Search results for ""Author Darian Leader""

From the brilliant psychoanalyst behind Strictly Bipolar and What is Madness, a short and fascinating guide to the history of human sleep - and why we can't seem to sleep any more'Persuasive, absorbing and refreshingly sane... [A] bracing and important intervention in the debate... Leader points the way to a richer and more humane understanding of our problems with sleep' GuardianOne in four adults sleeps badly.Sleeping pill prescriptions have increased dramatically over the last three decades, as have the incidence of sleep clinics.Sleep used to be a natural state, easy as breathing, but increasingly it is an insecure commodity....Isn't it?Our relationship to sleep surfaces and resurfaces throughout human history, each time telling us something new about our indivudual and collective psychology. From the industrial revolution to blue-light on our phones, from the ancient art of dream interpretation to the modern science of Freud, sleep is connected to wider social patterns, to shifting norms and expectations. Weaving together cultural, social, economic and psychoanalytic influences, Darian Leader delves into the truth about this universal human experience.

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How much do you really know about your own hands?Throughout history , civilisations have been defined by the work of human hands: inventing tools, writing records, operating machinery, typing, texting, swiping. But beneath this known history is another, secret story: our hands are not the obedient servants that they seem to be. Through conscious and unconscious gesture, they reveal our deepest psychology, our weaknesses and obsessions, our personal history and our social conditioning. Why do zombies walk with their hands outstretched? How does a new-born baby 'talk' with his hands? What is the connection between prayer beads, snuff boxes and cell phones? And most importantly, can we unlock the mystery of our hands in order to truly know ourselves?The key to understanding everything around you - and everything within you - is staring you in the face. Take a journey through fascinating anecdotes and brilliant psychoanalytic research, through a legacy of ideas from da Vinci to Dickens to Die Hard. With wit and dexterity, Darian Leader reveals that there's much more to your hands than meets the eye.

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Cuando la Mona Lisa fue robada del Louvre en 1911, pasaron veinticuatro horas antes de que nadie supiera que había desaparecido. Después, miles de personas acudieron a ver el espacio vacío donde había estado colgado el lienzo. Muchos de ellos no habían visto nunca la pintura.Darian Leader aborda la intrigante historia del robo del cuadro y la reacción del público adicho acontecimiento como punto de partida para explorar la psicología de la observación del arte visual y combina, con un gran sentido narrativo, el relato de anécdotas maravillosas, la observación perspicaz y el análisis sutil de ejemplos tomados del arte clásico y contemporáneo para crear una teoría sorprendente y audaz de lo que vemos y no vemos en el arte. De cómo amenudo lo esencial es lo ausente, aquello que por definición queda más allá de toda representación, y que la obra de arte señala (o conjura) al abrir un vacío positivo.

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Why do men tend to keep love letters in files along with their other correspondence, whereas women keep them with their clothes? And if a letter is written but not posted, at whom is it really directed? As psychoanalyst Darian Leader shows, such questions go to the heart of sexual desire, which is never addressed to our flesh and blood companion, but always to something beyond him or her. In an engaging, at times startling, enquiry into the fundamental loneliness of each sex, Leader asks why relationships frequently run aground on the trivial question, 'What are you thinking?' If a man chooses as his partner a woman unlike his mother, why does he try to make her behave towards him exactly as his mother did, when he was a boy? And why might a woman decide not to spend the night with a man, after one glimpse of his apartment?

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A delightfully thought-provoking study of why we have sex, from award-winning psychoanalyst Darian Leader'It was just sex.'It's a familiar claim. But is it really possible?The old idea that sexuality is a smouldering, animalistic force within us, desperate for release yet restrained by social forces, has little to support it. Bodies aren't just sticks that make fire when you rub them together, and the pain, heartache, and regret that can accompany the highs of sexual excitement show us that much more is at stake.So, what are we really thinking about when we think about sex? And what are we really doing when we do it?As acclaimed psychoanalyst Darian Leader argues, with his trademark clarity, energy and wit, there is no such thing as 'just sex'. It is always about so much more than that - about phantasy, anxiety, guilt, revenge, violence, love - and Leader draws on his analytic experience, historical research and case studies to explore their importance to every aspect of our sexual lives.'One of our most important contemporary thinkers' Guardian 'Leader writes beautifully, with majestic clarity and an easy flow between argument and case-study' Telegraph'Leader is as much a philosopher as a psychoanalyst and his ideas are engrossing and enlightening' Metro

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The New Black is Darian Leader's compassionate and illuminating exploration of melancholyWhat happens when we lose someone we love? A death, a separation or the break-up of a relationship are some of the hardest times we have to live through. We may fall into a nightmare of depression, lose the will to live and see no hope for the future. What matters at this crucial point is whether or not we are able to mourn. In this important and groundbreaking book, acclaimed psychoanalyst and writer Darian Leader urges us to look beyond the catch-all concept of depression to explore the deeper, unconscious ways in which we respond to the experience of loss. In so doing, we can loosen the grip it may have upon our lives.'His orthodox, psychoanalytical approach, produces an unpredictable, occasionally brilliant book. The New Black is a mixture of Freudian text, clinical assessments and Leader's own brand of gentle wisdom' Herald'Compelling and important . . . an engrossing and wise book' Hanif Kureishi'There are many self-help books on the market . . . The New Black is a book that might actually help' IndependentDarian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and of the College of Psychoanalysts - UK. He is the author of The New Black, Strictly Bipolar, Why do women write more letters than they post?, Promises lovers make when it gets late, Freud's Footnotes and Stealing the Mona Lisa, and co-author, with David Corfield, of Why Do People Get Ill? He is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University.

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Strictly Bipolar is Darian Leader's treatise on the psychological disorder of our times. If the post-war period was called the 'Age of Anxiety' and the 1980s and '90s the 'Antidepressant Era', we now live in Bipolar times. Mood-stabilising medication is routinely prescribed to adults and children alike, with child prescriptions this decade increasing by 400% and overall diagnoses by 4000%.What could explain this explosion of bipolarity? Is it a legitimate diagnosis or the result of Big Pharma marketing? Exploring these questions, Darian Leader challenges the rise of 'bipolar' as a catch-all solution to complex problems, and argues that we need to rethink the highs and lows of mania and depression.What, he asks, do these experiences have to do with love, guilt and rage? Why the spending sprees and the intense feeling of connection with the world? Why the confidence, the self-esteem and the sense of a bright future that can so swiftly turn into despair and dejection?Only by looking at these questions in a new way will we be able to understand and help the person caught between feelings that can be so terrifying and so exhilarating, so life-affirming yet also so lethal.Strictly Bipolar is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary views of the self, bipolarity and a deeper understanding of manic-depression.Praise for Strictly Bipolar: 'A beautifully thoughtful understanding not just of highs and lows,mania and depression, but of why and how these mechanisms work in our mindsand bodies and how the human subject is coerced todayto embrace a culture of 'bipolarity'' Susie Orbach'A timely book. Darian Leader's thoughts are more fixated strong-arm interesting, more humane and more persuasive than the profit coercion of the madness industry. Instead of the shoddy reasoning that leads to wrong treatment and over-treatment, he offers illumination and insight; his book is a contribution to a debate, but it could also change lives' Hilary Mantel Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and of the College of Psychoanalysts - UK. He is the author of What is Madness?, The New Black, Why do women write more letters than they post?, Promises lovers make when it gets late, Freud's Footnotes and Stealing the Mona Lisa, and co-author, with David Corfield, of Why Do People Get Ill? He is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University.

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Although the term 'jouissance' is common currency in psychoanalysis today, how much does it really tell us? While often taken to designate a fusion of sexuality, suffering and satisfaction, the term has fallen into a purely descriptive use that closes down more questions than it opens up. Although assumed to explain the coalescence of pleasure and pain, it tends to cover a range of quite different issues that should be distinguished rather than conflated. By returning to some of the sources of the concept in Freud, and their elaborations in Lacan, this book hopes to stimulate a debate around the relations of pleasure to pain, autoerotism, the links of satisfaction to arousal, the effects of repression, and the place of the body in psychoanalytic theory. Leader aims to provide context for Lacan's work and encourage dialogue with other analytic traditions.

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Although the term 'jouissance' is common currency in psychoanalysis today, how much does it really tell us? While often taken to designate a fusion of sexuality, suffering and satisfaction, the term has fallen into a purely descriptive use that closes down more questions than it opens up. Although assumed to explain the coalescence of pleasure and pain, it tends to cover a range of quite different issues that should be distinguished rather than conflated. By returning to some of the sources of the concept in Freud, and their elaborations in Lacan, this book hopes to stimulate a debate around the relations of pleasure to pain, autoerotism, the links of satisfaction to arousal, the effects of repression, and the place of the body in psychoanalytic theory. Leader aims to provide context for Lacan's work and encourage dialogue with other analytic traditions.

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Jacques Lacan is now regarded as a major psychoanalytical theorist alongside Freud and Jung, although recognition has been delayed by fierce arguments over his ideas. Written by a leading Lacanian analyst, "Introducing Lacan" guides the reader through his innovations, including his work on paranoia, his addition of structural linguistics to Freudianism and his ideas on the infant 'mirror phase'. It also traces Lacan's influence in postmodern critical thinking on art, literature, philosophy and feminism. This is the ideal introduction for anyone intrigued by Lacan's ideas but discouraged by the complexity of his writings.

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An in-depth look at the work and career of this fascinating artist, who is having a profound impact on contemporary painting Nigel Cooke is known for his complex paintings, which thematically explore the meeting point between creative labour, consciousness, art history, consumer culture, and nature. Primarily centred on meticulously painted, large-scale urban landscapes, which he calls 'hybrid theatrical spaces', Cooke's work employs disparate styles, often integrating trompe l'oeil miniature rocks and trees with backdrops of graffiti-marked buildings, to create scenes conveying obscure and macabre narratives. This survey of Cooke’s career to date explores the artist's style, approach, and impact on contemporary art and includes his very latest works, completed shortly before publication.

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British artist Gavin Turk (born 1967) has been at the forefront of contemporary sculpture since the late ‘80s, with his painted bronzes, waxworks, recyclings of art-historical icons and imaginative use of trash. Throughout his career, Turk’s sculptures have dealt with issues of authorship, authenticity and identity, working to demystify or parody the myth of the artist. This fully illustrated catalog is published for Turk’s show at Damien Hirst’s new London exhibition space, Newport Street Gallery. The volume spans the duration of the artist’s career to date, featuring his most important pieces from his seminal blue-plaque work, “Cave,” through his many signature-based artworks, egg sculptures and waxworks, to his more recent bronze casts of sleeping bags and trash bags. Featuring three gatefolds, it also includes essays by psychoanalyst and author Darian Leader and Nigerian poet and novelist Ben Okri, plus a conversation with Hirst.

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