Non-Fiction Books

This guide is by the author of "How to Stop Worrying". People suffering from some degree of obsessive compulsive disorder may be embarrassed by their symptoms and not present themselves for treatment. This book, therefore, attempts to provide a comprehensive guide to self-help, explaining the principles of anxiety reduction, giving treatment instructions in easy-to-understand language. It covers compulsive checking, washing, hoarding, obsessional thoughts and worry, obsessional personality and depression.

This self-help manual is for sufferers of schizophrenia and their families. Taking a positive and practical approach, the book tells what schizophrenia is, the possible causes, what treatment is available, and what the social services can do to help. It explodes many of the myths about schizophrenia, for example, that a schizophrenic breakdown is permanent, that violence and aggression are common amongst sufferers, and that people diagnosed with the illness, suffer from a "split personality". Topics include the role of good communication in the family, the importance of a healthy lifestyle, stress and anxiety management, dealing with insomnia, knowing the sufferers rights, what treatment is like, and a description of the new non-drug approaches to sympton management. Advice is included on developing social skills and community care is emphasized.

A comprehensive and up-to-date review of obessionality which integrates a full range of research findings. The main aim of the book is to consider cognition, in the broadest sense, within the context of OCD. Chapters cover the historical development of OCD and its biological data; assessment; phenomenology - including emphasis on cognitive writings which link the observations of Freud with contemporary theories; neuropsychology; cognitive behavioral treatment; and cognition and brain state.

"Changing Minds" is an accessible history of psychotherapy, introducing its key figures (from Freud to Beck) and explaining their most important ideas. The book shows how psychotherapy has influenced our understanding of the mind and its workings, particularly with respect to the form of suffering that we call 'mental illness'. Frank Tallis argues that, in a world in which the old certainties of religion have been brought into question by the advance of science, psychotherapy represents a secular response to suffering. Unlike many boos of psychology, "Changing Minds" explores the personalities of the field's major figures, as well as their ideas.Throughout, the author shows how historical and cultural events, such as the Holocaust and the invention of the computer, have influenced ideas about the mind, and vice versa. Crammed with entertaining and informative vignettes, and many references to theatre, and literature, this book places scientific developments in a cultural context, making it both accessible and interesting.

In The Incurable Romantic , Frank Tallis recounts the extraordinary stories of patients who are, quite literally, madly in love: a woman becomes utterly convinced that her dentist is secretly infatuated with her and drives him to leave the country; a man destroys his massive fortune through trysts with over three thousand prostitutes--because his ego requires that they fall in love with him; a beautiful woman's pathological jealousy destroys the men who love her. Along the way, we learn a great deal about the history of psychiatry and the role of neuroscience in addressing disordered love. Elegantly written and infused with deep sympathy, The Incurable Romantic shows how all of us can become a bit crazy in love.

A chronicle of Vienna's Golden Age and the influence of Sigmund Freud on the modern world by a clinical psychologist whose mystery novels form the basis of PBS's Vienna Blood series. Some cities are like stars. When the conditions are right, they ignite, and burn with such fierce intensity that they outshine every other city on the planet. Vienna was one such city and, at the beginning of the twentieth century, was the birthplace of the modern mind and the way we live today. Long coffee menus and celebrity interviews are Viennese inventions. ‘Modern’ buildings were appearing in Vienna long before they started appearing in New York and the idea of practical modern home design originated in the work of Viennese architect Adolf Loos. The place, however, where one finds the most indelible and profound impression of Viennese influence is inside your head. How we think about ourselves has been largely determined by Vienna’s most celebrated resident, Sigmund Freud. In Mortal Secrets , Frank Tallis brilliantly illuminates Sigmund Freud and his times, taking readers into the mind of one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, chronicling the evolution of psychoanalysis and opening up Freud’s life to embrace the Vienna he lived in and the lives of the people he mingled with from Gustav Klimt to Arnold Schönberg, Egon Schiele to Gustav Mahler. Mortal Secrets is a thrilling book about a heady time in one of the world’s most beautiful cities and its long shadow that extends through the twentieth century up until the present day.