Blog Posts by Subject: Psychology

Sexology, the interdisciplinary scientific study of sex has been an integral component to the study of humanity. If you are currently researching any topics relating to the areas of sexology, sexuality or sex, consider visiting The New York Public Library's research collections! Whether you find sexology to be deeply fascinating or awfully embarrassing, there is a plethora of resources available to conduct your research.

The Fort Washington Library will be participating in the Uptown Arts Stroll as a venue for work by local artists. One of the artists displaying her work is Joan Wesley Usher. She is a multi-disciplinary artist and mental health professional based in New York. We asked her a few questions about her work.

An estimated one in five adult Americans is living with a mental health problem, according to a recent survey by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Yet less than 50 percent of adults and children with diagnosable conditions receive treatment—not because it’s unavailable, but due instead to a lack of information about where to find mental health resources in local communities and due to the stigma that is often still associated with mental illness.

That is, the kick-off to Shakespeare Week—April 15 to 20 here at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. Schizophrenia, nomadism, Lacan (oh the joys of serendipity—I just ordered his Television: A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Profession), Deleuze, all the quite-cut edge philosophers and concepts.  

April contains National Library Week (April 14-20, 2013). According to the American Library Association website, this event was “first sponsored in 1958… to celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support."

While many of the services and features of our nation’s libraries have remained the same over the ensuing fifty-five years since the inception of National Library Week, a literal myriad of changes have been effectuated in libraries commensurate with the changes in the world. One change in particular causes people to (correctly) exclaim, "The library is going to the dogs!"

My professional adventures are rooted in my own fascination with and questions about who we are as humans (how we identify ourselves, how we are layers of each version of our selves over time, how we become trapped in our elderly bodies, how we relate, how we die, how we cope, how we mourn). These questions have been constantly honed in my work — asked and answered over and over within the context of audio/visual materials. I hopped from grant to grant to build new programs for years, describing, preserving and providing access to artworks, dance, oral histories, home movies, and various forms of performance because I believe these arts to be celebrations of humanity. I want to 

Shelter by Harlan Coben, 2011

I have had an interest in people and mental health since I was young, and I ended up obtaining a master's degree in forensic psychology. Therefore, I was curious to see which mental health libraries and museums I could find in the United States and internationally.

The month of May brought with it the end of the TV series House, M.D. as well as the publication of the book Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior by Leonard Mlodinow. In the series send-off, the producers highlighted the similarities between the show's characters, House and Wilson, and the fictional characters of Holmes and Watson.

Jefferson Market Library's Summer Art Display, Valhalla Hospital: The Art of the Moody Wallen Band, exhibits over 50 line drawings, watercolors, acrylics, and oil paintings throughout the entire building, as well as a visual installation display and rotating video program every Thursday from 5 to 6 p.m. through August 18, inside the program room.

Are you sanguine, choleric, melancholic or phlegmatic?

A visionary? A judger? A thinker or feeler? A catalyst? A diamond? A three?

In 1921, the grandad of Psychological Typology, Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), defined "introversion" and "extraversion," laying the groundwork for today's psychometric questionnaires and self-reflection gimmicks. 

Here are some recently published, non-academic books, all available at NYPL, that are designed for "discovery" and self-reflection:

From addiction and cutting to depression and bipolar disorder: a list of memoirs and autobiographical books by women describing their struggles.

Gina is an actress with a true passion for libraries.

Consciousness studies is at the forefront of science's last great investigative projects. While neglected for many years by mainstream academia as a result of dominance by behaviorist psychology, interest in the science of consciousness has exploded in the last decade, with new activity in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, and other areas.

How exactly does a material brain... give rise to immaterial thoughts, or "consciousness"?

Many don’t know it, but New York Public Library has a substantial collection of books by influential French psychoanalyst, Jacques Lacan, as well as his multitudinous acolytes.