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This book is an illuminating study of the complex relationship between children and media in the digital age. Now, as never before, young people are surrounded by media, thanks to the sophistication and portability of the technology that puts it literally in the palms of their hands. Drawing on data and empirical research that cross many fields and continents, this book examines the role of media in the lives of children from birth through adolescence, addressing the complex issues of how media affect the young and what adults can do to encourage responsible use in an age of selfies, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The book looks at both the sunny and the dark side of media use by today's youth, including why and how their preferences change throughout childhood, whether digital gaming is harmful or helpful, the effects of placing tablets and smartphones in the hands of toddlers, the susceptibility of young people to online advertising, the legitimacy of parental concerns about media multitasking, and more.

Longing for Home explores the psychological, social, and theological impact of forcibly losing one’s home place and asks two questions: What is it about home that makes its loss so profound? And, How should we think about this theologically? This book explores the notion of home and its loss from the perspectives of four very diverse groups who have suffered forced displacement: an indigenous tribe of Batwa in Uganda, refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Congo and Sudan, American soldiers struggling with PTSD, and homeless persons in the United States. The author uses her own experiences in the Ugandan mountains, ethnographic research in refugee camps in Congo and Sudan and internally displaced persons, published stories of American soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and life in a transitional facility for homeless persons as windows into these contexts and stories of forced displacement. Through these intense, sometimes tragic encounters, the psychological, social, and theological impact of living without home becomes clear as does the often exclusionary response of the communities in which they seek care. The author suggests that a moral obligation of care grounded in relational postures of hospitality—or predispositions toward the other that precede practices—are at the heart of breaking through social exclusion and helping each to lean into God in ways that invite home of a different kind. The book’s concrete experiences of communities of displacement add a unique element that both challenges and complements psychological and social theories. The end result is a constructive contribution to both practical and public theology.

In his highly praised book The Nostalgia Factory, the author explored the puzzling logic of memory in later life with humor and deep insight. In this compelling new book the author turns to the “miracle” of forgetting. Far from being a defect that may indicate Alzheimer's or another form of dementia, the book claims, forgetting is one of memory's crucial capacities. In fact, forgetting is essential. Weaving together an engaging array of literary, historical, and scientific sources, the author considers forgetting from every angle. He pierces false clichés and asks important questions: Is a forgotten memory lost forever? What makes a colleague remember an idea but forget that it was yours? The author explores “first memories” of young children, how experiences are translated into memory, the controversies over repression and “recovered” memories, and weird examples of memory dysfunction. The book movingly examines the impact on personal memories when a hidden truth comes to light. In a persuasive conclusion the author advocates the undervalued practice of “the art of forgetting”—a set of techniques that assist in erasing memories, thereby preserving valuable relationships and encouraging personal contentment.

Sixty years ago, a group of prominent psychoanalysts, developmentalists, pediatricians, and educators at the Yale Child Study Center joined together with the purpose of formulating a general psychoanalytic theory of children's early development. The group's members composed detailed narratives about their work with the study's children, interviewed families regularly and visited them in their homes, and over the course of a decade met monthly for discussion. This book considers the significance of the Child Study Center's landmark study from various perspectives, focusing particularly on one child's unfolding sense of herself, her gender, and her relationships.

Why has humankind developed so differently from other animals? How and why did language, culture, religion, and the arts come into being? This book offers a new answer to these time-worn questions by scrutinizing the phenomenon of the dream, using it as a psychic fossil connecting us with our Stone Age ancestors. It argues that both civilization and mental processes are the results of a compulsion to repeat early traumas, one to which hallucination, imagination, mind, spirit, and God all developed in response. Until the beginning of the modern era, repetition was synonymous with de-escalation and calming down. Then, automatic machinery gave rise to a new type of repetition, whose effects are permanent alarm and distraction. The new global forces of distraction, the book argues, are producing a specific kind of stress that breaks down the barriers between dreams and waking consciousness. The book ends with a sobering indictment of this psychic deregulation and the social and economic deregulations that have accompanied it.

In this book a noted physiologist and neuroscientist introduces the concept of simplexity, the set of solutions living organisms find that enable them to deal with information and situations, while taking into account past experiences and anticipating future ones. Such solutions are new ways of addressing problems so that actions may be taken more quickly, more elegantly, and more efficiently. In a sense, the history of living organisms may be summed up by their remarkable ability to find solutions that avoid the world's complexity by imposing on it their own rules and functions. Evolution has resolved the problem of complexity not by simplifying but by finding solutions whose processes—though they can sometimes be complex—allow us to act in the midst of complexity and uncertainty. Nature can inspire us by making us realize that simplification is never simple and requires instead that we choose, refuse, connect, and imagine, in order to act in the best possible manner. Such solutions are already being applied in design and engineering and are significant in biology, medicine, economics, and the behavioral sciences.

This evaluation of the research on this topic presents the current state of knowledge about suicidal behaviors in children and adolescents, addressing the trends of the past ten years and evaluating available treatment approaches. The book provides an in-depth examination of the problem of suicidal behavior within the context of child and adolescent behavior. Among the developmental issues covered are the evolving capacity for emotional self-regulation, change and stresses in family, peer, and romantic relationships, and developing conceptions of time and death. It also provides an up-to-date review of the controversy surrounding the possible influence of antidepressant medications on suicidal behavior. Within the context of an integrative model of the suicide crisis, the book discusses issues pertaining to assessment, treatment, and prevention.

Some children are prone to a particular kind of aggression when they are with their peers. For these children, any harm done to them—even something as inconsequential as a jostle in the lunch line—is perceived as intentional. Their style of social information processing, termed “hostile attributional bias,” increases the likelihood of retaliating with excessive and inappropriate physical aggression. In this book, parents and professionals who work with children will learn what can be done to better understand and control children's aggression. Beginning with a review of the literature, the author underscores the substantial risks of long-term problems for elementary-school-age children who demonstrate aggressive behavior. Then, drawing on her work as founder of a successful school intervention program, the BrainPower Program, the author describes methods for reducing children's peer-directed aggression. She concludes with a discussion of the importance of broad social contexts in supporting nonaggressive behavior.

This book examines why some people are resistant to change, even when it seems to promise a change for the better. Drawing on a lifetime of clinical experience as well as wide readings of world literature, the book shows how early childhood relationships with parents can lead to a powerful conviction that change means loss. The book continues previous explorations into the consequences of early psychological injury and loss. In the examples of real patients and in the lives and work of such figures as Edna St. Vincent Millay, William Wordsworth, and Henrik Ibsen, it looks at the different ways in which unconscious impressions connected with early experiences and fantasies about parents are integrated into individual lives. The book shows the difficulties that have been encountered with patients in raising these memories to the conscious level where they can be known and owned; and it also shows, in a survey of literary figures, how these memories can become part of the creative process. The book offers a deeply humane reflection on the values and limitations of therapy, on memory and the lingering effects of the past, and on the possibility of recognizing the promise of the future.

This book examines the legal, psychological, and cultural issues relevant to understanding antisocial behavior in adolescence. Based on personal research and a broad analysis of recent work in the field, the book identifies the factors that are common in cases of delinquency. The discussion considers the long-term effects of social issues such as poverty as well as psychological issues such as the high levels of stress and anxiety suffered during childhood by many delinquents. The book shows how a failure to meet the developmental needs of children—at both the family level and at a broader social and political level—is at the core of the problem of juvenile delinquency. It concludes with an inquiry into how best to prevent delinquency, arguing that programs that address the developmental needs of children are more effective than policing, juvenile courts, or incarceration.