If You Can T Trust Your Mother Whom Can You Trust

The main theme of this book concerns the continuing psychic centrality of parents for their children. Several chapters examine an author and his works, outlining that author's relationships with parents, good-and-bad, and making descriptive comments about these based both on information gleaned from the author's life and writings as well as from observations found in autobiographies, biographies and critical works. Since these studies in part concern stories of child abuse and deprivation, the book predominantly illustrates bad parenting that seems to have contributed to the child's psychopathology. Yet in most cases there has also been an evocation by the trauma and deprivation of adaptive and even creative reactions--this positive effect also of course largely attributable to concomitant good parenting--and yet there are some cases where little of this seems to have existed and yet the children still turn out to be able to make something of themselves. The conditions that make for psychic health in a traumatized childhood are mysterious and can't always be accounted for.

To abuse or neglect a child, to deprive the child of his or her own identity and ability to experience joy in life, is to commit soul murder. Soul murder is the perpetration of brutal or subtle acts against children that result in their emotional bondage to the abuser and, finally, in their psychic and spiritual annihilation. In this compelling, disturbing, and superbly readable book, Dr. Leonard Shengold, clinical professor of psychiatry at the New York University School of Medicine, explores the devastating psychological effects of this trauma inflicted on a shocking number of children. Drawing on a lifetime of clinical experience and wide-ranging reading in world literature, Dr. Shengold examines the ravages of soul murder in the adult lives of his patients as well as in the lives and works of such seminal writers as George Orwell, Dickens, Chekhov, and Kipling. One hopeful note in this saga of pain is that a terrible childhood can, if survived, be a source of strength, as Dr. Shengold finds in the cases of Dickens and Orwell. Provocatively original in its approach to literature and psychology, unsettling in its vivid portrayal of the darker side of human nature, far-reaching in its conclusions, Soul Murder will stand alongside such works as Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child as one of the most important studies of the psyche to appear in decades.

It could be you or someone you love. Strong, silent types are everywhere, and it is their telltale silence that has kept their problems hidden until now. A silent son can come from a family that coped with violence, alcoholism, child abuse, extreme rigidity, or divorce, but all silent sons have certain common characteristics: They keep things that bother them to themselves. They deny that unpleasant events occur. They fear letting people know them. They have difficulty interacting with their parents, spouses, or children. They have a strong fear of criticism. They are often angry. In Silent Sons, Dr. Robert Ackerman, a silent son himself, examines the problems that commonly confront silent sons, keeping them from experiencing the full range of human emotions. In a compassionate and hopeful voice, the author defines the silent son and examines the impact of parents, particularly fathers, on these men and shows how their dysfunctional upbringing affects their present relationships, especially with women. By putting aside anger, finding peace with one's self, and looking for support from other silent sons, Dr. Ackerman feels every man can realize his full potential and become a well balanced, healthy survivor.

The main theme of this book concerns the continuing psychic centrality of parents for their children. Several chapters examine an author and his works, outlining that author's relationships with parents, good-and-bad, and making descriptive comments about these based both on information gleaned from the author's life and writings as well as from observations found in autobiographies, biographies and critical works. Since these studies in part concern stories of child abuse and deprivation, the book predominantly illustrates bad parenting that seems to have contributed to the child's psychopathology. Yet in most cases there has also been an evocation by the trauma and deprivation of adaptive and even creative reactions--this positive effect also of course largely attributable to concomitant good parenting--and yet there are some cases where little of this seems to have existed and yet the children still turn out to be able to make something of themselves. The conditions that make for psychic health in a traumatized childhood are mysterious and can't always be accounted for.

Think about some commercially successful film masterpieces--The Manchurian Candidate. Seven Days in May. Seconds. Then consider some lesser known, yet equally compelling cinematic achievements--The Fixer. The Gypsy Moths. Path to War. These triumphs are the work of the best known and most highly regarded Hollywood director to emerge from live TV drama in the 1950s--five-time Emmy-award-winner John Frankenheimer. Although Frankenheimer was a pioneer in the genre of political thrillers who embraced the antimodernist critique of contemporary society, some of his later films did not receive the attention they deserved. Many claimed that at a midpoint in his career he had lost his touch. World-renowned film scholars put this myth to rest in A Little Solitaire, which offers the only multidisciplinary critical account of Frankenheimer's oeuvre. Especially emphasized is his deep and passionate engagement with national politics and the irrepressible need of human beings to assert their rights and individuality in the face of organizations that would reduce them to silence and anonymity.

From the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of But Where Is the Lamb? comes a grippingly narrated work of history and "edge-of-the-seat reportage" (Chicago Tribune) that tells the story of a case that marked a watershed in American racial justice. To white Southerners, it was "a heinous and unspeakable crime" that flouted a taboo as old as slavery. To the Communist Party, which mounted the defense, the Scottsboro case was an ideal opportunity to unite issues of race and class. To jury after jury, the idea that nine black men had raped two white women on a train traveling through northern Alabama in 1931 was so self-evident that they found the Scottsboro boys guilty even after the U.S. Supreme Court had twice struck down the verdict and one of the "victims" had recanted. This innovative work tells several stories. For out of dozens of period sources, Stories of Scottsboro re-creates not only what happened at Scottsboro, but the dissonant chords it struck in the hearts and minds of an entire nation.

Nationally known psychologist Ana Ledwin Nogales addresses the affects of parental infidelity on childhood development—and on these children's relationships as adults Many books explore the affects of marital infidelity on a marriage, but Parents Who Cheat is the first book to examine not only how this behavior contributes to the breakdown of a family structure but how it directly affects the children in that family. With compassion and piercing insight, Dr. Ana Ledwin Nogales explains how adultery damages a child's understanding of love, marriage, and trust. As these children grow toward adulthood, their ability to have healthy relationships is compromised. Through stories of children struggling to understand their parents' adultery, as well as case histories of adult children coping with unresolved issues related to parental infidelity, Dr. Nogales shows how destructive habits are formed and points the way toward healing and the creation of healthier relationships with parents and partners.

Ray should have died on three separate occasions when he was in the ICU. But sheer tenacity, an almost delusional belief that COVID would not kill him, and the prayers of family and friends kept Ray alive for five weeks throughout his near-fatal COVID ordeal. Ray emerged from the hospital suffused with a renewed joy for, and love of, life. He set out in his recovery to regain his former vigor and complete the memoir he had been writing for years. This memoir is more than about surviving COVID. It is the story of how one man came to realize how blessed he has been throughout his life. It is the story of an unshakeable faith in God despite the setbacks, dangers, and trauma that life brings. Far from the Cliff is one man’s prayer of thanksgiving for the beauty, love, and happiness that can be ours, even as we face endless trials, an uncertain future, and our own looming mortality.