New Books in Psychology

Meaning is more than an abstraction—it is a sense that we matter to one another, woven together with threads of reciprocity. But in those times when we feel lost and cut off from our sources of strength, we may have to simply move forward in faith, holding out hope for renewal and restoration. Guest:  The Rev. Dr. Stephanie M. Crumpton is a professor of practical theology at McCormick Theological...

The experience of existence is one of bewilderment and even anguish. Anguish because we feel that we are incomplete beings longing for completion, mired in immanence yet yearning for transcendence. Often, that questing spirit can lead us on the journey to God. Guest:  John Cottingham is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Reading and an Honorary Fellow, St John’s College at Oxfor...

In music, Kimbra found a way to create and share gifts. And through that gifting, she provides space for others to find deep connection and belonging. But music also offers something more mysterious—a language to wrestle with meaning, an attempt to capture and express the experience of life. Guest:  Kimbra is a two-time Grammy Award and six-time Aria winner who mixes pop, R&B, jazz, and rock. Some...

The human being is a storytelling animal, and no story is more important to us than our own. But we don’t write that story in a vacuum. We are born in media res and must develop ways of making sense of ourselves if we want to truly flourish. Guest:  Jennifer Frey is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of South Carolina and host of the philosophy and literature podcast Sacred and...

It’s common to look beyond life—to eternity or God—for meaning. But as the experience of seeing a cherry tree in bloom reveals, there is deep value in the immanent, the immediate, the now. Guest:  Julian Baggini is a philosopher, journalist and the author of over 20 books about philosophy written for a general audience. He is co-founder of The Philosophers' Magazine and has written for numerous in...

Organizing our lives around the pursuit of happiness—defined as positive feelings—can ultimately leave our souls hungry. Instead, we should try connecting ourselves to deeper things: compassion, community, ritual, and awe. Guest:  Emily Esfahani Smith is a writer, editor, and speaker in Washington DC. She draws on psychology, philosophy, and literature to write about the human experience—why we ar...

Are you so busy fulfilling everyone else’s expectations that you’ve lost touch with yourself? Do you find yourself filling up your “free” hours with mundane tasks, soaking up podcasts to improve yourself, and rushing around, never getting it all done? For many women, it’s the same kind of story—we hustle to overachieve at work and at home, all in the hopes that we can “crush it” until we finally f...

Have too much self-control?  You worked hard, followed the rules, and delayed gratification to get where you are in life. You played nice, did what you were told, and were rewarded for it. You have high expectations of yourself and for those around you. You have a strong sense of how the world should be and a consciousness of right and wrong. These are all admirable traits. Yet, your sex life and...

Meaning is less a secret to discover than an emergent property, a byproduct of engaging with the world. Through experimentation and an orientation of openness, we can weave ourselves into a broader cloth of coherence. Guest: Michael Steger is the Founder and Director of the Center for Meaning and Purpose, and Professor of Psychology at Colorado State University. He also serves as an Extraordinary...

The ideology of capitalism, which drives us to find happiness in endless exertion and economic gain, dulls our emotions and blinds us to the source of our most abundant meaning—relationships and solidarity with other people. Guest:  Kathryn Lofton is a scholar of religion and has written extensively about capitalism, popular culture, and the secular. She’s the author of three books: Oprah: The Gos...

We’re often given the following choice: either there’s a cosmic, eternal purpose to our lives or nothing matters at all. But perhaps the meaning of life is the meaning in life—witnessing the dance of light on leaves or the catching of a perfect wave. Guest:  Aaron James is philosophy professor at UC Irvine and the author of Surfing with Sarte: An Aquatic Inquiry into the Life of Meaning. Making Me...

Feelings of meaninglessness often are caused by how we understand ourselves. If we change how we think about our worth, we’ll discover radiant meaning can be found in even the most ordinary aspects of our lives. Guest:  David Burns is a leading psychiatrist and a pioneer of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. His best-selling book, Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy has sold over 4 million copies and is...

Leidy, professor of engineering at the University of Virginia, talks about his book, Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less, with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. As Klotz shows throughout the book, we pile on “to-dos” but don’t consider “stop-doings.” We create incentives for good behavior, but don’t get rid of obstacles to it. We collect new-and-improved ideas, but don’t prune the outdated one...

What do you want out of life? To make a lot of money--or work for justice? To run marathons--or sing in a choir? To have children--or travel the world? The things we care about in life--family, friendship, leisure activities, work, our moral ideals--often conflict, preventing us from doing what matters most to us. Even worse, we don't always know what we really want, or how to define success. Blen...

Change is not about grand statements and sweeping gestures. It is about chipping away, a bit at a time, at the habits that hold us back. Dr Rebecca Ray knows about the power of small habits to make big changes. By introducing small changes into her own life, she transformed her career as a clinical psychologist to become one of Australia's most effective communicators on matters of the mind. Rebec...

Hannah Zeavin, lecturer in the department of History and member of the executive committees of both the Center for New Media and the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine, and Society at University of California, Berkeley, talks about her book, The Distance Cure: A History of Teletherapy, with Peoples & Things host, Lee Vinsel. The book tracks the history of teletherapy, which Zeavin defines as...

Linking morality and science can conjure up disturbing histories around social Darwinism, eugenics, and genetically engineered humans. But scientists today are making discoveries that moral agents shouldn’t ignore: how to overcome aggression and tribalism, and how to sustain cooperation in a modern pluralist world. Guests: Diane Paul, professor emerita of the University of Massachusetts, Boston an...

Linking morality and science can conjure up disturbing histories around social Darwinism, eugenics, and genetically engineered humans. But scientists today are making discoveries that moral agents shouldn’t ignore: how to overcome aggression and tribalism, and how to sustain cooperation in a modern pluralist world. Guests: Diane Paul, professor emerita of the University of Massachusetts, Boston an...

What if human intelligence is actually more of a liability than a gift? After all, the animal kingdom, in all its diversity, gets by just fine without it. At first glance, human history is full of remarkable feats of intelligence, yet human exceptionalism can be a double-edged sword. With our unique cognitive prowess comes severe consequences, including existential angst, violence, discrimination,...

Today I talked to Batja Mesquita about her book Between Us: How Cultures Create Emotions (Norton, 2022). To a degree sometimes not realized, we discuss emotions through the lens of what have been called WEIRD cultures, i.e. Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic. As a result, the perspective taken tends to be inside/out, privileging one’s private feelings: a Mine approach. Yet in m...

In this episode of High Theory, Laura Wittman tells us about near death experiences. The central feature of these experiences is a vision and a story, which it turns out are a lot stranger than the “best seller” version. These narrative encounters with death often inspire people to make dramatic moves in search of a more meaningful life, from newfound religious faith or activist commitments to car...

Resurgence of Global Populism: A Psychoanalytic Study of Projective Identification, Blame-Shifting and the Corruption of Democracy (Routledge, 2022) provides a psychoanalytic perspective to the global implications of the populist movement in the U.S. and its relationship to other parts of the world, particularly focusing on the presidency and legacy of Donald Trump. The book explores Trump's use o...

Fatigue, disorientation, numbness, envy, rage, burnout. What good could come from thinking about trans experience and these bad feelings? In Side Affects: On Being Trans and Feeling Bad (University of Minnesota Press, 2022), Hil Malatino theorizes the centrality of bad feelings in a world of quotidian and spectacular anti-trans misrecognition, hostility, and violence. He does so not only to unders...

In Exigent Psychoanalysis: The Interventions of Jean Laplanche (Routledge, 2021), Dr. Gila Ashtor “strives to draw out the discipline’s conceptual underpinnings by putting them in conversation with Laplanche’s comprehensive innovations.” Ashtor engages with “the broadest and most fundamental concerns of psychoanalysis.” What is the nature of psychoanalytic theory? What is the unconscious? What cau...

We claim to judge people for what they intentionally do, but accidents often influence our judgments. In our justice systems, people can be harshly and unfairly blamed for bad luck—but in our personal lives, taking on blame isn’t always a bad thing. Guests Fiery Cushman, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University Daniel Statman, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Haifa Learn more abou...