Mental Violence

Trauma and Recovery is revered as the seminal text on understanding trauma survivors. By placing individual experience in a broader political frame, Harvard psychiatrist Judith Herman argues that psychological trauma is inseparable from its social and political context. Drawing on her own research on incest, as well as a vast literature on combat veterans and victims of political terror, she shows surprising parallels between private horrors like child abuse and public horrors like war.

Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as New York Times bestselling author Steven Pinker shows in this startling and engaging new work, just the opposite is true: violence has been diminishing for millennia and we may be living in the most peaceful time in our species's existence.

These days, no one in America feels immune to violence. But now, in this extraordinary, groundbreaking book, the nation's leading expert on predicting violent behavior unlocks the puzzle of human violence and shows that, like every creature on earth, we have within us the ability to predict the harm others might do us and get out of its way. Contrary to popular myth, human violence almost always has a discernible motive and is preceded by clear warning signs.

Ten years after the school massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, school shootings are a new and alarming epidemic. While sociologists have attributed the trigger of violence to peer pressure, such as bullying and social isolation, prominent psychologist Peter Langman, argues here that psychological causes are responsible. Drawing on 20 years of clinical experience, Langman offers surprising reasons for why some teens become violent. Langman divides shooters into three categories, and he discusses the role of personality, trauma, and psychosis among school shooters.

For Your Own Good, the contemporary classic exploring the serious if not gravely dangerous consequences parental cruelty can bring to bear on children everywhere, is one of the central works by Alice Miller, the celebrated Swiss psychoanalyst. With her typically lucid, strong, and poetic language, Miller investigates the personal stories and case histories of various self-destructive and/or violent individuals to expand on her theories about the long-term effects of abusive child-rearing.

An eye-opening report from an award-winning author and former New York Times reporter reveals the link between teenage marijuana use and mental illness, and a hidden epidemic of violence caused by the drug - facts the media has ignored as the US rushes to legalize cannabis.

The eldest of seven children born to an abusive father, I endured a childhood of unspeakable violence and ridicule. This courageous memoir details the hardships I faced as I desperately tried to be accepted as a son to a father who does not believe I am his child. I did not endure years of abuse as a child to remain silent. Now I am not ashamed of what I suffered as a child anymore. My story is not easy to read or even comprehend, but it is my truth and my right to tell because it happened to me. It took 58 years to accept that my past cannot be changed and to finally let my past go. I can ...

Within Cole Matthews lies anger, rage, and hate. Cole has been stealing and fighting for years. This time he caught Peter Driscal in the parking lot and smashed his head against the sidewalk. Now, Peter may have permanent brain damage - and Cole is in the biggest trouble of his life. He receives a one-year banishment to a remote Alaskan island. There, Cole is mauled by a mysterious white bear of Native American legend. But it is the attack of the Spirit Bear that may save his soul.

The revised and updated edition of Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's modern classic about the psychology of combat, hailed by the Washington Post as "an illuminating account of how soldiers learn to kill and how they live with the experiences of having killed". In World War II, only 15 to 20 percent of combat infantry were willing to fire their rifles. In Korea, about 50 percent. In Vietnam, the figure rose to more than 90 percent. The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill.

Considering nonviolence as an ethical problem within a political philosophy requires a critique of individualism as well as an understanding of the psychosocial dimensions of violence. Butler draws upon Foucault, Fanon, Freud, and Benjamin to consider how the interdiction against violence fails to include lives regarded as ungrievable. By considering how "racial phantasms" inform justifications of state and administrative violence, Butler tracks how violence is often attributed to those who are most severely exposed to its lethal effects.

Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes. What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened but she can’t. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be.

You Can Love God and Still Get a Divorce And get this, God will still love you. Really. Are you in a destructive marriage? One of emotional, physical, or verbal abuse? Infidelity? Neglect? If yes, you know you need to escape, but you’re probably worried about going against God’s will. I have good news for you. You might need to divorce to save your life and sanity. And God is right beside you. In The Life-Saving Divorce You’ll Learn:- How to know if you should stay or if you should go. - The four key Bible verses that support divorce for infidelity, neglect, and physical and/or ...

Now in its third edition, It's My Life Now is a guide for survivors who have left an abusive relationship. It addresses - in clear, non-threatening language - various issues associated with abuse and violence, including post-relationship emotions, psychological impact, dealing with children, personal safety, legal problems, and financial security. Each chapter dismantles common myths about being in and leaving an abusive relationship and contains activities for self-exploration that survivors can complete as they navigate a new life free from abuse.

In Every 90 Seconds, Anne P. DePrince argues that to end violence against women, we must fundamentally redefine how we engage with it—starting by abandoning the idea that violence is a problem involving only those who abuse or are abused. Instead, DePrince illuminates how violence against women is inextricably linked to other issues that stoke our greatest passions.

On a summer night in 2009, three lives intersected in one American neighborhood. Two people newly in love - Teresa Butz and Jennifer Hopper, who spent many years trying to find themselves and who eventually found each other - and a young man on a dangerous psychological descent: Isaiah Kalebu, age 23, the son of a distant, authoritarian father and a mother with a family history of mental illness. All three paths forever altered by a violent crime, all three stories a wake-up call to the system that failed to see the signs.

Bulletproof is about healing, not politics. It outlines in simple terms what trauma survivors experience and why, providing straightforward explanations and useful techniques to regain control over pain and begin to heal. Jill shares survivor stories to illustrate how they overcame trauma and took back their lives.

On one of those magically white winter nights, my mother took me in her arms and shut the doors behind her. We left my drunken father in the name of a better life. And the name of that better life was Tom, a local gangster with the face of the devil himself. I remember looking at my mother's bloody face bashed into the ground, teeth scattered around her limp body. I understood then that one of us was going to die. Fortunately, I was right!

An "ominous and persuasive" study of when violence starts in child development—and the preventive measures to stop it (The New York Times Book Review).

Broken bones heal and bruises fade, but words can cut the soul. Do you believe that it’s your fault? Do you believe him or her when they say it's not bad enough to be abuse? Domestic violence manifests itself in different ways but most people who walk into the trap don’t recognize any of the signs. This is my deeply personal story sharing my journey of increasing mental and verbal abuse, my struggle to fix and control my life through binging and purging, and confronting the fear that he would make good on his promise to take our son or kill me if I tried to leave. Then there was a ...

Lindsey is narrating, taking you back to the early years when the child abuse began. The struggles of living in a home with an abusive father that could become so violent, bringing fear and terror into the home, even when they least expect it. Humans, pets, no one is safe. The cruelty that her dad can dish out is unimaginable. Broken bones can heal, but broken minds remain broken forever. This is a sequel to "My Nightmare in Georgia, Based on A True story." If you have not read that book yet, get your copy while grabbing a copy of this book. Half the proceeds from both books go to Janie's ...