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Did you know that chimpanzees can swear? Or that we do most of our swearing in our first language? Have you ever noticed that swearing is an excellent painkiller?In delightfully fun and accessible language, backed by riveting historical case studies and the latest cutting-edge research, Dr. Emma Byrne explores the science behind swearing and why bad language might actually be good for us. Swearing, it turns out, is socially and emotionally essential.

"I’ve got to stop being so nice." How often has Dr. Evelyn Sommers heard that from her clients over the years? The Tyranny of Niceness identifies and confronts our most fundamental social dysfunction - niceness. For over 15 years, Sommers, a Toronto psychologist, has treated many twisted lives created by being nice. She interweaves the case histories of her clients with her own observations to present a frightening, yet hopeful, picture of a society that promotes silence and obedience over individuality and honesty.

Jia Jiang's inspiring account of conquering his fear of rejection, offering a completely new perspective on how to turn a no into a yes. Filled with great stories and valuable insight, it is a fun and thoughtful examination of daring to live more boldly.

Ron Powers offers a searching narrative of the social history of mental illness in America paired with the story of his two sons' battles with schizophrenia. This is a thought-provoking look at a dreaded illness that has long been misunderstood.

Dr. Emeran Mayer, executive director of the UCLA Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress and Resilience, offers a revolutionary look at the developing science of the microbiome, teaching us how to harness the power of the mind-gut connection to take charge of our health.

Since the 1970s, Sigmund Freud's scientific reputation has been in an accelerating tailspin. Nonetheless, the idea persists that some of Freud's contributions were visionary discoveries of lasting value. In this biography, Frederick Crews investigates these discoveries and reveals findings that will revolutionize our conception of the therapist, the theorist, and the human being.

A compelling exploration of how reputation affects every aspect of contemporary life Reputation touches almost everything, guiding our behavior and choices in countless ways. But it is also shrouded in mystery.

Sparked by extraordinary experiences that occurred in her family when her father and her sister both died in 2008, Patricia Pearson was launched on a journey of investigation into what she calls "a curious sort of modern underground--a world beneath the secular world, inhabited by ordinary human beings having extraordinary experiences that they aren't, on the whole, willing to disclose." Roughly half the bereaved population, about 20% of those near death who recover, and an unreported number of the dying witness or experience a sensed presence, the mystery of near-death awareness, and, if t

Dreams, in Freud's view, are all forms of "wish fulfillment" — attempts by the unconscious to resolve a conflict of some sort, whether something recent or something from the recesses of the past (later in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, Freud would discuss dreams which do not appear to be wish-fulfillment). Because the information in the unconscious is in an unruly and often disturbing form, a "censor" in the preconscious will not allow it to pass unaltered into the conscious.

Based on his studies of over 9,000 families, Murray A. Straus, the foremost researcher on family violence in the world, discusses the extent to which parents in the United States use corporal punishment (such as spanking and slapping) and its effects on their chil-dren. The question of whether corporal punishment is an effective method of discipline is hotly debated. Straus contends that this believed-to-be-"minor" form of physical violence is precursor to much violence that plagues our world. Children who are spanked quickly learn that love and violence can go hand in hand.