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This Book Has Feelings: Adventures in Instinct and Emotion
This Book Has Feelings plunges you headfirst into the mysterious world of emotions, unearthing the “what,” “how,” and “why” of the way we feel, and introducing you to the psychologists and philosophers who explore this twilight zone between mind and body.
Everybody has emotions, but our experience of them is intensely subjective and personal. Our feelings govern our thoughts and behavior; inextricably linked to personality, mood, and temperament, they nevertheless remain hard to pin down. This Book Has Feelings weaves together all of these elements, helping you understand how we all think and feel.
Divided into eight enthralling chapters, it looks at the strange and fascinating ways your mind and body interact to influence the way you feel. It reveals the physiology, psychology, and evolution of emotions ranging from love to anger, sadness to joy, and fear to excitement.
160 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
March 9, 2019
Very brief and easy. It covers the basics without tiring the reader with in-depth analysis. A quick read on emotions and the human psyche, including some key-points on our physiology as well and how the two are linked. It also provides short biographies of certain psychologists and their theories. Personally, I found it interesting and enjoyed it.
June 10, 2018
A bit basic for me, handy if you have no prior knowledge of psychology. Some of the generalisations were alarming and concerning e.g. jealousy is the main cause of domestic violence... hmmm.
February 3, 2012
Who doesn’t like a good thought experiment? There are lots in this brief overview of psychology of emotions. Many to play with your friends. My favorite was when you get a group of friends together, have half of them hold a pencil in their teeth during a program on tv, and half hold it with their lips and then see who thought the show was funnier. Wait, that is not a thought experiment, but an actual experiment. SO when I did this with some close friends, we found that the people holding it in their teeth found the show funnier since the action causes your lips to form a smile versus the lip holding where the lips are more in a frown. I actually did not do this with friends, but think when my nephew and nieces grow up, they will do it with me, ha. What is really funny is during the chapters about facial expressions, I found myself practicing them for no good reason…
This little book surveys many theories and experiments that explore what it means to have emotion, to have feelings. I was drawn to it because I happen to think being human is an art and a sacred practice that needs to be kept alive (look at all the sleepwalkers in life who have no emotions, can’t even summon up a little excitement, hope, joy at exciting, hopeful, joyous occasions). SO yes, I love thoughts and experiments and feelings. This book is a perfect blend of science, psychology, and anecdotes. I had no idea that tears in newborns simply protect their eyes, and according to Darwin, our tears as adults are just “vestigial” and have no purpose. We are doing the same thing as they are when they scream, we have just modified and controlled it. I am a blusher, have to admit it, sometimes getting super purple when I am extremely self-conscious, but I never thought of it as a reaction to feeling extremely vulnerable. It makes sense that it originates in embarrassment, but the vulnerability link is interesting.
As research is discovering, when you laugh, there are physical things in your body that are positive, such as expanding the walls of your heart vessels to allow better blood flow (your heart will thank you) and sadly, when you are exposed to stressful triggers (horror movies, violence) your heart vessels contract. When I worked with hospitalized pregnant women, I would always encourage them to not to watch the super high adrenaline movies so that the uterus would not be affected and restart premature labor or be stressed; I bet there is a good rationale behind that. I love love love to laugh, another thing that makes being a human so unique and cherishable. Apparently some animals do laugh, but it a way that makes it hard to define as “laughter”, grunting or squeaking more apropos.
Kudos to the book for mentioning Martin Seligman, a grumpy old professor of mine, who admits he is a pessimist but works to be more optimistic, and his fascinating work about learned optimism. Learned helplessness is more commonly known, based on an experiment where animals were shocked randomly, no matter what they were doing long enough so that when an escape was present, they were too numb to react and continued to be shocked without helping themselves. Extrapolated to humans, it could be an important reason for depression as a perceived helplessness. The opposite is doing exercises such as a “gratitude visit” where you take time pick someone you are grateful to, write down why and how it changed you, and then visit them and read it aloud. I think even starting to think through that process would be beneficial to our brain chemistry.
This little book surveys many theories and experiments that explore what it means to have emotion, to have feelings. I was drawn to it because I happen to think being human is an art and a sacred practice that needs to be kept alive (look at all the sleepwalkers in life who have no emotions, can’t even summon up a little excitement, hope, joy at exciting, hopeful, joyous occasions). SO yes, I love thoughts and experiments and feelings. This book is a perfect blend of science, psychology, and anecdotes. I had no idea that tears in newborns simply protect their eyes, and according to Darwin, our tears as adults are just “vestigial” and have no purpose. We are doing the same thing as they are when they scream, we have just modified and controlled it. I am a blusher, have to admit it, sometimes getting super purple when I am extremely self-conscious, but I never thought of it as a reaction to feeling extremely vulnerable. It makes sense that it originates in embarrassment, but the vulnerability link is interesting.
As research is discovering, when you laugh, there are physical things in your body that are positive, such as expanding the walls of your heart vessels to allow better blood flow (your heart will thank you) and sadly, when you are exposed to stressful triggers (horror movies, violence) your heart vessels contract. When I worked with hospitalized pregnant women, I would always encourage them to not to watch the super high adrenaline movies so that the uterus would not be affected and restart premature labor or be stressed; I bet there is a good rationale behind that. I love love love to laugh, another thing that makes being a human so unique and cherishable. Apparently some animals do laugh, but it a way that makes it hard to define as “laughter”, grunting or squeaking more apropos.
Kudos to the book for mentioning Martin Seligman, a grumpy old professor of mine, who admits he is a pessimist but works to be more optimistic, and his fascinating work about learned optimism. Learned helplessness is more commonly known, based on an experiment where animals were shocked randomly, no matter what they were doing long enough so that when an escape was present, they were too numb to react and continued to be shocked without helping themselves. Extrapolated to humans, it could be an important reason for depression as a perceived helplessness. The opposite is doing exercises such as a “gratitude visit” where you take time pick someone you are grateful to, write down why and how it changed you, and then visit them and read it aloud. I think even starting to think through that process would be beneficial to our brain chemistry.
August 22, 2012
Want to get to know your self a bit better? Here's as good a place to start as any. Written by two clinical psychologists, this is a beautifully logical natural history of why we feel the way we do. By grouping our emotions into broad sections the authors lead the reader through the biological processes that are taking place in our bodies without us even being conscious of them. There is a robust exploration of the part evolution has played in our emotional development as well as looking at how there are subtle differences brought about by age, gender and our environment. It achieves this through a satisfying balance of being easy to read without ever diluting the challenging stuff
The recurring theme that whatever you immerse yourself in will have repercussions on your emotional state is both profound and disturbing. If, as Neil Scott asserts, this is the case then we might want to think carefully about the implications of our youth spending so much time listening to death metal or playing violent video games. It might also hold the key to understanding religious affiliation; spending time being both happy and clappy in the company of other believers might well have a positive effect on the emotions. It's intriguing stuff.
The wonder of the book is that while providing an admirably clear explanation of the biological processes working within us, there is still a sense of the great unknown, a fascinating hint that there may be a bit more to this mind and emotion business than can be explained by neurotransmitters and evolutionary imperatives alone.
Working in people performance I recommended this book to my clients all the time; it saved me and them an awful lot of time.
The recurring theme that whatever you immerse yourself in will have repercussions on your emotional state is both profound and disturbing. If, as Neil Scott asserts, this is the case then we might want to think carefully about the implications of our youth spending so much time listening to death metal or playing violent video games. It might also hold the key to understanding religious affiliation; spending time being both happy and clappy in the company of other believers might well have a positive effect on the emotions. It's intriguing stuff.
The wonder of the book is that while providing an admirably clear explanation of the biological processes working within us, there is still a sense of the great unknown, a fascinating hint that there may be a bit more to this mind and emotion business than can be explained by neurotransmitters and evolutionary imperatives alone.
Working in people performance I recommended this book to my clients all the time; it saved me and them an awful lot of time.
July 22, 2016
This is a nice little book on the psychology of emotions involving neuroscience, social psychology and cognitive psychology. I also enjoyed the short bios of famous and influential psychologists and thinkers which led me to look into some of their work. There's a lot of topics so its not too in depth, but its a nice overview. The 8 chapters include: Your Brain on Feelings, The Evolution of Emotion, The Psychology of Emotion, Love's Emotions, The Angers, Sadness and Joy, Fear and Excitement, and Emotions with Attitude.
July 4, 2014
Picked up this book to learn more about emotions.
"The price of being close to someone is that you miss them when you are gone".
"Jealousy says, it's mine, don't take it away. Envy says it's yours, and I want it."
Simple to understand in broad strokes.
"The price of being close to someone is that you miss them when you are gone".
"Jealousy says, it's mine, don't take it away. Envy says it's yours, and I want it."
Simple to understand in broad strokes.
November 27, 2016
Very concise little book about the physiology and psychology of emotion. Some sections were a little rushed and I wish they'd explored more theories, because I know they left off some of the big ones. But overall, a very good read.
August 22, 2012
Easy to read and understand, can flip back and forth or quick search something. I like this book.
February 22, 2013
Brilliant book, loved it before and during being a psych student. Annoyed the author didn't mention me more in though... *AHEM
April 21, 2015
i feel like a psychologist after reading.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews