San Antonio College Library

Rather than focusing on treating what is "wrong" with a person, positive psychology seeks to understand and foster the things that drive happiness, creativity, and emotional fulfillment. This is a relatively new area of psychological study, and this reference book presents the research and practice of positive psychology in an informative and accessible format. Readers are given a history of the field, its current applications, and the future implications...

The most rapid and significant phase of development occurs in the first three years of a child?s life. The Supporting Children from Birth to Three series focuses on the care and support of the youngest children. Each book takes a key aspect of working with this age group and gives clear and detailed explanations of relevant theories together with practical examples to show how such theories translate into good working practice. Children?s personal,...

"How are our lives meaningful? What is the relationship of loss to creativity? How can we best engage and overcome our suffering? From Socrates to Foucault, Western philosophers have sought to define 'the art of living"--The complex craft of human existence that elicits our thoughtful participation, and the idea that even though death escapes our control, life is not something that simply happens to us in a passive manner but is instead a process...

"In a time of unusual stress, with a pandemic raging and economic insecurity and dislocation increasing, we need to rediscover the values that make us human, that give us a sense of meaning in order to increase our potential for productivity and success. What stands in the way, however, is a professional culture where human connectedness is a lost art: the frenzied numbers-obsessed, bottom-line thinking, the "scratch and claw" workplace, and organizations...

Social scientist Eisler shows that the great problems of our time--such as poverty, inequality, war, terrorism, and environmental degradation--are due largely to flawed economic systems that set the wrong priorities and misallocate resources. Conventional economic models fail to value and support the most essential human work--caring and caregiving--so basic human needs are increasingly neglected, despair and ecological destruction escalate, and the...

The general assumption that social policy should be utilitarian--that society should be organized to yield the greatest level of welfare--leads inexorably to increased government interventions. Historically, however, the science of economics has advocated limits to these interventions for utilitarian reasons and because of the assumption that people know what is best for themselves. But more recently, behavioral economics has focused on biases and...

People are drawn to religion or spiritual practice out of family tradition, curiousity, desire for fulfillment, or just the hope that it will make them feel better. Remarkably, they often get what they seek. Empirical research proves that such engagement brings with it numerous physical and psychological benefits, reflected in better marriages, sunnier outlooks, and longer lives. In recent years, scholars from an array of disciplines applied cutting-edge...

From the publisher. Scarcity is considered a ubiquitous feature of the human condition. It underpins much of modern economics and is widely used as an explanation for social organization, social conflict and the resource crunch confronting humanity's survival on the planet. It is made out to be an all-pervasive fact of our lives -- be it of housing, food, water or oil. But has the conception of scarcity been politicized, naturalized, and universalized...

In this groundbreaking redefinition of health and wellbeing, an internationally recognized expert in social health argues that the definition of wellbeing is missing a major component: social connection, proving that relationships not only make us happy, but they are also critical to our overall health and longevity.