Paul Marcus - Böcker

A revelation and a source of hope. Background essays give a historical overview of how the early pessimistic concentration on pathology has given way to greater emphasis on survivors' adaptive potential and strengths. Many contributors stress the importance of remembering and facing the pain that memory brings, an emphasis shared by Jewish tradition. Jewish ChronicleThis is the first comprehensive anthology on the psychological treatment of Holocaust survivors and their families. It covers the full range of current theoretical and therapeutic approaches. It is a major resource for the clinician working with Holocaust survivors and their children, persecuted and traumatized populations, and patients suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome. The chapters are organized around differing perspectives--classical psychoanalytic, self-psychological, group, family, pastoral, empirical research, eclectic. The editors include writings not usually part of the mainstream and focus on relevant yet often unnoticed issues.This book gives its reader a good sense of how a discipline has struggled and evolved in its efforts to understand the impact of an historical event on its victims. The field's diversity of viewpoints and major controversies are put into sharp focus in this volume. It allows the reader--whether practicing clinician, academic researcher, or lay person--the opportunity to compare a wide range of approaches and draw conclusions. While primarily functioning as a resource, it will also serve as historical record to the Holocaust's unprecedented evil.

Bruno Bettelheim, now viewed by many as a pariah theorist, especially on the Nazi concentration camps, has been significantly misunderstood by most of his critics and admirers. In both cases, the subtlety and complexity of his narrative on the camps has not been fully recognized. This has resulted from an inadequate appreciation of his central thesis, that the inmate's struggle in a concentration camp is the extreme example of the modern dilemma of maintaining autonomy in the depersonalizing mass society, such as in the United states and Western Europe.This book elucidates, critiques, and further develops Bettelheim's pathbreaking and controversial insights on the behavior of concentration camp inmates. It provides the rudiments of a new framework for conceptualizing inmate behavior and is the first book-length treatment of Bettelheim's views on the dangers of contemporary society. The author accomplishes his goals in part by drawing from such social theorists as Michel Foucault, Anthony Giddens, Erving Goffman, Zygmunt Bauman, and Emmanuel Levinas, as well as psychoanalytically oriented thinkers such as Roy Schafer. The book concludes with a discussion of the significance of Bettelheim's findings about inmate behavior in the camps, and how we in our mass society can protect ourselves, resist, and fight back against the assaults on our autonomy, individuality, and humanity.

Black-Jewish relations—at the symbolic level—are in shambles, writes Cornel West. One has only to recall the 1991 Crown Heights tragedy and its aftermath to recognize to what extent Black-Jewish relations have deteriorated. The emergence of frequently anti-Semitic black demagogues like Louis Farrakhan and Leonard Jeffries and the Jewish community's turn to neo-conservatism have only made matters worse. Mistrust, ambivalence, and other negative feelings characterize much of Black-Jewish relations. Unlike most books on this topic which are written from a sociocultural, historical, and literary perspective, this anthology looks at the psychological motives, beliefs, and desires that impair relations between the two groups. For example, unresolved vulnerabilities in respective communities from the Holocaust and slavery remain driving and complex passions that still disrupt Black-Jewish relations. Psychoanalysis is a powerful conceptual tool to untangle these issues and other aspects of the larger societal race-relations problem.

This volume presents a rationale for a spiritually animated psychoanalysis. Classic world religious literature is analyzed in depth showing how Ecclesiastes, St. Augustine's Confessions, The Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, and others can enhance psychoanalysis. Marcus argues that psychoanalysis is a theory and profession in crisis, partly due to its alienation from the spiritual and moral philosophies contained in ancient religious wisdom. This volume presents the spiritual as a core dimension of the psyche, and the quest for self-transcendence—meeting the glory of the Infinite—as a quest inherent in the human condition.Of special interest to those studying psychoanalysis, psychology, and religious studies, this volume may also intrigue those studying the philosophy of religion.

Screenwriter Helmreich and Psychologist Marcus, the latter a longtime court insider who has witnessed untold trauma as an evaluator in custody disputes, present us with a book that is shocking, tragic and ultimately enlightening. The authors present in-depth understanding of the havoc child custody disputes can wreak not only on the couple but, more importantly, on the children. Harshly detailed, we come to know through this text the personal motivations and behaviors that end up devastating lives. Here, parents can learn what to do, and what not to do, to avoid bitter tragedy in such cases. Judges, lawyers, guardians and mediators will also find this book enormously educational and useful.The ten cases in this book have been culled from years of experience as a court-appointed child custody evaluator. Commentaries at the end of each chapter offer analyses and concrete, practical information for parents in similar situations.

The art of living the "good life" requires skilful attunement to the lovely presences in everyday life. Lodged in a psychoanalytic sensibility, and drawing from ancient and modern religious and spiritual wisdom, this book provides the details, conceptual structures, and inner meanings of a number of easily accessible, everyday activities, including gardening, sport, drinking coffee, storytelling, and listening to music. It also suggests how to best engage these activities, to consecrate the ordinary in a way that points to experiential transcendence, or what the author calls "glimpsing immortality", a core component of the art of living the "good life".

Emmanuel Levinas (1906-1995), French phenomenological philosopher and Talmudic commentator, is regarded as perhaps the greatest ethical philosopher of our time. While Levinas enjoys prominence in the philosophical and scholarly community, especially in Europe, there are few if any books or articles written that take Levinas's extremely difficult to understand, if not obtuse, philosophy and apply it to the everyday lives of real people struggling to give greater meaning and purpose, especially ethical meaning, to their personal lives. This book attempts to fill in the large gap in the Levinas literature, mainly through using a Levinasian-inspired, ethically-infused psychoanalytic approach.

This book claims that a tragicomic outlook—the kind that echoes in black and gallows humour and the "laughter through tears" of Jewish humour—is the most effective way to manage what Freud called the "harshness" of everyday life.

This book is a most impressive and important study of the presence of the spiritual and the sacred in the writings of the twentieth century French philosopher Gabriel Marcel, offering immense help in understanding Marcel and in seeing the usefulness of his ideas in psychoanalysis.

In Psychoanalysis, Classic Social Psychology and Moral Living: Let the Conversation Begin, Paul Marcus uniquely draws on psychoanalysis and social psychology to examine what affects the ethical decisions people make in their everyday life. Psychoanalysis traditionally looks at early experiences, concepts and drives which shape how we choose to behave in later life. In contrast, classic social psychology experiments have illustrated how specific situational forces can shape our moral behaviour. In this ground-breaking fusion of psychoanalysis and social psychology, Marcus gives a fresh new perspective to this and demonstrates how, in significant instances, these experimental findings contradict many presumed psychoanalytic ideas and explanations surrounding psychoanalytic moral psychology. Examining classic social psychology experiments, such as Asch’s line judgement studies, Latané and Darley’s bystander studies, Milgram’s obedience studies, Mischel’s Marshmallow Experiment and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment, Marcus pulls together insights and understanding from both disciplines, as well as ethics, to begin a conversation and set out a new understanding of how internal and external factors interact to shape our moral decisions and behaviours.Marcus has an international reputation for pushing boundaries of psychoanalytic thinking and, with ethics being an increasingly relevant topic in psychoanalysis and our world, this pioneering work is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, moral philosophy scholars and social psychologists.

In Psychoanalysis, Classic Social Psychology and Moral Living: Let the Conversation Begin, Paul Marcus uniquely draws on psychoanalysis and social psychology to examine what affects the ethical decisions people make in their everyday life. Psychoanalysis traditionally looks at early experiences, concepts and drives which shape how we choose to behave in later life. In contrast, classic social psychology experiments have illustrated how specific situational forces can shape our moral behaviour. In this ground-breaking fusion of psychoanalysis and social psychology, Marcus gives a fresh new perspective to this and demonstrates how, in significant instances, these experimental findings contradict many presumed psychoanalytic ideas and explanations surrounding psychoanalytic moral psychology. Examining classic social psychology experiments, such as Asch’s line judgement studies, Latané and Darley’s bystander studies, Milgram’s obedience studies, Mischel’s Marshmallow Experiment and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment, Marcus pulls together insights and understanding from both disciplines, as well as ethics, to begin a conversation and set out a new understanding of how internal and external factors interact to shape our moral decisions and behaviours.Marcus has an international reputation for pushing boundaries of psychoanalytic thinking and, with ethics being an increasingly relevant topic in psychoanalysis and our world, this pioneering work is essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychoanalytic psychotherapists, moral philosophy scholars and social psychologists.

The great existential psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger famously pointed out to Freud that therapeutic failure could "only be understood as the result of something which could be called a deficiency of spirit." Binswanger was surprised when Freud agreed, asserting, "Yes, spirit is everything." However, spirit and the spiritual realm have largely been dropped from mainstream psychoanalytic theory and practice. This book seeks to help revitalize a culturally aging psychoanalysis that is in conceptual and clinical disarray in the marketplace of ideas and is viewed as a "theory in crisis" no longer regarded as the primary therapy for those who are suffering. The author argues that psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be reinvigorated as a discipline if it is animated by the powerfully evocative spiritual, moral, and ethical insights of two dialogical personalist religious philosophers—Martin Buber, a Jew, and Gabriel Marcel, a Catholic—who both initiated a "Copernican revolution" in human thought. In chapters that focus on love, work, faith, suffering, and clinical practice, Paul Marcus shows how the spiritual optic of Buber and Marcel can help revive and refresh psychoanalysis, and bring it back into the light by communicating its inherent vitality, power, and relevance to the mental health community and to those who seek psychoanalytic treatment.

The great existential psychiatrist Ludwig Binswanger famously pointed out to Freud that therapeutic failure could "only be understood as the result of something which could be called a deficiency of spirit." Binswanger was surprised when Freud agreed, asserting, "Yes, spirit is everything." However, spirit and the spiritual realm have largely been dropped from mainstream psychoanalytic theory and practice. This book seeks to help revitalize a culturally aging psychoanalysis that is in conceptual and clinical disarray in the marketplace of ideas and is viewed as a "theory in crisis" no longer regarded as the primary therapy for those who are suffering. The author argues that psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy can be reinvigorated as a discipline if it is animated by the powerfully evocative spiritual, moral, and ethical insights of two dialogical personalist religious philosophers—Martin Buber, a Jew, and Gabriel Marcel, a Catholic—who both initiated a "Copernican revolution" in human thought. In chapters that focus on love, work, faith, suffering, and clinical practice, Paul Marcus shows how the spiritual optic of Buber and Marcel can help revive and refresh psychoanalysis, and bring it back into the light by communicating its inherent vitality, power, and relevance to the mental health community and to those who seek psychoanalytic treatment.

Rather than focus on the well-known truism that great plays and dramatic performances can deeply transform and ennoble us, Marcus draws from a much less known dimension of theatre, namely, acting technique theory, how actors and actresses learn dramatic performance as an art, profession and way of life. They claim the emotional, intellectual and physical insights the actor must internalize and ultimately translate into action to become a great actor are technique[s] of the self that can be enormously helpful to the average person struggling with the problem of living a better life, the good life, as they call it. Drawing from the psychological insights of Constantin Stanislavski and other such master teachers like Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, as well as performers like Lawrence Olivier, Marlon Brando and Meryl Streep, Theater as Life is the first book that makes the actors magical soul craft, her way of transforming herself into a character accessible and applicable to real-life, to living the good life.

Freud wrote that "analysis makes for integration but does not itself make for goodness." Marcus (National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis) introduces the seminal work of French-Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas (1906-95), who worked toward an ethically-infused being for the Other psychoanalysis influenced by his Holocaust experience, to English-speaking audiences. The volume includes clinical vignettes relating to the themes of love, suffering, and religion, and a Levinas bibliography.

Psychoanalysis and Toileting is an accessible book that delineates and interprets the psychological meanings of defecating and urinating in everyday life. Paul Marcus’ work gives the clinician an in-depth view of an activity that every patient and practitioner engage in and shows how not dealing with toileting in its wide range of social and practical contexts leaves out a huge aspect of the patient’s everyday experience. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory and practice, the author discusses such subjects as constipation, diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome, adult female incontinence, toilet cursing, public toilet graffiti and toilet humor. The book also considers the personal meaning of urinating and defecating as seen in men suffering from an enlarged prostate, in ‘excremental assault’ in the Nazi concentration camps, and in dreaming. Marcus considers not only what is typically negative about these experiences, but what can be seen as positive in terms of growth and development for the ordinary person. The book is illustrated throughout with clinical vignettes and observations taken from the author’s private practice. Psychoanalysis and Toileting will be a key text for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in practice and in training. It will also be relevant to other mental health practitioners.

Psychoanalysis and Toileting is an accessible book that delineates and interprets the psychological meanings of defecating and urinating in everyday life. Paul Marcus’ work gives the clinician an in-depth view of an activity that every patient and practitioner engage in and shows how not dealing with toileting in its wide range of social and practical contexts leaves out a huge aspect of the patient’s everyday experience. Drawing from psychoanalytic theory and practice, the author discusses such subjects as constipation, diarrhea and irritable bowel syndrome, adult female incontinence, toilet cursing, public toilet graffiti and toilet humor. The book also considers the personal meaning of urinating and defecating as seen in men suffering from an enlarged prostate, in ‘excremental assault’ in the Nazi concentration camps, and in dreaming. Marcus considers not only what is typically negative about these experiences, but what can be seen as positive in terms of growth and development for the ordinary person. The book is illustrated throughout with clinical vignettes and observations taken from the author’s private practice. Psychoanalysis and Toileting will be a key text for psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists in practice and in training. It will also be relevant to other mental health practitioners.

Psychoanalysis and Wisdom applies psychoanalytic insights into one of the great examples of wisdom literature, the Ethics of the Fathers, an ethical tractate of the Talmud.Paul Marcus quotes key passages from the Ethics of the Fathers, providing a psychoanalytic commentary to enlarge and deepen our understanding of its contents, focusing primarily on what constitutes a flourishing life. Marcus then considers what psychoanalysis can provide in its engagement with this classic of the wisdom teachings, such as illuminating aspects of the Ethics that are overlooked or underappreciated, and how “pearls of wisdom” from the Ethics can be incorporated into psychoanalytic theory and practice. The book contains clinical material as well as the insights of philosophers like Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas.Psychoanalysis and Wisdom will appeal to readers interested in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and to academics and students of psychoanalytic studies, religious studies, Judaic studies and philosophy.

Psychoanalysis and Wisdom applies psychoanalytic insights into one of the great examples of wisdom literature, the Ethics of the Fathers, an ethical tractate of the Talmud.Paul Marcus quotes key passages from the Ethics of the Fathers, providing a psychoanalytic commentary to enlarge and deepen our understanding of its contents, focusing primarily on what constitutes a flourishing life. Marcus then considers what psychoanalysis can provide in its engagement with this classic of the wisdom teachings, such as illuminating aspects of the Ethics that are overlooked or underappreciated, and how “pearls of wisdom” from the Ethics can be incorporated into psychoanalytic theory and practice. The book contains clinical material as well as the insights of philosophers like Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel and Emmanuel Levinas.Psychoanalysis and Wisdom will appeal to readers interested in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and to academics and students of psychoanalytic studies, religious studies, Judaic studies and philosophy.

The Spiritual Resistance of Rabbi Leo Baeck provides an overview of the life of Dr. Leo Baeck (1873–1956), a German-Jewish rabbi, theologian, historian and Holocaust survivor, from a psychoanalytic perspective.Paul Marcus approaches Baeck’s life and intellectual/theological contribution as it interfaces with a broadly defined psychoanalysis. This book describes and explains how Baeck maintained the rudiments of his autonomy, integration and humanity while remaining in Nazi Germany and while in the ghetto Theresienstadt, displaying astonishing courage, character, and goodness—a triumph of a civilized person amidst Nazi brutality. Marcus also considers psychic resilience and moral psychology and assesses contemporary criticisms of Baeck.The Spiritual Resistance of Rabbi Leo Baeck will be of interest to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, spirituality, Jewish studies and resistance. It will also appeal to psychoanalysts in training and in practice.

The Spiritual Resistance of Rabbi Leo Baeck provides an overview of the life of Dr. Leo Baeck (1873–1956), a German-Jewish rabbi, theologian, historian and Holocaust survivor, from a psychoanalytic perspective.Paul Marcus approaches Baeck’s life and intellectual/theological contribution as it interfaces with a broadly defined psychoanalysis. This book describes and explains how Baeck maintained the rudiments of his autonomy, integration and humanity while remaining in Nazi Germany and while in the ghetto Theresienstadt, displaying astonishing courage, character, and goodness—a triumph of a civilized person amidst Nazi brutality. Marcus also considers psychic resilience and moral psychology and assesses contemporary criticisms of Baeck.The Spiritual Resistance of Rabbi Leo Baeck will be of interest to academics and scholars of psychoanalytic studies, spirituality, Jewish studies and resistance. It will also appeal to psychoanalysts in training and in practice.

Psychoanalysis and the Wisdom of Ecclesiastes looks at one of the most profound books in the Hebrew Bible – Ecclesiastes, known as Koheleth in Hebrew – through a psychoanalytic lens.Paul Marcus explores Ecclesiastes’ understanding of the profound and compelling problematics of the human condition and explains how he offers a sensible and feasible attitude toward contemporary life. Comparing Ecclesiastes’ way of looking at life to the Freudian worldview, Marcus suggests what psychoanalysis might in part appropriate or further explore and develop as it tries to enhance itself as a narrative of the human condition and a compelling “technology of the self.” The book also uses psychoanalysis to illuminate aspects of Ecclesiastes that have been underappreciated and undercomprehended.Psychoanalysis and the Wisdom of Ecclesiastes will be of interest to psychoanalysts exploring spirituality and the human condition, and to academics and students of psychoanalytic studies, religious studies, Judaic studies, and philosophy.

Freud said that "love and work" are the central therapeutic goals of psychoanalysis; the twin pillars for a sound mind and for living the "good life." While psychoanalysis has masterfully contributed to understanding the experience of love, it has only made a modest contribution to understanding the psychology of work. This book is the first to explore fully the psychoanalysis of work, analysing career choice, job performance and job satisfaction, with an eye toward helping people make wiser choices that bring out the best in themselves, their colleagues and their organization.The book addresses the crucial questions concerning work: how does one choose the right career; what qualities contribute to excellence in performance; how best to implement and cope with organizational change; and what capacity and skills does one need to enjoy every day work?Drawing on psychoanalytic thinking, vocational counseling, organizational psychology and business studies, The Psychoanalysis of Career Choice, Job Performance, and Satisfaction will be invaluable in clinical psychoanalytic work, as well as for mental health professionals, scholars, career counselors and psychologists looking for a deeper understanding of work-based issues.

Freud said that "love and work" are the central therapeutic goals of psychoanalysis; the twin pillars for a sound mind and for living the "good life." While psychoanalysis has masterfully contributed to understanding the experience of love, it has only made a modest contribution to understanding the psychology of work. This book is the first to explore fully the psychoanalysis of work, analysing career choice, job performance and job satisfaction, with an eye toward helping people make wiser choices that bring out the best in themselves, their colleagues and their organization.The book addresses the crucial questions concerning work: how does one choose the right career; what qualities contribute to excellence in performance; how best to implement and cope with organizational change; and what capacity and skills does one need to enjoy every day work?Drawing on psychoanalytic thinking, vocational counseling, organizational psychology and business studies, The Psychoanalysis of Career Choice, Job Performance, and Satisfaction will be invaluable in clinical psychoanalytic work, as well as for mental health professionals, scholars, career counselors and psychologists looking for a deeper understanding of work-based issues.

The Psychoanalysis of Overcoming Suffering: Flourishing Despite Pain offers a guide to understanding and working with a range of everyday causes of suffering from a psychoanalytic perspective.The book delineates some of the underappreciated, everyday facets of the troubling and challenging psychological experiences associated with love, work, faith, mental anguish, old age, and psychotherapeutic caregiving. Examining both the suffering of the patient and therapist, Paul Marcus provides pragmatic insights for changing one’s way of being to make suffering sufferable.Written in a rich but accessible style, one that draws from ancient wisdom and spirituality, The Psychoanalysis of Overcoming Suffering provides an essential guide for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists and their clients, and will also appeal to anyone who is interested in understanding how we suffer, why we suffer and what we can do about it.

The Psychoanalysis of Overcoming Suffering: Flourishing Despite Pain offers a guide to understanding and working with a range of everyday causes of suffering from a psychoanalytic perspective.The book delineates some of the underappreciated, everyday facets of the troubling and challenging psychological experiences associated with love, work, faith, mental anguish, old age, and psychotherapeutic caregiving. Examining both the suffering of the patient and therapist, Paul Marcus provides pragmatic insights for changing one’s way of being to make suffering sufferable.Written in a rich but accessible style, one that draws from ancient wisdom and spirituality, The Psychoanalysis of Overcoming Suffering provides an essential guide for psychoanalysts and psychotherapists and their clients, and will also appeal to anyone who is interested in understanding how we suffer, why we suffer and what we can do about it.

Both criminal defense lawyers and criminal prosecutors must thoroughly understand the rights of the accused under the Sixth Amendment in order to provide competent service and ensure that they are following all court procedures according to the rule of law. The Rights of the Accused under the Sixth Amendment provides an in-depth look at seven key aspects of this area of the law:The right to a speedy trial;The right to a jury trial;The right to a public trial;The place of prosecution;The right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusations;The Confrontation Clause; and And the Compulsory Process Clause.This third edition includes up-to-date coverage of the relevant case law and discussion of the Sixth Amendment in the context of emerging challenges—particularly the right to a speedy trial under the extraordinary circumstances of a global pandemic.

Gabriel Marcel (1889-1973), the first French existentialist and phenomenologist, was a world-class Catholic philosopher, an accomplished playwright, drama critic and musician. He wrote brilliantly about many of the classic existential themes associated with Sartre, Heidegger, Jaspers and Buber, prior to the publication of their main works. Marcel regarded himself as a "homo viator," a spiritual wanderer: "If man is essentially a voyager, it is because he is en route . . . towards an end which one can say at once and contradictorily that he sees and does not see." As a self-described "philosopher of the threshold" and "an awakener," his stated goal was to shed some light on the nature of spiritual reality, those moments when one experiences an upsurge of the love of life. In this book, Paul Marcus joins the best of Marcellian and psychoanalytic insights to help the reader develop an inner sensibility that is more receptive, responsive and responsible to the transforming sacred presences that grace everyday life, such as are experienced in selfless love, hoping beyond hope, and maintaining faith in the goodness of the world despite its harsh challenges. Whether one is reading "Re-finding God during Chemo-therapy," "Maintaining Personal Dignity in the Face of the Mass Society," "On Fidelity and Betrayal in Love Relationships" or "The Kiss," Marcus, with the help of his two spiritual masters, Marcel and Freud, points the reader in the direction of a greater everyday sacred attunement to the eternal presences that life mysteriously reveals to those with a discerning eye and an open heart.

While living in anti-Semitic Vienna, Freud wrote in a letter to Ernest Jones, 'What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.' Tragicomic attunement-seeing the comic in the tragic and the tragic in the comic-is a perspective on life that, following Freud, is one of the best ways to 'to ward off possible suffering' and better manage the stressors, anxieties, and worries of everyday life. Moreover, tragicomic attunement and intervention has a meaning-giving, affect-integrating, life-affirming, double structure that is especially pertinent to sensible living in our troubled and troubling post-modern world: 'In tragedy', said theologian Harvey Cox, 'we weep and are purged. In comedy we laugh and hope.' In Monty Python's Life of Brian, a bunch of crucified criminals happily sing 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life'; In Stephen King's book The Tommyknockers, the central character thinks about a joke he heard once. As a man is about to be executed, the firing squad officer in charge offers the man about to be shot a cigarette. He replies, 'No thanks, I'm trying to quit.' It is precisely this capacity to use one's imaginative resources to create a tragicomic 'form of life', a way of thinking, feeling, and acting in the service of aesthetic, epistemological, and ethical deepening, of affirming Beauty, Truth and, especially, Goodness, that mainly constitutes the art of living the 'good life.' In chapters on love, work, suffering, death, and psychoanalysis, the author shows how the 'nuts and bolts' of tragicomic attunement and intervention can be cultivated and used to help people better manage the harshness, if not outrageousness, of life, as well as more deeply engage its beauty and nobility. Unlike most books on the psychology and philosophy of humour, and following Ludwig Wittgenstein's wonderful advice-'A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes,' this book is replete with jokes, humorous stories, and amusing maxims and quotes making it a lively reading experience that aims to help people fashion the 'good life'-a life of deep and expansive love, creative and productive work, that is aesthetically pleasing and in accordance with reason and ethics. As tragicomic master Mel Brooks noted, 'Life literally abounds in comedy if you just look around you,' and becoming more attuned to its dynamics and applications in everyday life is the art of living the 'good life'.