книги по психологии

общая психология

зарубежная религиозная литература

Why does music have such a powerful effect on our minds and bodies? It is the most mysterious and most intangible of all forms of art.Yet, Anthony Storr believes, music today is a deeply significant experience for a greater number of people than ever before. In this challenging book, he explores why this should be so. Drawing on a wide variety of opinions, Storr argues that the patterns of music make sense of our inner experience, giving both structure and coherence to our feelings and emotions. It is because music possesses this capacity to restore our sense of personal wholeness in a culture which requires us to separate rational thought from feelings, that many people find it so life-enhancing.

русская классика

литература 19 века

сборник рассказов

Music and the Mind

There are many reports of strange cults which enthral their followers and cut themselves off from the world. Invariably led by gurus, or «spiritual leaders», the fruit of these cults are mass suicides in the South American jungle or the self-immolation of hundreds in besieged fortresses.There are said to be at least six hundred New Religious Movements in Britain, and many more in other parts of the world. They range from benign, charitable organisations to corrupt, dangerous cults which may end in murder or mass suicide. Since cults have a special appeal to the young, anxious parents have prompted a good deal of research into who joins cults and why. Less has been written about the gurus who institute and lead such movements.Gurus are extraordinary individuals who cast doubt upon current psychiatric distinctions between sanity and madness. A guru convinces others that he knows – a persuasive capacity which can bring illumination but which may also and in disaster.Anthony Storr’s book is a study of some of the best-known gurus, ranging from monsters such as Jim Jones or David Koresh, to saints such as Ignatius of Loyola. It includes both Freud and Jung because, as Storr demonstrates, what ostensibly began as a scientific investigation became, in each case, a secular path to salvation.'Feet of Clay' is one of Anthony Storr’s most original and illuminating books. It demonstrates that most of us harbour irrational beliefs, and discusses how the human wish for certainty in an insecure world leads to confusing delusion with truth. No-one knows, in the sense that gurus claim that they know. Maturity requires us to be able to tolerate doubt. The book ends with reflections upon why human beings need gurus at all, and indicates how those in need of guidance can distinguish the false and dangerous from the genuine and good.

Feet of Clay

In this brilliant and acclaimed book, the eminent psychiatrist Dr Anthony Storr challenges the widely held view that success in personal relationships is the only key to happiness.He argues persuasively that we pay far too little attention to some of the other great satisfactions of life – work and creativity. In a series of skilful biographical sketches, among them Beethoven, Henry James, Goya, Wittgenstein, Kipling and Beatrix Potter, he demonstrates how many of the creative geniuses of our civilisation have been solitary, by temperament of circumstance, and how the capacity to be alone is, even for those who are not creative, a sign of maturity.'This book brings excellent news for those who, whatever their reasons for doing so, live alone… It is heartening to find a psychiatrist of Dr Storr's eminence diverging from the received wisdom'.ANITA BROOKNER,' Spectator''This is a short book, but so rich in ideas, and presented with such a telling combination of gentleness and authority, that it is also exceptionally absorbing and thought-provoking'.CLAIRE TOMALIN,' Observer''Storr is an incapable of writing an uninteresting paragraph'.NORMAN STONE,' Sunday Times''This is an important, even revolutionary book. If it saves naturally non-sociable people from anxiety about ‘not belonging’ and enables them to come to terms with their solitude it will have done a notable human service'.ERIC CHRISTIANSEN,' Independent'

Solitude

‘Jung was on a giant scale…he was a master physician of the soul in his insights, a profound sage in his conclusions. He is also one of Western Man’s great liberators.’ J. B. Priestly, Sunday Telegraph‘Jung can sometimes rise to the heights of a Blake or a Nietzsche or a Kierkegaard…like any true prophet or artist, he extended the range of the human imagination…to be able to share Jungian emotions is surely an almost necessary capacity of the free mind.’ Philip Toynbee, ObserverThis compact volume of extracts from the twenty volumes of Jung’s published writings presents him clearly, in his own words and in precis.Jung’s writing is the key to understanding 20th-century psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis. Most of the terms of reference now used (‘extrovert’, ‘collective unconscious’, ‘archetype’) are Jungian.This is essential reading for both students of psychology and the general reader.