Sense Books

On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not

Robert Burton

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: St. Martin's Press Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $10.00

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Subjects -> Medicine -> Internal Medicine -> Neurology -> Neuroscience

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 16 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001--you know these things, well, because you just do.

In On Being Certain, neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we "know" something comes from sources beyond our control and knowledge. In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Because this "feeling of knowing" seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason. But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen.

Bringing together cutting edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain, will challenge what you know (or think you know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason.

Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight: What to Do If You Are Sensory Defensive in an Overstimulating World

Sharon Heller

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Paperbacks Amazon Marketplace: 38 new & used starting at $7.57

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 30 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Check this out! 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I found this book while looking for ADD information. I am so glad that I did. I just recently found out about Sensory Integration Dysfunction. This book is very informative in explaining how this disorder is woven into your life and how it plays out in different people. When reading it I found myself saying, "That sounds just like me". The language is a little hard to understand with some of the technical jargon but the sample stories to show how people live with this disorder are great and help the reader to understand what it means. This is overall a good book but I find it just a little to long. If it was more direct and more in layman's terms I would have found it to be better. All in all though, it is good for someone who needs more information on the disorder.

Editorial Review:

Do clothing labels bother you so much that you have to remove them?

Do you find many different foods repulsive?

Do loud, sudden, or piercing sounds startle you?

Do you need to wear sunglasses even on a cloudy day?

Do you feel panicky going down an escalator or driving through a tunnel?

If the answer to many of these questions is yes, you may suffer from sensory defensiveness, a common but often misdiagnosed condition that results from adverse reactions to what most people consider harmless sensations. Developmental psychologist Sharon Heller, sensory defensive herself, suggests that the best way for sufferers to cope is not psychotherapy or medication but a host of other treatments that tap into the primitive brain.

As Heller explains, there is hope for the sensory defensive. This book will change your life.

What the Nose Knows: The Science of Scent in Everyday Life

Avery Gilbert

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Subjects -> Health, Mind & Body -> Psychology & Counseling -> Physiological Aspects
Subjects -> Science -> Biological Sciences -> Anatomy

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

• How many smells are there? And how many molecules would it take to create every smell in nature, from roses to stinky feet?

• Who was the bigger scent freak: the perfume-obsessed Richard Wagner or Emily Dickinson, with her creepy passion for flowers?

• By scenting the air in stores, are retailers turning us into subliminally controlled shopping zombies?

• Were Smell-O-Vision and AromaRama mere Hollywood fads or serious technologies?

Everything about the sense of smell fascinates us, from its power to evoke memories to its ability to change our moods and influence our behavior. Yet because it is the least understood of the senses, myths abound. For example, contrary to popular belief, the human nose is almost as sensitive as the noses of many animals, including dogs; blind people do not have enhanced powers of smell; and perfumers excel at their jobs not because they have superior noses, but because they have perfected the art of thinking about scents.

In this entertaining and enlightening journey through the world of aroma, olfaction expert Avery Gilbert illuminates the latest scientific discoveries and offers keen observations on modern culture: how a museum is preserving the smells of John Steinbeck’s Cannery Row; why John Waters revived the “smellie” in Polyester; and what innovations are coming from artists like the Dutch “aroma jockey” known as Odo7. From brain-imaging laboratories to the high-stakes world of scent marketing, What the Nose Knows takes us on a tour of the strange and surprising realm of smell.

Sensation and Perception: An Integrated Approach

Harvey Richard Schiffman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The Best in its Field! 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This is one of the most clearly written and well organized textbooks in the field of psychology. In an intelligently concise manner, Prof. Schiffman captures his readers with his insightful invitations to explore the human senses. Full of well presented color diagrams, fascinating illusions and interesting pictures, this text enahnces your senses while explaining how they work. This text is a must read for any psychologist, biologist, physician or individual who is interested in learning how humans sense and perceive the environment.

Editorial Review:

This book combines sensation and perception with all biological-sensory aspects of perception with all biological-sensory aspects of perception covered from an evolutionary point of view. It raises the key question: How do the senses gather and secure information about the outside world? This basic question is addressed by explaining how the physical world interacts with and stimulates the senses, and, in turn, how the sense and the nervous system transform, integrate, and process the stimulation.

Well-Being: The Foundations of Hedonic Psychology

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great reference material 4 out of 5 stars.
33 of 37 people found this review helpful.

The book is highly recommendable for those interested in hedonic psychology especially Subjective Well-Being (a.k.a. Happiness). It covers a wide range of chapters which include definitions, measurement, clarifications/reactions, recent findings and researches. Its probable drawback is that, to a certain degree, it is somewhat very technical in approach. Not too many readers might easily grasp some contents/materials presented. Nonetheless, it is a great reference material.

Movement for Self-Healing: An Essential Resource for Anyone Seeking Wellness

Meir Schneider

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: HJ Kramer/New World Library Amazon Marketplace: 35 new & used starting at $6.50

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The Movement for Self-Healing 4 out of 5 stars.
23 of 24 people found this review helpful.

This marvelous handbook with an unprepossessing cover has as its source of power, a significant number of stories and anecdotes
based on the author's personal experience as a natural healer. There is no stronger force for changing and altering our lifestyle than "been there, experienced that".
Schneider takes us from his early years having been born blind through wonderful tales of wry humor and astute observation of his peers and adults that shows his gifts as an intuitive healer.
The book is easy to follow: divided into three parts with 17 chapters. The author vacillated between despair and hope for many years, and the force of his will, along with the inevitable mentor we have all had at times in our lives led him to open up to the world as his vision emerged. As a senior in high school,
Schneider began teaching others how to recognize the equilibrium and balance that our bodies cry for as we gradually act all too often against our better angels of healthiness.
Living abroad, the author continued to learn and express his own wisdom as he helped others with diseases such as polio, failing vision, back problems, arthritis, even multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. Examining the all-too-human phenomenon of "internal resistance to healing", the author uses case studies, graphic drawings, and repetitive examples to help us gain confidence that we too can alter and adopt the behavior of well-being. For example, Schneider devotes a fair amount of space to the well-known but oft overlooked Bates Method of better vision. But he does not focus on that issue with great technical reliance on medical terminology. Indeed, the value of this fine volume is that the subject matter is dealt with in common sense verbiage: "back problems" are near-universal and the mechanics are often way beyond what most people want to know. Schneider knows his subjects of body movement, natural healing with sleep and time, the use of yoga and its variants, visualization, and support from friends and compassionate healers. Einstein (or Virginia Woolf) would be quite happy with the emphatic clarity of his writing.
This book will be of value to those interested in holistic health (and medicine) as well as Philosophy (mind and body issues). His commentary on ageing, breathing, body imagery, and the need to simply "listen" to ourselves may seem simple expressed in a review, but through the two-page Epilogue of his School's Education Director we come to realize that the Meir Schneider Self-Healing Method is a healthful approach of great quiet authority. The seven-page Index is an excellent tool for referencing Schneider's well laid-out and thoughtful scheme of how some 30 people came to improve their health and stay healthy.

Note: a much-shortened version of this review first appeared in
the Nov/Dec issue of New Age Retailer.

Editorial Review:

Born blind and declared incurable after a series of childhood operations, Meir Schneider remained convinced that his disability was not permanent. As a teenager he began to work with teachers who gave him exercises to reverse his blindness. Within four years he gained a remarkable degree of vision, and began developing a system of therapeutic exercise combining movement, breathing, and mental imagery. When he began working with others, miraculous recoveries occurred.

The book gives specific guidelines for back problems, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, breathing ailments, eye problems, and muscular dystrophy. Movement for Self-Healing parallels the stories of Schneider and the people he has worked with, detailing his holistic methods of stimulating the natural healing powers of the body, offering a practical guide to specific exercises, and articulating a profound message of inspiration and hope.

Reclaiming Vitality and Presence: Sensory Awareness as a Practice for Life

Charlotte Selver, Charles V.W. Brooks

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Editorial Review:

This book captures the essence of Charlotte Selver’s practice of Sensory Awareness like no other publication. It is an invitation to experience life firsthand again, as we did when we were children. In a culture where we have grown accustomed to accumulating knowledge from teachers and experts, it is rare to find a book that actually invites us to trust our own senses again. It is the authors’ intent to give back to the reader authority over his or her own experience and learning processes.

Much of the book focuses on reviving the senses in order to open the mind and body to direct learning. The book imitates an actual Sensory Awareness class, involving the reader as a student, guiding him or her along a journey with and through the senses to a way of living that is in accordance with the natural functioning of the human organism in its environment.

The range of explorations include a renewed connection to the support of the earth as a foundation for trust; the central role of gravity for our health and for finding orientation in life; a study of breathing that promotes health and vitality; and connecting and interacting with other people. A handbook to a more genuine and connected way of living, the work is also a beautifully crafted account of Sensory Awareness, showing these profound teachers at work with their students and with the reader.

The Scent of Desire: Discovering Our Enigmatic Sense of Smell

Rachel Herz

Amazon Price: $11.96 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Harper Perennial Amazon Marketplace: 41 new & used starting at $8.19

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 14 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

A compelling account of an intriguing subject 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

I was drawn to this book out of curiosity having recognized on reading the title that I was totally ignorant of the subject. The author pulled me in and kept me reading to find out more about this intriguing sense that provides such an intensive assist to experience. It is a compelling book - a good read but, more important, wonderfully informative. The reward is awareness of an aspect of life that has always been there but never consciously understood or valued. I am in her debt for that gift.

Editorial Review:

Why do some people like a certain aroma and others hate it? Is smell personal or cultural? How does it affect our choices and our actions?

The Scent of Desire is the definitive psychological study of the importance of smell in our lives, from nourishment to procreation to our relationships with other people and the world at large. Located in the same part of the brain that processes emotion, memory, and motivation, this most essential of senses is imperative to our physical and emotional well-being. It was crucial to our ancestors' existence and it remains so today, profoundly shaping our emotional, physical, and even sexual lives.

One of the world's leading experts on the psychology of smell, Rachel Herz investigates how smell functions, what purpose it serves, and how inextricably it is linked to our survival in this compelling, surprising, delightfully informative appreciation of the wonders of this sadly neglected sense.

Self-Healing: My Life and Vision (Arkana)

Meir Schneider

List Price: $12.95 By: Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon Marketplace: 15 new & used starting at $0.56

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Total reviews: 3 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

One of the most inspiring books I have found period. 5 out of 5 stars.
25 of 25 people found this review helpful.

I have been working in the field of education and various forms of therapy for over 35 years having been the director of a large program for the developmentally disabled and working in rehabilitation of adults as well for many years. I have never found a more inspiring book in all that time. Recently, a friend in his middle 50s who had been through all of the "right" therapies available in the major teaching institutions in New York City following a massive stroke was becoming quite discouraged. He had made nowhere near the progress that he had hoped for despite really working at whatever he was given to do. After reading Meir's book, he became totally motivated again and made an appointment to see Meir when he came to New York and is now on the road to real progress working at 2 things in his life full time: Teaching his mathmematics students in College, and going at it rehabilitating himself and inspiring those around him to stretch out in life and not s! imply to accept the limitations that they have always supposed were barriers to fuller participation in life. I can not reccommend any book more highly in this field.

The Dawn of Meaning (Mcgraw-Hill Horizons of Science Series)

Boris Cyrulnik

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