all new essays will explore the complex and unstable articulations of race and religion that have helped to produce "Black," "White," "Creole," "Indian," "Asian," and other racialized identities and communities in the Americas. Drawing on original research in a range of disciplines, the authors will investigate: 1) how the intertwined categories of race and religion have defined, and been defined by, global relations of power and inequality; 2) how racial and religious identities shape the everyday lives of individuals and communities; and 3) how racialized and marginalized communities use religion and religious discourses to contest the persistent power of racism in societies structured by inequality. Taken together, these essays will define a new standard of critical conversation on race and religion throughout the Americas.
Women's Lives, Women's Rituals in the Hindu Tradition
by Tracy PintchmanIn this book, Tracy Pintchman has assembled ten leading scholars of Hinduism to explore the complex relationship between Hindu women's rituals and their lives beyond ritual. The book focuses particularly on the relationship of women's ritual practices to domesticity, exposing and exploring the nuances, complexities, and limits of this relationship. In many cultural and historical contexts, including contemporary India, women's everyday lives tend to revolve heavily around domestic and interpersonal concerns, especially care for children, the home, husbands, and other relatives. Hence, women's religiosity also tends to emphasize the domestic realm and the relationships most central to women. But women's religious concerns certainly extend beyond domesticity. Furthermore, even the domestic religious activities that Hindu women perform may not merely replicate or affirm traditionally formulated domestic ideals but may function strategically to reconfigure, reinterpret, criticize, or even reject such ideals. This volume takes a fresh look at issues of the relationship between Hindu women's ritual practices and normative domesticity. In so doing, it emphasizes female innovation and agency in constituting and transforming both ritual and the domestic realm and calls attention to the limitations of normative domesticity as a category relevant to many forms of Hindu women's religious practice.
The Welfare of Children
by Duncan LindseyAccording to the United Nations' latest data, the United States has more children living in poverty than any other industrialized nation in the world. More than a fifth of all children grow up in poverty. The poverty rates for African-American and Latino children often exceeds 40 percent. Furthermore, the United States--a country that once pioneered strategies to prevent child abuse and that now spends more money fighting child abuse than any other industrialized country--also has the highest rate of child abuse in the industrialized world. Against this background, Duncan Lindsey, a leading authority on child welfare, takes a critical look at the current welfare system. He traces the transformation of child welfare into child protective services, arguing that the current focus on abuse has produced a system that is designed to protect children from physical and sexual abuse and therefore functions as a last resort for only the worst and most dramatic cases in child welfare. In a close analysis of the process of investigating child abuse, Linsey finds that there is no evidence that the transformation into protective services has reduced child abuse fatalities or provided a safter environment for children. He makes a compelling argument for the criminal justice system to assume responsibility for the problem of child abuse in order for the child welfare system to be able to adequately address the well-being of a much larger number of children now growing up in poverty. This new edition of The Welfare of Children takes into account a major legislative change since the publication of the first edition: the welfare reform legislation of 1996. This legislation has fundamentally altered the public child welfare system as broadly understood, and Lindsey thoroughly examines its implications on policy and practice, refuting the claim that welfare reform has actually reduced child poverty. The Welfare of Children, 2nd Edition is a compassionate blueprint for the comprehensive reform of the current child welfare system to one that administers to the economic security of the larger number of disadvantaged and impoverished children. Concrete policy proposals such as a Child's Future Security account, similar to the Social Security program for older citizens, will spark serious debate on a major public policy issue facing our society.
Pathological Altruism
by Francisco J. AyalaThe benefits of altruism and empathy are obvious. These qualities are so highly regarded and embedded in both secular and religious societies that it seems almost heretical to suggest they can cause harm. Like most good things, however, altruism can be distorted or taken to an unhealthy extreme. IPathological Altruism/I presents a number of new, thought-provoking theses that explore a range of hurtful effects of altruism and empathy. Pathologies of empathy, for example, may trigger depression as well as the burnout seen in healthcare professionals. The selflessness of patients with eating abnormalities forms an important aspect of those disorders. Hyperempathy - an excess of concern for what others think and how they feel - helps explain popular but poorly defined concepts such as codependency. In fact, pathological altruism, in the form of an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of one's own needs, may underpin some personality disorders. Pathologies of altruism and empathy not only underlie health issues, but also a disparate slew of humankind's most troubled features, including genocide, suicide bombing, self-righteous political partisanship, and ineffective philanthropic and social programs that ultimately worsen the situations they are meant to aid. IPathological Altruism/I is a groundbreaking new book - the first to explore the negative aspects of altruism and empathy, seemingly uniformly positive traits. The contributing authors provide a scientific, social, and cultural foundation for the subject of pathological altruism, creating a new field of inquiry. Each author's approach points to one disturbing truth: what we value so much, the altruistic "good" side of human nature, can also have a dark side that we ignore at our peril.