How is each individual's unique personality formed? What is it about p ersonality that can change, and why is change often so slow? Promising approaches to these perennial questions are suggested by the explosio n of recent research in neuroscience and brain functioning. This timel y volume presents a coherent, empirically based, and clinically useful framework for understanding personality. Jim Grigsby and David Steven s illuminate links between the organization of the brain and the unfol ding of personality, and show how different aspects of personality are mediated by the brain's nonconscious learning and memory systems. Pro viding new insights for clinicians, students, and researchers, this bo ok builds a critical bridge between existing psychological theories of personality and emerging knowledge in clinical neuroscience.

A CHOICE Magazine Outstanding Academic Title of 2018. A novel approach to understanding personality, based on evidence that we share more than we realize with other mammals. This book presents the wealth of scientific evidence that our personality emerges from evolved primary emotions shared by all mammals. Yes, your dog feels love—and many other things too. These subcortically generated emotions bias our actions, alter our perceptions, guide our learning, provide the basis for our thoughts and memories, and become regulated over the course of our lives. Understanding personality development from the perspective of mammals is a groundbreaking approach, and one that sheds new light on the ways in which we as humans respond to life events, both good and bad. Jaak Panksepp, famous for discovering laughter in rats and for creating the field of affective neuroscience, died in April 2017. This book forms part of his lasting legacy and impact on a wide range of scientific and humanistic disciplines. It will be essential reading for anyone trying to understand how we act in the world, and the world’s impact on us.

Self-Organizing Complexity in Psychological Systems offers a contemporary perspective on the mind through a compilation of original chapters written by some of the leading researchers in the area of complexity theory. In each of the chapters, the authors attempt to use complexity theory to inform and in some cases reformulate existing theories of brain function (Freeman; Grigsby & Osuch), personality (Grigsby & Osuch), psychic organization and structure (Goldstein; Piers), human development (Demos), psychopathology (Palombo; Piers) and psychotherapeutic change (Palombo).

Now in a new edition, this book expands on previous editions on the study of personality and neuroscience. It draws on research on the biological foundations of personality and trait-based research including investigations of neural mechanisms in defensive information processing as well as brain systems critical to self-concept. The text introduces questions of personality-and-brain along with biological foundations. It explores each of various theoretical issues at a new level of investigation, that of brain research to provide a more up-to-date look at the field.

While not all aspects of Carl Gustav Jung’s work have aged well, many of his ideas remain consistent with current concepts in behavioral psychology and neuroscience. Psychology of the Spirit reviews the lasting effects of Jung’s work and how it integrates with modern neuroscience, cognitive and behavioral studies, and Christian theology. It combines the mystical insights developed by Eastern Orthodox Christian theology with Jung’s vision of the psyche and the concept of the collective unconscious and its archetypes. Though written as a contribution to the field of psychology and as a tool for clinical practice, it is also accessible to lay readers interested in the relationship between the mind and the brain.

Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience to better understand emotion. We are hardwired to connect with one another, and we connect through our emotions. Our brains, bodies, and minds are inseparable from the emotions that animate them. Normal human development relies on the cultivation of relationships with others to form and nurture the self-regulatory circuits that enable emotion to enrich, rather than enslave, our lives. And just as emotionally traumatic events can tear apart the fabric of family and psyche, the emotions can become powerful catalysts for the transformations that are at the heart of the healing process. In this book, the latest addition to the Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, leading neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, therapy researchers, and clinicians illuminate how to regulate emotion in a healthy way. A variety of emotions, both positive and negative, are examined in detail, drawing on both research and clinical observations. The role of emotion in bodily regulation, dyadic connection, marital communication, play, well-being, health, creativity, and social engagement is explored. The Healing Power of Emotion offers fresh, exciting, original, and groundbreaking work from the leading figures studying and working with emotion today. Contributors include: Jaak Panksepp, Stephen W. Porges, Colwyn Trevarthen, Ed Tronick, Allan N. Schore, Daniel J. Siegel, Diana Fosha, Pat Ogden, Marion F. Solomon, Susan Johnson, and Dan Hughes.

This edited volume features evidence-based reviews and practical approaches for the professional in the hospital, clinic, community and school, with case examples throughout. Divided into five major sections, the book offers background historical and cultural information, discussion of self-injury etiology, assessment and intervention/prevention issues, and relevant resources for those working with youths who self-injure.