Psychology

Our country is divided in so many ways, with a growing chasm between men and women.

The news cycle is discouraging. Emotional and physical toxicity is at an all-time high. We're all starting to feel it in some shape or form, and many of us are struggling with how to keep our children protected from it all.

The problem is we're suffering from an empathy deficit.

But the really good news is there's a way out.

Healing starts with re-examining our modern myths about how we work, what "quality time" at home really means, and why the age-old battle of the sexes persists.

We can't continue down the path of least resistance. We need to carve a new way.

Currency of Empathy sets the stage for that new way by tackling disturbingly common issues like:

But here's the real kicker - it's not about gender - it's about nurturing empathy in our children and ourselves so we can help shape and mold happier, healthier, more productive communities and societies.

What is the hope of this book? That we all start valuing caring - especially parenting - in a way that helps us reprioritize how we spend our time, grow the superpower of affective empathy in children and adults, and heal our empathy deficit.

It's that simple, even if it doesn't seem easy, but we're willing to bet this book is the motivator you've been waiting for.

Currency of Empathy already at work:

"The revolution of the future will hinge on the empathy-inducing "co-creation" explained so masterfully and entertainingly in these pages."

"If someone feels that they could use some advice on improving their quality of life - this book is an answer."

"This book is academic without being dense and warm without being overly sentimental or new-agey."

"... an uplifting, inspiring book. It makes you think. It makes you smile. And it makes you feel more hopeful than you did before you picked it up!"

"The book will cause you to self-examine. It will provoke you to think, and think again."

Reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness. --Oprah Winfrey

Don and Mimi Galvin seemed to be living the American dream. After World War II, Don's work with the Air Force brought them to Colorado, where their twelve children perfectly spanned the baby boom: the oldest born in 1945, the youngest in 1965. In those years, there was an established script for a family like the Galvins--aspiration, hard work, upward mobility, domestic harmony--and they worked hard to play their parts. But behind the scenes was a different story: psychological breakdown, sudden shocking violence, hidden abuse. By the mid-1970s, six of the ten Galvin boys, one after another, were diagnosed as schizophrenic. How could all this happen to one family?

What took place inside the house on Hidden Valley Road was so extraordinary that the Galvins became one of the first families to be studied by the National Institute of Mental Health. Their story offers a shadow history of the science of schizophrenia, from the era of institutionalization, lobotomy, and the schizophrenogenic mother to the search for genetic markers for the disease, always amid profound disagreements about the nature of the illness itself. And unbeknownst to the Galvins, samples of their DNA informed decades of genetic research that continues today, offering paths to treatment, prediction, and even eradication of the disease for future generations.

With clarity and compassion, bestselling and award-winning author Robert Kolker uncovers one family's unforgettable legacy of suffering, love, and hope.

In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really "normal" when it comes to health?

Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of "normal" as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today's culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society--and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté's most ambitious and urgent book yet.