my mind on books

The Birth of Intersubjectivity: Psychodynamics, Neurobiology, and the Self by Massimo Ammaniti and Vittorio Gallese (W.W. Norton & Co., 2014)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk), (UK kindle ed.)

Book description from the publisher:

Neurobiological research helps explain the experience of motherhood.

This book, the exciting collaboration of a developmental psychoanalyst at the forefront of functional magnetic resonance attachment research and a leading neurobiological researcher on mirror neurons, presents a fresh and innovative look at intersubjectivity from a neurobiological and developmental perspective. Grounding their analysis of intersubjectivity in the newest advances from developmental neuroscience, modern attachment theory, and relational psychoanalysis, Massimo Ammaniti and Vittorio Gallese illustrate how brain development changes simultaneously with relationally induced alterations in the subjectivities of both mother and infant.

Ammaniti and Gallese combine extensive current interdisciplinary research with in-depth clinical interviews that highlight the expectant mother’s changing subjective states and the various typologies of maternal representations. Building on Gallese’s seminal work with mirror neurons and embodied simulation theory, the authors construct a model of intersubjectivity that stresses not symbolic representations but intercorporeality from a second-person perspective. Charting the prenatal and perinatal events that serve as the neurobiological foundation for postnatal reciprocal affective communications, they conclude with direct clinical applications of early assessments and interventions, including interventions with pregnant mothers.

This volume is essential for clinicians specializing in attachment disorders and relational trauma, child psychotherapists, infant mental health workers, pediatricians, psychoanalysts, and developmental researchers. It combines fascinating new information and illustrative clinical experience to illustrate the early intersubjective origins of our own and our patients’ internal worlds.

Developing Difference by Wendy Johnson (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)

(amazon.co.uk)

Why do we develop differently? Where does our individuality come from? What do we inherit from our genes, and how does that engage with our environment in influencing our behaviour?

Developing Difference is the first book of its kind to draw developmental and individual differences psychology together to investigate these fascinating questions.

Key features:
* draws on neuroscience and psychology to integrate the evolutionary, genetic, social and behavioural aspects of how we become who we are
* integrates the very latest genetic research
* considers the unanswered questions that still face differential and developmental psychologists

Developing Difference is essential reading for students studying developmental psychology and individual differences.

Drawing Life: Narratives and the Sense of Self by Thomas J. Cottle (Hamilton Books, 2013)

(amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

In Drawing Life, Thomas J. Cottle examines the ways people interpret their life experiences and construct meanings for the events they have encountered. In this manner, they discover their various identities and the essence of what we call the self. In reading the sixteen life studies contained in this volume, we encounter both inner reflections as well the power of culture to shape the meanings people give to their circumstances and the events that befall them. The stories also reflect the role of human relationships and social institutions in defining our personal identities and sense of justice. What makes us unique, therefore, is the personal story we tell as it reveals our constructions of the world and of ourselves. The stories recounted in Drawing Life illuminate not only our past, but also our perceptions of the present and our imaginings of the future. In this way, they become anthologies of our life experiences.

Google Books preview:

See also: Author’s website

Concepts of the Self, 3rd ed. by Anthony Elliott (Polity, 2013)

(kindle ed.), (amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

More than ten years on from its original publication, Concepts of the Self still mesmerizes with its insight, comprehensiveness and critique of debates over the self in the social sciences and humanities. Anthony Elliott has written a new preface to this third edition to address some of the most recent developments in the field, and offers a powerful challenge to what he describes as ‘the emergence of anti-theories of the self’.

The first two editions have proven exceptionally popular among students and teachers worldwide. Anthony Elliott provides a scintillating introduction to the major accounts of the self from symbolic interactionism and psychoanalysis to post-feminism and postmodernism. This new edition has been extensively revised and updated to take account of more recent theoretical developments, and a new chapter has been added on individualization which focuses on how the self becomes an agent of ‘do-it-yourself’ autobiographical reconstruction in an age of intensive globalization.

Concepts of the Self remains the most lively, lucid and compelling introduction to contemporary controversies over the self and self-identity in the social sciences and humanities. Written by an author of international reputation, it connects debates about the self directly to identity politics, the sociology of personal relationships and intimacy, and the politics of sexuality, and will continue to be an invaluable introductory text for students in of social and political theory, sociology, social psychology, cultural studies, and gender studies.

Google Books preview:

See also: Author’s homepage

The Oxford Handbook of the Self (Oxford Handbooks), ed. by Shaun Gallagher (Oxford University Press,USA, 2013)

(amazon.co.uk)

Book description from the publisher:

Research on the topic of self has increased significantly in recent years across a number of disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, psychopathology, and neuroscience. The Oxford Handbook of the Self is an interdisciplinary collection of essays that address questions in all of these areas. In philosophy and some areas of cognitive science, the emphasis on embodied cognition has fostered a renewed interest in rethinking personal identity, mind-body dualism, and overly Cartesian conceptions of self. Poststructuralist deconstructions of traditional metaphysical conceptions of subjectivity have led to debates about whether there are any grounds (moral if not metaphysical) for reconstructing the notion of self. Questions about whether selves actually exist or have an illusory status have been raised from perspectives as diverse as neuroscience, Buddhism, and narrative theory. With respect to self-agency, similar questions arise in experimental psychology. In addition, advances in developmental psychology have pushed to the forefront questions about the ontogenetic origin of self-experience, while studies of psychopathology suggest that concepts like self and agency are central to explaining important aspects of pathological experience. These and other issues motivate questions about how we understand, not only “the self”, but also how we understand ourselves in social and cultural contexts.

Google Books preview (Hardcover ed.):

See also: Shaun Gallagher’s webpage