Stylus Publishing

Changing land management; adoption of new practices by rural landholders.

Australian social scientists survey how people responsible for rural land have been changing their management practices, gathering into one volume information to make it easily accessible to policy makers, extension officers, agricultural consultants, agriculture research scientists, and other land managers. Among the common themes are the need to appreciate the diversity of land managers and their contexts, and for this to be reflected in how policy, governance arrangements, and extension programs are designed. The topics include understanding and promoting the adoption of conservation practices, identifying potential adopters of an agricultural innovation, enabling change in family farm businesses, women in agriculture, and policy perspectives on changing land management. Distributed in the US by Stylus. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Children's dreams; from Freud's observations to modern dream research.

Colace (Operational Unit of Psychology, Italy's National Health Service) proves that Freud's ideas about children's dreams have systematic properties that allow them to be tested empirically. The author reports on four studies he conducted on children's dreams between 1989 and 1999 to test the empirical validity of Freud's dream theory; two of the studies were done in school settings, one in home settings, and one study was based on parents' responses to a questionnaire. The book begins with an overview of Freud's dream theory and the findings of modern dream research. The author then describes Freud's observations on children's dreams and details the characteristics of children's dreams as described by Freud. In the next section of the book, the author presents the results and conclusions of his own research on children's dreams. He examines the elements of bizarreness and wish-fulfillment in children's dreams and how they relate to the development of superego functions. The book is distributed in North America by Stylus Publishing. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Integrating sustainable development into national frameworks; policy approaches for key sectors in small states.

Specialists in environmental and social sciences suggest how the ideas set out in the 2005 Mauritius Strategy for Implementation can be integrated into the mainstream policy-making process in small states by governments, agencies, commercial interests, and non-governmental organizations. The handbook is written specifically for people who are already engaged in making policy, rather than people trying to influence policy from outside. The topics include national sustainable development strategies in small island developing states, disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change, sustainable water management in Pacific island countries, renewable energy and energy efficiency, and emerging lessons from integrating labor and fisheries into trade agreements. Distributed in the US by Stylus Publishing. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Losing the race; thinking psychosocially about racially motivated crime.

Based on interviews with young offenders in the research project, "Context and Motive in the Perpetuation of Racially Motivated Violence and Harassment," criminologists Gadd (Manchester U. Law School) and Dixon (Keele U.) discuss hate crimes in UK and psychodynamic contexts. Arguing that Tony Blair's New Labour Party "give respect, get respect" agenda failed, they explain the motivation behind hate crimes as an inability to come to terms with feeling socially or economically excluded, and recommend dropping "race thinking" for recognition of the needs of those who feel stigmatized to diminish emotional investments in hostility. Distributed by Stylus Publishing. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The paradoxical legacy of Sigmund Freud.

Moran, a psychoanalyst in Australia, offers a new reading of Freud that addresses the concern that his ideas and methods are out of date. She stresses that Freud was a practioner and not a scientist, and that our main inheritance from him is his notion of human subjectivity in distiction from the objective notion of the human supporting other human sciences. She revisits Freud's concept of a split-psyche, the ateiology and mechanisms of neuroses, and explains his tripartite theory of practice — theoretical premises, technique and aim. She considers Paul Verhaeghe's project as a direct Freudian inheritance and offers a reading of Marie Cardinal's The Words to Say It to clarify the idea of human subjectivity. Distributed by Stylus Publishing. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Technique in child and adolescent analysis.

This volume advocates for psychoanalysis with young people at a time when this therapeutic approach is under threat, not only by the obsession with quick fixes but also by psychoanalysts who do not regard child analysis as truly psychoanalytic. Günter (child and adolescent psychiatry and psychotherapy, U. of Tübingen, Germany) introduces seven chapters by European contributors who treat theoretical and technical issues in work with seriously troubled youth and their families. The work includes images of patients' play therapy and drawings. Distributed by Stylus Publishing. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Transference and countertransference; a unifying focus of psychoanalysis.

This book is the first published collection of papers written by members of the British Psychoanalytic Association (BPA), a new society of the International Psychoanalytical Association. Focusing on transference and countertransference, the BPA-affiliated editors and contributors present nine chapters representing diverse theoretical orientations: contemporary Freudian, Kleinian, and independent. Following an introduction to these foundational concepts, the analysts discuss through clinical illustrations "reconstruction [of the past] within transference," its erotic nature, working with highly disturbed patients, integration of ambivalent feelings toward the analyst, and "analytic survival" (per Winnicott). Distributed by Stylus Publishing. (Annotation ©2011 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)