Influence: Science and Practice

Jessie Sholl

Dirty Secret: A Daughter Comes Clean about Her Mother's Compulsive Hoarding

A fascinating look at compulsive hoarding by a woman whose mother suffers from the disease. To be the child of a compulsive hoarder is to live in a permanent state of unease. Because if my mother is one of those crazy junk-house people, then what does that make me? When her divorced mother was diagnosed with cancer, New York City writer Jessie Sholl returned to her hometown of Minneapolis to help her prepare for her upcoming surgery and get her affairs in order. While a daunting task for any adult dealing with an aging parent, it's compounded for Sholl by one lifelong, complex, and confounding truth: her mother is a compulsive hoarder. Dirty Secret is a daughter's powerful memoir of confronting her mother's disorder, of searching for the normalcy that was never hers as a child, and, finally, cleaning out the clutter of her mother's home in the hopes of salvaging the true heart of their relationship--before it's too late. Growing up, young Jessie knew her mother wasn't like other mothers: chronically disorganized, she might forgo picking Jessie up from kindergarten to spend the afternoon thrift store shopping. Now, tracing the downward spiral in her mother's hoarding behavior to the ...

James F., M.D. Masterson

Search for the Real Self: Unmasking the Personality Disorders of Our Age

From the authoritative expert in personality disorders, Search for the Real Self is a thorough dissection of how one's real self is developed, how it relates to the outer world, and how personality disorders are understood and treated in our modern society. Personality disorders--borderline, narcissistic, and schizoid--have become the classic psychological disorders of our age. Outwardly successful, charming and powerful, personality-disordered individuals have long confounded their colleagues, family, lovers and employees--as well as mental health professionals. The author helps the reader understand them. After describing how the healthy real self develops and functions, he explains what can go wrong. Drawing on case histories, he shows how the false self behaves in relationships and on the job, and then delineates appropriate treatments, offering real hope for cure.

Burrhus Frederic Skinner

Science and Human Behavior

The psychology classic--a detailed study of scientific theories of human nature and the possible ways in which human behavior can be predicted and controlled-- from one of the most influential behaviorists of the twentieth century and the author of Walden Two . "This is an important book, exceptionally well written, and logically consistent with the basic premise of the unitary nature of science. Many students of society and culture would take violent issue with most of the things that Skinner has to say, but even those who disagree most will find this a stimulating book." --Samuel M. Strong, The American Journal of Sociology "This is a remarkable book--remarkable in that it presents a strong, consistent, and all but exhaustive case for a natural science of human behavior...It ought to be...valuable for those whose preferences lie with, as well as those whose preferences stand against, a behavioristic approach to human activity." --Harry Prosch, Ethics