The books I read and recommend.
The reviews
How do the ideas come?
Where does the way of thinking come from?
How do you acquire professionalism?
Even reading.
Here I would like to share with you the books that I have read and that I have liked or have helped to give me professionalism. That's why I was thinking of doing one
psychology section and a popular section.
In the reviews you will find what they left me and at the bottom my associated Amazon link, so, at no cost to you, you can get me a small percentage of the sale.
If you want to let me know your comments or write to me, I'll leave you a link to my social channels and my e-mail, I'll be happy to receive them and answer you.
E-MAIL: richardunterrichter@gmail.com
novels
link per l'acquisto: https://amzn.to/3YjllpX
Paulo Coelho
L’ALCHIMISTA
È un romanzo per sognatori?
Forse sì, ma la ricerca della propria autorealizzazione sempre e comunque individuale e conseguente alla propria autocoscienza per molti, come Maslow e la scuola rogersiana e me, sembra essere il senso della vita. Quale metafora migliore quindi del viaggio?
Nella letteratura romantica dell’Ottocento è di certo largamente usata, ma credo sia quantomai attuale a guardare i post, i real e video su Facebook, Instagram e Youtube.
Il protagonista qui è un ragazzo, un pastore di pecore e nel suo percorso incontrerà molti personaggi da cui non prenderà nulla, ma da cui potrà imparare molto di sé attraverso il confronto con l’altro. Ogni lettore potrà trovare quindi diversi spunti, risvegliare forse desideri velati di velleità e attraversando il deserto insieme al protagonista, potrà, forse, vedere anch’egli le piramidi e trovare così il suo tesoro.
È una recensione sintetica, lo vedo, ma credo sia il frutto di quello che ha dato a me questo libro quando lo lessi durante una mia bella vacanza. Il climax è leggero indicandoci come la serenità sia un unicum, un tutt’uno con la soddisfazione del bisogno fondamentale di libertà dell’essere umano che in fondo, dicevo, sembra essere su questo mondo per realizzare se stesso nelle sue diverse forme e unicità tra gli altri.
CITAZIONI
“Il ragazzo avanzò per due ore e mezzo nel deserto, tentando di ascoltare con attenzione quanto gli diceva il cuore. Era questo che gli avrebbe rivelato il punto esatto in cui il tesoro era Nascosto. – Dove sarà il tuo tesoro, lì si troverà anche il tuo cuore – aveva detto l’Alchimista”
“Il ragazzo si alzò con difficoltà e, una volta ancora, guardò le Piramidi. Queste gli sorrisero: e lui, con il cuore colmo di felicità, ricambiò il sorriso. Aveva trovato il tesoro. “
Here Einstein also allows us to confront some of his beliefs, ways of understanding the other, society, the world and that perhaps we would not expect from a physicist. He does it by addressing important issues such as wealth, happiness, even the meaning of life. The reader gets what he thinks and this can be a stimulus to compare, clarify our convictions or review our certainties regarding the great themes including the very meaning of existence which, starting from different cues, tells us to leave and arrive at others in an open system of dependent variables (us, others). Thus we can find a starting point for reflection regarding the meaning and therefore the importance of knowing ourselves (our temperament, character, needs, beliefs…) and recognizing others (diversity, similarities, role…). Thus it also passes through religion which is based on the need for security against fears. He tackles the idea of morality and with it: "We must always keep this truth in mind if we want to understand intellectual movements and their development because feelings and aspirations are the driving forces of every effort and of every human creation, however sublime may this creation appear.” However, it is a book that I believe can be a valid reading advice to stimulate us, because even in its dry parts, it can give insights and really useful ideas to confirm, understand and discover.
Buy it here: https://amzn.to/3XVKqXQ
Oscar Wilde
DE PROFUNDIS
Feltrinelli
It's a book? In reality it is a long letter that Wilde writes from prison to Lord Alfred Douglas, his ex-lover, because of which he is serving a very heavy sentence. In this condition, so extreme, perhaps the highest peak of humanity described on the double side grows and imposes itself: explicit and implicit of the most profound art.
The man, Wilde, who observes himself in relation to the other and captures all the movements to which he is subject and therefore the real meanings of his perceptions, thoughts, decisions and therefore actions, thus travels a difficult but stripped of all rancor, it seems light, becoming impermeable to hatred and every dark feeling. Thus he takes on meaning in his life and with it he manages to find peace. Thus, he puts the reader in the same position, without the penalty of prison sentence. We then understand that: “Hatred… It is a hereditary disease” and for this reason, for example, it instructs everyone to take care of themselves so as not to pollute others if they do not take care of themselves.
It reveals, among others, the most pervasive and destructive law of human nature: ambivalence. "Tired of heights, in the search for new sensations I deliberately turned to baseness." Wilde shows us how the needs first recognized and then satisfied of men and women can nourish, while otherwise they destroy.
Thus it illuminates the reality in which we all live: the recognition of pain as a necessary exercise for the happy soul and beauty as an expression of the lofty soul. “It is so difficult to maintain the - heights that the soul is capable of conquering- “. This clearly defines how even pain must have the right to asylum in our lives and so that it does not become dominant, it does not pollute them, it must be seen, understood, tolerated and only in this way can it be overcome and will not pollute us.
These are just a few passages for which I believe that the de profundis is among the highest peaks of expression of humanity from which we can learn ways and suggestions for a better life.
In my book I have so many quotes marked that some have imposed themselves in the review. Below I propose three, but they would be many.
“… the aurora of adolescence with its delicate hues, its pure and clear light, its joy of innocence and expectation.”
“… suffering, as strange as this may seem to you, is the means by which we exist, because it is the only means by which we become aware of existing; and the memory of past sufferings is necessary to us as a guarantee and testimony of our uninterrupted identity.”
“… only what is noble and nobly conceived can serve as nourishment for Love. But everything feeds Hatred.“
Wordsworth
link acquisto:
Lisa Liotti
8 SECONDI
(only italian language)
(Only italian language)
Il Saggiatore
La dr.ssa Lisa Liotti, giornalista, ho avuto il piacere di incontrarla ad una presentazione del suo libro a Trento.
Dall’incontro direi che l’intelligenza profonda di carattere vivace, veloce, brillante si ritrova anche in questo suo “ 8 secondi” che è un bell’esempio di lettura che mi ha stimolato domande, curiosità, proposto e nuove vie per intendere i fenomeni contemporanei. Sottolinea infatti quanto internet, i social, ed i devices siano integrati con il nostro modo di fare e pensare, in una chiave realista che prende quota da Ebbingaus (psicologo di fine XIX) studioso della memoria, accarezzando il principio filosofico dell’intraprendenza e via via sviluppando le sue osservazioni e rapporto con i social e il digitale in un valzer tra emozionale e realtà nuova. Cosa direbbe oggi lo psicologo e come la metteremmo quella speculazione della ratio che non è più coordinata per le cose della vita ma paradigma dell’acquisizione delle informazioni? La velocità di Google supera i limiti del tempo e lo smartphone è una protesi cognitiva che fa sentire onniscienti abbattendo le barriere di spazio e tempo. Questo ci fa sentire potenti o inadeguati?
Ma infondo: chi se ne frega! La Liotti ci porta con sé nella quotidianità e così con lei al bar Greco siamo pronti a prendere spunto dai protagonisti del qui ed ora per vedere la complessità delle anime nel mondo ed invece i nuovi bisogni di condivisione inchiodano al realty di una scena chi ci circonda ed è come sentirsi soli. Ecco il rispecchiamento che potranno trovare tanti di noi quando la narratrice, disorientata, prende atto che l’emozione non è più motore di realtà significata, investita dal soggetto che la vive, ma espressione di uno stato.
Nel libro siamo accompagnati da una Virgilio che guarda e sente addosso, su di sé, tutte le ingerenze della tecnologia e dei social nel mondo, senza negarli se ne stupisce magari, ma li riconosce e vive nell’emotività né giusta né sbagliata, che hanno su di lei. Così le sembra strano che su Repubblica appaia l’immagine di una che risponde al cellulare durante una tac, ma così è.
È un libro che narra l’ingerenza quotidiana non desiderata della tecnologia e implicitamente lo smarrimento dalla perdita di ogni possibilità di gestione del tempo e degli spazi e del sentire così l’inadeguatezza di non riuscire a stare dietro a tutto quello che ci arriva addosso.
Un’osservazione sul nostro mondo, sui bisogni introspettivi di alcuni e quelli invece di superficialità che occupano sempre più spazio, di umanità che si compenetrano ed altre che si condividono nella fenomenologia dell’essere qui, poi lì, poi là.
È un libro che consiglio perché credo ci faccia notare degli impliciti del nostro essere cittadini digitali che magari fuori da questi 8 secondi potremmo perderci e sarebbe un peccato.
Citazioni:
“… a una transumanza di tavolo in tavolo alla ricerca di un po’ di quiete”
”Maryanne Wolf per esempio gli schemi sono il nostro ciuccio, il placebo con cui plachiamo gli stati di ansia e combattiamo la noia”
Link per acquistarlo: https://amzn.to/3QU1ACz
Matteo Melchiorre
IL DUCA (Only italian language)
Einaudi
It's a well-structured book, a novel with all the trappings: a fluid story that reveals itself in a path with narrative alternation and excellent technique.
The beauty that I discovered in this book is the reality, perhaps the denunciation, of an unfair experience already seen and lived and then fictionalized by envy and common malice which, however, is followed by hope.
The protagonist, the last of the Cimamonti counts, inhabits history and lives led by the family culture he has inherited. He lives his noble being far from the excesses, from the mystified fantasies of some whothey doteinstead in him an arrogant opportunist and undeserving owner of "things" that he inherited by right like anyone else. It has an ancient palace and villa. What's the difference from the house in the mountains or in someone else's grandparents' village? It has a forest, what's the difference with a field of potatoes, apples, grapes…? Gossips and distorted thinking annotate with slander, but it is the answer that the author seems to want us to formulate individually that makes us discover reality, while the dirty truths of the villains are the guilt that the protagonist has to pay for.
Thus Fastrèda is the self-appointed village boss who does what he is: an envious man greedy for money and property, a tyrant who lives to have power over others and so his personality seeps into the life of the village and the inhabitants are condemned to breathe an invisible fear, but palpable and always present.
“Evil is in the eye of the beholder”. Thus popular wisdom sums up well the phenomenon of the projection of the demonic and poisonous internal world of bad people who pollute others with defamation and backbiting as well as manipulation.
This is why Count Cimamonti is immediately nailed to the role of Enemy of the country, the villain, the one who wants to command and exploit the villagers, but whoever defames and wants to convince others speaks of himself. In fact, it is Fastrèda who is not only the border neighbor of the Cimamonti forest for which he has economic interests, but also the one who feels his status as tyrant of the valley endangered based on lies and deceit and for this he is terrified let his lies be revealed. So here it is a story in which the wickedness and fear that is experienced in this valley take on meaning. Yes, because the problem is not Count Cimamonti, but anyone who has or threatens the balance and interests of Fastrèda and his satraps.
So this story seems to explain why bad people act by confusing and manipulating others and suggests us not to let ourselves be influenced by induced judgments because behind there are hidden interests and needs for command and oppression.
In short, it seems to be a narrative of our contemporary society in which: envy, manipulation, anger and fear are in the common perception due to some while those who can free us are denounced as the enemy. However it is a story of hope.
It's a book that I recommend because it flows, because it makes you relax, but we can also find important ideas to better understand our world.
Being one to underline and arabesque books with annotations and footnotes, I would like to share with you two quotes that I took home and chose from others from this book:
“…that the worst disasters arise from words spoken in secret”
“Hate is like that. It's a powerful feeling. Indeed: the most powerful of all. He has no precise reasons. It is something that one has inside….”
Hoping I have managed to pass you the quality of this reading and believe me I recommend it not as a seller, but as a reader (here you will never find a book that I didn't really like), at the top I leave you my Amazon affiliate link for the purchase so you can go there with a click.
If you want to let me know what you think, you can write me an email or send me comments on social networks (I link the symbols with my profiles).
Hello, happy reading.
Richard Eugen Unterrichter
This is a novel that I actually read in an edition of Rizzoli dated May 1956 many years
fa I discovered it by chance among thousands and thousands of books that lived in my grandparents' house and for this reason I like to think that he wanted to find me.
For me it was a Bildungsroman, one of the beautiful ones, the ones that make me imagine, dream, suffer. even. Like?
By identifying myself with positive characters, who don't sacrifice themselves to achieve a goal, but to promote justice and, even so, helping me to learn to better recognize good from evil. This way I understood better that the first, the good, is always coherent with reality and that it is in this way that serenity of mind is achieved and that allows us to conquer the congruence of the human being..
This story teaches that no one can do, think or speak differently from what they are and makes evident the height of the nobility, the real one, the one that only promotes good in people and in the world.
It is the story of the baron of Sigognac who, together with a company of actors, who ask him for shelter in his crumbling manor one bad night, embarks on a journey as a member of the company to go and meet the king.
An adventure in which the nobleman, pretending to be an actor, plays the character he dresses, but how? How is he: according to "virtue and knowledge", Dante would say, solving problems and unexpected events for the company, improving their life throughout the journey and when he meets someone like the Duke of Vallombrosa who will certainly not behave like a gentleman, he beats him because Captain Fracassa however, in shabby clothes, is the Baron of Sigognac and as such he defends the weak, helps those in need and makes justice triumph.
It is also a beautiful love story that is born and grows between the protagonist and the beautiful actress, Isabella, a story that the baron protects even from himself (his contingent misfortunes) and nourishes until the end.
Surprises and twists abound.
A story from another time?
No, a daydream that remains in the heart and gives us the foundations to then be able to build useful lenses aNo, a daydream that remains in the heart and gives us the foundations to then be able to build useful lenses a_cc781905-5cde-3194- bb3b-136bad5cf58d_ seeing the world and others in a better way and knowing how to recognize the beauty that lies in the reality of authentic relationships.
I advise everyone, especially girls and boys who can find trust here and hope in life and in others.
As always if you want to let me know, tell me if you liked it or for comments, you can find me on my social networks and at my e-mail address marked in the presentation of this page.
Quotes
"... no temptation did anything on her; in the Garden of Eden he would not have listened even to the serpent"
"...the violent effort had torn the childish shell of the chrysalis in which the young girl slept."
books of
psychology
Per l’acquisto: https://amzn.to/3WPj6cA
A.Lis, A. Zennaro, F. Giovannini, C. Mazzeschi, V. Calvo
ORT
Object Relations Technique: an empirical-clinical evaluation grid (I have wrote about the italian version. The english book can be some different)
Raffaello Cortina Editore
This book is strictly speaking a tool for psychotherapist specialists who, after a careful evaluation of the structure and degree of functioning of the person they assist can use it to effectively understand aspects of their personality. Unlike structural projectives (Rorschach, TAT, Blacy…) it is defined as “thematic” both for the reason that a story, a theme is required, and because its purpose is to detect conflicting issues and themes, as well as internal relational objects, for which it will be important to be correctly prognostic with respect to a break down that the activations due to possible insights, revelations or awareness in the person could generate in the homeostasis of the person we are in charge of.
The colleagues who wish to use the ORT are accompanied in the book in an exhaustive path (certainly for specialists) which goes from the assessment, to the deliveries, up to the coding grids with the silhouettes of the characters and the details present in each of the 11 tables of the ORT. It is perhaps also reassuring for those who find it reassuring, as well as certainly useful, to be able to have examples of protocols for their interpretation. There are some for the range that goes, in order of book’s presentation: from the "protocol of the normal adult patient", to the adolescent, nevrotic, psychotic, psychosomatic and borderline with the related scoring sheets. In the appendices you will find: the analysis of the typologies of subordinates, lexical aspects and verbal typologies, disturbances in the structure of the story, typologies of conflicts,
Finally, there is also the coding system of the instrument: with the indication of the percentage of agreement of Kappa of Cohen, the significance and intraclass correlation between judges.
Per l'acquisto: https://amzn.to/3j48f0w
P. Howell-R. Jones
EFFECTIVE COUPLE RELATIONSHIP. Create the desired report. (only in italian language)
If the person is a reality, fortunately, complex and constantly changing with his needs (conscious and not) the couple is a world inhabited by two people. However, the charm of the couple is not in the "only" sum of two individualities that meet, it is much more: it is feelings that reveal themselves, grow, even arise. Perhaps the only reality in which we can really find the whole range of feelings, beautiful and ugly, is in the authentic couple and this is the real wonder: they can all really be there and even the deepest and most frightening anxieties, the most marked limits and the most unthinkable mistakes of individuals can be overcome and crossed over.
In this book, with a Rogerian orientation (the people series is edited by the IACP and directed by one of the founders of the theory, Alberto Zucconi) in 213 pages, four of which are bibliography, the authors offer the reader some fixed points, pillars as they call them, which can help the couple in their relational dynamics. The first is “setting goals”. Indeed, having common ones for a couple is a way to reinforce the sense of being together, but this does not mean giving up individuality, one's own, rather realizing them with awareness of the other too. Continue with others that may sound like rules to someone, or advice, in any case, for everyone they can become alerts about his condition in the couple, but also practical support in managing the dynamics.
In the book one can also grasp, perhaps not always explicitly, the importance of one's self-awareness. An example of this is the chapter “Reducing Your Defensiveness”. Here we find the need for the couple construct not as the sum of one plus one but of elements that influence and are always influenced by themselves, by the other and by what lives in the couple. For this reason, each partner will have in self-awareness, here too, what I call a very useful "tool".
QUOTES
“It helps to work on becoming aware of the various ways in which we express our defensiveness, so that we can begin to observe it as it occurs or soon after.”
“Awareness of your feelings of sadness, pain, fear, helplessness can help detach you from blaming tendencies and allow you to express feelings that are deeply meaningful.”
“The absence of congruent self-disclosure is vulnerability – the willingness to show your true thoughts and feelings and trust that your partner will ultimately hold them safe. It involves letting your partner know what's going on with you, where you are, what you think, what you feel, what you need."
Purchase link: https://amzn.to/3WkTDaQ
Robert L. Leahy
SEVEN MOVES TO FREE YOURSELF FROM ANXIETY
Raffaello Cortina Publisher (language: italian )
Dr. Leahy, psychotherapist, with a cognitive-behavioral psychological approach, offers in this book a psychotherapeutic protocol to control anxiety. There are over 350 interesting pages because they help in a good number of cases in symptom management and I myself use it (fully or in part) and advise to treat people with hypertension, very rational and unstructured psychosomatic functioning. Among the lights that offers dr. Leahy in this book, there is to remember that anxiety still has an ontogenesis, a subjective origin and that although it is here focused on cognitive processes, thoughts and ideational style, it still gives the reader the underlining of the importance of emotion. One of the important steps, they are many, then it is that of recognizing the type of restlessness we can suffer from: fear of being judged, of the occurrence of a situation, of leaving something, of losing control... and thus comes to show how the agonizing from which he suffers is actually a defense that the subject constructs himself to try to reduce uncertainty, fear, but which does not last long and indeed, often generates others because he does not identify (as I say) the reality of the symptom, but seeks a useful truth. “In fact, it may be that you gather the wrong information, that you are unable to concentrate on the relevant aspects and that you see danger everywhere, even before feeling the waters.” lose control... and thus comes to show how the racking anguish from which he suffers is actually a defense that the subject builds up to try to reduce uncertainty, fear, but which does not last long and indeed often generates others because he does not identify (as I say) the reality of the symptom, but seeks a useful truth. “In fact, it may be that you gather the wrong information, that you are unable to concentrate on the relevant aspects and that you see danger everywhere, even before feeling the waters.” lose control... and thus comes to show how the racking anguish from which he suffers is actually a defense that the subject builds up to try to reduce uncertainty, fear, but which does not last long and indeed often generates others because he does not identify (as I say) the reality of the symptom, but seeks a useful truth. “In fact, it may be that you gather the wrong information, that you are unable to concentrate on the relevant aspects and that you see danger everywhere, even before feeling the waters.”
It also offers self-assessment scales such as the scale of intolerance towards uncertainty and the questionnaire on personal beliefs, offering a profile of the anxiety one suffers from.
But what are the seven moves proposed by dr. Leahy?
Determine when to worry and when not to worry, accept reality and commit to change, question your worry-ridden thinking, focus on the deeper threat, turn “failure” into opportunity, use your emotions instead of worry about it, take control of the time.
Maybe it's one of those books that we should all have at home, to use when needed.
QUOTES:
“Most restless people harbor ambivalent opinions about their worrying habit: - I rack my brains to the point of going crazy- and – I need to worry continuously to be ready for any eventuality-”
“In fact, some believe that agreeing to have a feeling means saying that it's okay and there's nothing you can do about it. But if you don't accept having a particular feeling, it will be difficult to overcome it. For example, if you are angry with your partner, you will not be able to do much to appease the anger unless you first accept that this is the feeling you feel.
“The problem with this emphasis on rationality over feelings is that evolution has meant that humans have emotions and use them to understand their own needs. The more you demand rational behavior from yourself, the greater your frustration will be.”
Link per l'acquisto:
Paul Claude Racamier
I
IL GENIO DELLE ORIGINI – PSICOANALISI E PSICOSI (language: italian)
Raffaello Cortina Editore
It is a difficult book because it needs very solid psychiatric and psychotherapeutic theoretical foundations (especially dynamics) for this reason I recommend it to clinical colleagues. There are more than 400 very intense pages and for this reason, having already reviewed it, but redoing it from scratch, if someone has already read it, they will probably also find different topics.
Racamier is, I believe shared by all, one of the most psychotherapists illuminating beacons of human reality and therefore of its complexity. In this book he focuses on the effects of the original unresolved mourning and the severe suffering it brings on the personality structures gripped by family ghosts, of the anti-Oedipus that leads to narcissus and incest, the predestined figure and the fetish, perversion and narcissistic ambiguity (in addition to denial).
The text offers the possibility of understanding and therefore being able to diagnose and thus propose an elective therapy functional to the resolution of the case, acts otherwise invisible and inexplicable in their real action which will thus go unnoticed or to which false truths will be associated. Like the statuette child who is not a doll, a thing, but one or more people. It is a case cited by Racamier in which a child was inoculated with pins into the body, was filled physically, by his grandmother, causing him terrible pain, but with the foresight not to damage vital organs to keep him alive to avoid the pain of fear of loss of the sick lover: “… transportation of evil… deprived of any symbolic and pre-symbolic mediation, it is placed by its author at the service of avoiding a loss, the threatening loss of the sick lover.
He then explains how narcissistic acting out strikes "at one blow, on the subject and on his environment, with suicide attempts and through the dilemma". Interesting, however, is the evidence, not at all obvious and invisible to those who are not authentically of the trade that Racamier reveals to us, that there are also "suicide by proxy". An obscurely depressed person, instead of committing suicide, commits suicide other people: he has no other means than to kill them… do not confuse with collective suicide…”. He reminds us and shows well how: “in the framework of a movement of an essentially narcissistic nature, the anti-mourning defense resorts to two chosen weapons: denial and splitting. Then, immediately, the execution and the expulsion will come.”
The author reminds us and represents well what projective identification (by Melanie Klein then expanded by Rosenfeld, Bion, Meltzer) is and how it works, a defense "of the paranoid-schizoid position, and consists in the violent ejection of contents and ghosts violence inside the facility, where they are strictly controlled”. This is followed by the omnipotent control of the object is a massive defense of this personality structure which if it becomes dominant indicates a diagnosis of psychopathy or antisocial personality (synonyms). Later it deals with the control of the object (the person victim of projective identification) showing how this too is a primitive defense devastating for the victim.
Another passage from the book that I quote here is the description of the scripts of manipulative and perverse personalities: the "cuckoo strategy". Racamier takes this bird as an example and how it places its egg in another's nest and has it raised by the latter as a parasite. “She lays the egg at the right time and at full speed; hidden in the foliage, it waits for the female to fool to leave the nest for an instant to stretch its wings, and then runs, immediately lays the egg, takes one of those that are already there in its place, to then carry it away and eat it, and flies away… The deception is precise… in the same way the perverse nucleus can only take hold under the aspect of the banal, the ordinary and the identical, and do everything possible to go unnoticed at first sight, to blend in with the crowd. Thus, and thus only, it’s not denied.
These quoted are just a few very important passages for those who do individual, family and social clinics because only by knowing these human realities can one help without risking colluding with the pathology or fueling it or becoming its victims.
This is a text (about 190 pages) that I consider useful for those who want to do psychotherapeutic clinics, but which, although more approachable than "The genius of origins", must always be taken with the awareness of being a sophisticated tool. Thus, I suggest it to my clinical colleagues as an adjuvant to much other training (scientific, cultural, human and personal that our work requires), while, to those who are not in the trade and want to approach this personality style, as a conscious approach and not believing that he will then become a specialist who knows how to recognize and then signify its symptoms or signs because it would not be enough since manipulation and deception are precisely among the characteristics of this personality.
For this review I will propose many quotes, in quotation marks, from Lowen thus highlighting how I am simply carrying out my job as a clinical adviser and certainly not as a judge or inquisitor.
The subtitle immediately illuminates the central focus of this personality structure: “the disowned identity”. The central nucleus is in fact that of: not having an identity and for this reason those who do have one fight with all their might because it instills blind envy in them.
“We shape culture in our image and in turn we are shaped by culture. Can we understand one without understanding the other? Can psychology ignore sociology and vice versa?” Lowen tells us that for the narcissist it is structural because more than living it works by blending into the environment, judging and controlling everything and everyone by devaluing what he envies. He aspires to have power and control over others for this reason it is never easy to distinguish them from psychopaths and for this reason it is particularly useful to make a differential diagnosis. Lowen explains how they are characterized by acting out (acting and/or making others act), lie, cheat, even kill, without showing any sign of guilt or remorse. (Lowen also recognizes, among the narcissistic disorders, a psychopathic personality).
Regarding fascination Lowen explains how: “Being aware of oneself or having a self-image is not an indication of narcissism… and what is great can only be determined in reference to the real self. A self-image as attractive and charming to the opposite sex (NA and otherwise) isn't great if you actually have those qualities." Thus, to say that actors or a beautiful, charming man or woman are narcissistic if they are attractive means not recognizing the fact of reality, risking falling into individual projections of a narcissistic nature here "... because there would be no gap between the imagined and the self (NA phonomenology)… the value of a good look, when it expresses feeling good in one's body. This well-being manifests itself in the brilliance of the eyes, in the lively color of the skin, in a serene and pleasant facial expression and in a body that is vibrant, vital and graceful in movement. Someone who doesn't feel good in their body can only project an image of what they think a good physical appearance should be. And the more he concentrates on these images, the more he lacks pleasant sensations and feelings. That Ulysses felt and acted like the king of Ithaca while he was traveling without his belongings, he did not mean that he was narcissistic, pathological it would have been the opposite. The center of narcissistic disorder is in fact right here, in identity: he doesn't have his own identity and despises, destroying those who have it. Someone who doesn't feel good in their body can only project an image of what they think a good physical appearance should look like. And the more he concentrates on these images, the more he lacks pleasant sensations and feelings. That Ulysses felt and acted like the king of Ithaca while he was traveling without his belongings, he did not mean that he was narcissistic, pathological it would have been the opposite. The center of narcissistic disorder is in fact right here, in identity: he doesn't have his own identity and despises, destroying those who have it. Someone who doesn't feel good in their body can only project an image of what they think a good physical appearance should look like. And the more he concentrates on these images, the more he lacks pleasant sensations and feelings. That Ulysses felt and acted like the king of Ithaca while he was traveling without his belongings, he did not mean that he was narcissistic, pathological it would have been the opposite. The center of narcissistic disorder is in fact right here, in identity: he doesn't have his own identity and despises, destroying those who have it.
I point out the many cases reported such as that of Karen, focused on the deprivation of love of which infants were victims, Martha on seduction and manipulation and many others.
English text, my link Amazon: https://amzn.to/3RpWoGW
Joyce Mc Dougall
Theaters Of The Body: A Psychoanalytic Approach to Psychosomatic Illness
W. W. Norton & Company
In my opinion, it is a fundamental text for anyone who even just wants to understand, as well as work with functional physical suffering, that is, with all those diseases of the body that do not have an ontogeny of an organic nature.
It is an important book and like all texts it is not sufficient to understand and treat a person's illness or disease, but which I believe is absolutely necessary to know in order to be able to do so in cases of psychosomatics.
It is an outdated book, some will observe, however if integrated with subsequent research and the practices of therapists who successfully deal with the treatment and cure of disorders that have to do with the body, it is in my opinion a very useful text for practice clinical and therapeutic and understanding of the phenomenon.
It's a book that doesn't just talk about the illness of the individual, but explains how in a life together there can also be psychosomatic couples.
A first lesson is that the body speaks for us when we are unable to give meanings, attention: real, to what we feel and need. In fact it is when there is no room for expression for the word that the body is used.
We thus discover how a psychosomatic manifestation is erroneously recognized as urticaria whose cause was recognized in the too much fat in the milk of a type of cow that a patient drank and faced with the evidence that, when she drank in different places, she did not have that " shameful boo".
In the book, however, we discover that the body is not only the bearer of symbolic meanings that cannot be expressed otherwise, but that there may be intersections or comorbidities with hysteria and that it is not only some types of stomach or back pain, but also constipation, psychogenic infertility, sexual impotence and frigidity, such as asthma… (the list is very long)
In short, this book is important because it offers us a panorama and above all the basis for understanding the alphabet of the pre-symbolic order of which psychosomatic pathologies are an expression and prepares us for understanding the short-circuit of representation through the word and therefore for well-being.
It makes us understand how diagnosis and treatment are in the difficult condition of recognizing, disposing of and metabolizing the painful meanings that psychosomatic patients have, in addition to accessing and recognizing their own needs. This is why the difference is made by the theoretical preparation and the intuitive ability of the unique therapist towards an effective healing tool in all that is "psychosomething".
It then gives the measures of the need for knowledge and skills that the therapist must have in order to be able to generate healing together with the patient.
It's a demanding book, but I think it could be useful for everyone: for those suffering from psychosomatic disorders, for anyone close to people with these disorders and certainly all therapists who want to work and be effective in treating these patients.
I can say that without the knowledge in this book I would never have been able to build the tools in my work to treat people with this type of ailment. Of course, I repeat, it is not enough, but in my opinion it is fundamental, certainly very useful.
As always, if you want to contact me for comments or anything else, you can find me on social networks or you can write to my e-mail, I will be happy to answer you. (You can find them elsewhere in the description of this page).
Thanks for reading.
Richard Eugen Unterrichter
Quotes
“… for the analyst it is a theater that his analysands want to share with him, a theater in which he is invited to play different parts.”
Link english text:
Daniel Goleman,
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
Paperback
Among the psychology and psychiatry books that I have read and read here, I would like to share with you not so much the somewhat boring and very technical ones with nosographic tables, pathognomonic clusters, symptomatological constellations, etc. but those integrating them, but no less important. I therefore thought of proposing this as the first text and I will immediately explain why.
It is a very important book, which I would sincerely recommend to everyone because it opens up to a concept that is by no means obvious in our Western culture and that is that man, in order to be effective, productive and happy, needs two distinct types of intelligence: rational, the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and emotional, the Emotional Intelligence (EI).
This book lays the foundations for understanding many phenomena that underlie the bad feelings, actions and situations that people experience in daily life such as unhappiness, helplessness, anger, fear, envy, but it also opens up the possibility of accepting that human behavior goes beyond action-reaction and that thought is not only the result of the brain, but also, above all I would say, of feeling._cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b -136bad5cf58d_
So Goleman opens us to new concepts that give us the foundations, on which other things will rest, to then build us le lenses to see reality and be so effective and happy in life and make others so too.
So it reminds us what emotions are and that is the impulses to react and for this reason it comes from the Latin "e moveo" (to move from) so here is that already with this little tip I think you have guessed how useful it is to be able to feel and understand real emotions that we experience, because they contain the meanings of the things we do and therefore the needs we have. In short, if someone says something to us and we feel embarrassed, we will respond (we will) in one way, if instead we feel respect we will respond in another and so on. Note: this also applies to thoughts that's why it speaks of two minds: the rational and the emotional.
The book also talks about how contemporary man has developed, biologically, the addition of the neocortex and the connections with the limbic system and that in general, this evolution that has to do with the emotional universe, has made the man more effective just as in the example he gives reminding us that a rabbit and a rhesus monkey respond differently to fear, so a primitive man will respond differently than a civilized one. Thanks to emotional intelligence therefore, all the more useful as the social system and complexity increase, it is essential to find solution strategies to the life situations in which we live. For the more concrete there is therefore also ample biological demonstration of this theory.
Compared to the two types of intelligence, it opens us to the knowledge that educated people or with a high IQ can fall into the shallows of emotions such as the ability to overcome frustrations or seek pleasure at all costs and this is because cognitive intelligence is different and serves to other.
After all, the concept of multiple intelligence Goleman is not the only one to recognize it (Gardner recognizes twenty different ones).
The book is really interesting and here I would like to give you just a few more ideas, but I invite you to read it because you will be able to find, perhaps not all the answers to your questions, but I think it certainly is interesting material.
For example: what is the use of being aware of the emotions we feel? Goleman says not to be its slaves and therefore not to be manipulated.
Then he talks about empathy, a concept that is often abused and misunderstood. What is it based on? On self-awareness therefore on the recognition of one's own and others' emotions (na and feelings). This is the short answer, but in reality it is based on many reasons, studies, researches and experiments such as those of Rosenthal, tests such as the Pons (Profile or Nonverbal Sensitivity). Thus you will find the rudiments of how empathy develops, the effect it has on children and people, neurology, the correlation with ethics (ie the way we do). He also mentions the effects of lack of empathy and thus speaks of the abuser and the sociopath. In short, there is a lot of interesting stuff to understand many behaviors we witness every day.
You can also find ideas to better understand the treatments of trauma and other pathological forms.
I assure you that you find much more about what emotions are for and how we humans function. This is why I believe it is one of the fundamental texts of psychology.
Leaving you just two quotes, believe me, it's difficult, but this is the rule I've set myself so I offer you these:
“… academic intelligence offers almost no preparation for overcoming the travails that life brings”
“… it is precisely in the moments when passions are more intense or when a crisis hangs over us, that the primitive inclinations of the centers of the limbic system assume a preponderant role. In those moments, the inclinations that the emotional brain has repeatedly learned will, for better or worse, become dominant.
Enjoy the reading
Richard Eugen Unterrichter
Purchase link: https://amzn.to/3wKRydN
Susan David,
EMOTIONAL AGILITY.
Paperback
After the book "Goleman's emotional intelligence" I would like to suggest this text, popular, but which I believe can help to frame the importance and usefulness of having developed emotional intelligence. The basic principle is very simple: we are social beings. There are many reasons they range from practical advantages for the more pragmatic (the group guarantees protection, specializations…) to those a little more sophisticated let's say that it is the basis for a full, complete and satisfying as well as useful. The whys and hows are, however, in many reasons that we find in the laws of nature about the temperament and character of man (which I always remember are two different things and which form the individual personality).
The first thing you take home from this book is that the famous human resilience, necessary to survive the changes is a skill that comes from the self-awareness of one's emotions. As if to say: to have new ideas and visions for the future, one must be in contact with emotions, thoughts will then come by themselves. So: where do ideas come from? From emotions and feelings.
In the chapters we discover that our way of generating meaning can be a trap if flawed, obtuse or revealing reality depending on our ability to understand emotions. In this regard, the economist Thorstein Veblen is quoted who defined "the trained incapacity" that of the experts in knowing how to take the context into consideration to find solutions to problems. He points to some more common pitfalls: the monkey mind, when you exaggerate things and imagine worst-case scenarios; old and outdated ideas (oh, the book says so, not me, ok?) what was functional I'm afraid ago may not be functional now or even become dysfunctional; wanting to be right at all costs.
Then he explains how to break free from the traps and the means is that of emotional skills.
Thus, I who am creative would say: "Mens sana in corde sano" "Healthy mind in heart / healthy feeling". It gives some ideas of how to do it, always indicating that awareness and self-acceptance at the end of the day are what make a woman and a man free, effective and happy people.
In order to recognize one's emotions, the book starts from the archetypes of Campbell and Jung, passes through the Babadooks and says that the way to overcome them is to let them go. Like? The quickest way is to get help from those who already have these tools, but give techniques such as letting go (ideas and emotions), grasping their contradictions, having a laugh, unmasking thoughts and emotions.
To go on, he says that we need to gradually change our beliefs as well as our motivations.
Then he talks about emotional agility at work, team traps, such as the mismatch that other people's behavior depends on fixed personality traits such as hypocrisy or risk aversion. The importance of recognizing emotions present in the working context. In fact, one would experience the emotional contagion for which by spreading in an organization it helps to define the culture of that workplace. Then he also mentions the motivations for work which is not just to have a role.
But if being emotionally agile is so important, how do you raise children with these skills? This question is addressed in chapter 10 and among the ways there is setting an example, knowing how to think and not what to think and the grand finale: raising children who know how to love.
Quotes
“No matter how smart or creative people are, or what kind of personality they have, what determines how successful they will be depends on how they navigate in their inner world.”
“when we manage to abandon destructive thoughts and emotions, attention and understanding of the choices to be made grow in us. We are free again to choose in line with our values.”
“Only a generation or two ago, society was able to define with some clarity which were 'male activities' and which were 'female activities'. Now, you might get punched on the nose if you remake that rigid distinction.”
Richard Eugen Unterrichter
English book link Amazon : https://amzn.to/3Y6ceIW
Carl R. Rogers,
CLIENT-CENTERED THERAPY: ITS CURRENT PRACTICE, IMPLICATIONS, AND THEORY
Paperback
400 pages where you can find the basics of the Rogerian technique.
It's another book that was definitely fundamental for my training as a psychotherapist and gives a lot of satisfaction and basic notions for anyone who wants to work or approach the world of psychology.
The introduction is by Dr. Alberto Zucconi who is among the members who have studied and developed the Rogerian model and for this reason I advise you to read carefully.
This is also a fundamental text for anyone who wants to do something psycho, I think it can also be suggested to counselors of this approach, however, I always say, it is not an instruction manual, for this reason, although it is fundamental for the practice of anyone who wants to use this technique cannot be considered exhaustive, but as always, in the texts that I recommend, necessary.
One of the first things that the book explains is how the vision of man is evolutionary, so the person would be in continuous personal growth and self-transformation.
Another fundamental point is that for which the person or, if you like, the patient, is an active element which of course must be activated by the professionalism and ability of the therapist who in the therapeutic relationship builds the additives necessary to make the assisted use his/her abilities .
For this reason, a fundamental point that he teaches is the therapist's acceptance of the patient's abilities even if they are currently blocked or inhibited.
He then explains how the empathic disposition, therefore the therapist's ability to place it in the therapeutic relationship, is one of the fundamental elements. Said like at the bar: it's not putting yourself in the other's shoes, but feeling, sharing, understanding, integrating, giving meaning and returning the meanings of the person's emotional world in a useful way. Empathy is not just putting yourself in another person's shoes.
Explains how the therapist is not, even if the client's expectations may be those, who will give him advice, nor the one who will scan his unconscious and explains how the therapist must be able to recognize and manage reactions and internal movements.
He also talks about transference in this type of relationship, how it works and what it was for, also from the point of view of formulating the functional diagnosis.
We also find that it is useful and applicable to student training work reporting the effects of the Rogerian teaching model.
With respect to training it gives valuable information on how and what to do with also the objective evaluation of the effects of the courses.
Finally there is the theory of personality and behavior in which the vision of man is that of an open system in which the global personality, lived experience and the structure of the self are recognized.
Quotes
“… every man must find within himself solutions for which, in the past, it was society that took responsibility”
“… in general terms, therapy is a learning process. Mowrer has effectively helped to point this out, as indeed have other authors. The client learns new aspects of himself, new ways of relating to others, new ways of behaving.”
I hope this quick review has been helpful to you, but if you have any comments, questions, or would like to share ideas or anything else with me, as always, you know how to do it and I'll be glad.
Enjoy the reading
Richard Eugen Unterrichter
To order it: https://amzn.to/3JP0pmH
David J. Miklowitz
THE BIPOLAR DISORDER SURVIVAL GUIDE: WHAT YOU AND YOUR FAMILY NEED TO KNOW
It is a book that can certainly be a useful complement to a therapeutic management of people with bipolar disorders. Yes, because in addition to pharmacological and psychotherapeutic therapies, knowledge of the disorder on the part of the bearer and family members is also particularly useful, starting from the awareness that clinical variability is really important: there are people who can suffer from it in relation to particular and circumscribed moments over time others who have a continuous frequency of hospitalizations throughout their lives, the interference of stress and the environment on the symptoms.
For example, another important thing to know is that it is not a psychiatric disorder, but a neurological one, although it is treated competently by psychiatry with drugs and self-management type psychotherapeutic therapies that allow you to avoid relapses, prevent environmental events triggering the crises, manage break downs.
However, as this book well underlines is that, especially for that part of the bipolar population who is approaching the second case, learning to recognize the moments that condition their moods is crucial for their well-being because it puts people in a position to build strategies that minimize the difficulties caused by bipolar disorder.
Basically, it is quite common to know that it is a mood swinging between a state of hyperactivation (manic states) and a strong psycho-motor slowdown (depressive states). During the mania stages, mood is expansive, euphoric, need for sleep decreased, mood is irritable, grandiosity, and crammed with ideas; in depressive disorders the person becomes sad, loses interest in things, appetite, weight, feels guilty, often has ideas of suicide.
Another important thing is to know as people with bipolar disorder are also at such a high risk for substance abuse (alcohol and other), physical abuse and suicide, that there is a large variability from person to person.
Thus changes in the way of thinking and doing are highlighted.
The book also offers a useful description of the expectations of the diagnostic process and a clinical case overview with description of the case and description of the intervention therapy.
In addition to diagnostic tables, it also offers the reader the opportunity to see how even in this area of the clinic (of the psyche) the diagnosis is not immediate and how it is possible to go wrong with other disorders if you are not careful. Thus he lists the psychiatric disorders often confused with the bipolar one, including: borderline personality disorder, ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, cyclothymic disorder, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, substance-induced mood disorder, recurrent major depressive disorder.
The pervasiveness of this disorder is then also addressed in terms of therapies that help the person not to confuse symptoms of the disorder with characteristics of his personality, thus offering him a more resilient self-esteem.