Each person invests many of the objects in his life with his or her own unconscious meaning, each person subsequently voyages through an environment that constantly evokes the self's psychic history. Taking Freud's model of dreamwork as a model for all unconscious thinking, Christopher Bollas argues that we dreamwork ourselves into becoming who we are, and illustrates how the analyst and the patient use such unconscious processes to develop new psychic structures that the patient can use to alter his or her self experience. Building on this foundation, he goes on to describe some very special forms of self experience, including the tragic madness of women cutting themselves, the experience of a cruising homosexual in bars and bathes and the demented ferocity of the facist state of mind. An original interpreter of classical theory and clinical issues, in Being a Character Christopher Bollas takes the reader into the very texture of the psychoanalytic process.

Take control of your narrative and become the main character of your own life with these creative prompts, activities, and challenges to encourage you to start living your life on your terms. If you feel like your day always looks the same and are jealous of others who seem to be living their best life, it’s time to make a change. Start romanticizing your life today and become the main character of your story with this workbook filled with creative prompts, activities, and challenges to help you build confidence and a positive mindset to make ordinary moments extraordinary. With 70 activities and prompts, How to Be the Main Character guides you toward living your best life. The one where you move through your day with confidence, break out of your comfort zone, and exude the energy you want to attract. The one where you’re having random dance parties at home just because you feel like it, and you make running errands into a spontaneous adventure. How to Be the Main Character helps you shift your perspective so you can discover a new vibrance for life that you’ve only read about in stories!

We like to think of ourselves and our friends and families as pretty good people. The more we put our characters to the test, however, the more we see that we are decidedly a mixed bag. Fortunately there are some promising strategies - both secular and religious - for developing better characters.

"This book belongs on every fiction writer's bookshelf. Anyone who has ever had a story to tell and is dying to get it down on paper will find guidance and inspiration in GMC. The presentation is clear, immediate, and relevant to all writers--from novices to seasoned professionals. Experienced author Debra Dixon has done a magnificent job of demystifying the toughest aspect of fiction writing: that of a giving a story shape, form and urgency." -- Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling and RITA® Award winning author of over 40 novels and novellas "One of the best in her craft." -- Toronto Star "Goal, Motivation & Conflict is one of my all time favorites." -- Jane Porter (Flirting With Forty), award winning and bestselling author with 10 million books in print, in twenty languages and 25 countries Goal, motivation, and conflict are the foundation of everything that happens in the story world. Using charts, examples, and movies, the author breaks these key elements down into understandable components and walks the reader through the process of laying this foundation in his or her own work. Learn what causes sagging middles and how to fix them, which goals are important, which aren't and why, how to get your characters to do what they need for your plot in a believable manner, and how to use conflict to create a good story. GMC can be used not only in plotting, but in character development, sharpening scenes, pitching ideas to an editor, and evaluating whether an idea will work. Be confident your ideas will work before you write 200 pages. Plan a road map to keep your story on track. Discover why your scenes aren't working and what to do about it. Create characters that editors and readers will care about.

From the author of Dreamology comes a young adult love story that blurs the line between reality and fiction… Annabelle’s life has always been Perfect with a capital P. Then bestselling young adult author Lucy Keating announces that she’s writing a new novel—and Annabelle is the heroine. It turns out that Annabelle is a character that Lucy Keating created. And Lucy has a plan for her. But Annabelle doesn’t want to live a life where everything she does is already plotted out. Will she find a way to write her own story—or will Lucy Keating have the last word? The real Lucy Keating’s delightful contemporary romance is the perfect follow-up for readers who loved her debut novel, which School Library Journal called “a sweet, quirky romance with appealing characters.”

Be yourself like Molly Lou Melon no matter what a bully may do. Molly Lou Melon is short and clumsy, has buck teeth, and has a voice that sounds like a bullfrog being squeezed by a boa constrictor. She doesn't mind. Her grandmother has always told her to walk proud, smile big, and sing loud, and she takes that advice to heart. But then Molly Lou has to start in a new school. A horrible bully picks on her on the very first day, but Molly Lou Melon knows just what to do about that.

This handbook for developing six crucial habits “ should be on every modern leader’s desk” (Jeb Blount, bestselling author of People Follow You). While many books focus on developing managerial competencies, most leadership failures are the result of a failure in character, not a failure in competence. But just as you don’t get in shape by reading a fitness magazine, you don’t become a leader of character by reading a book on character. You have to do what you want to be! Becoming a Leader of Character is a workout plan designed to develop six Habits of Character by providing small daily exercises that strengthen your character muscles—for the important tests of character all leaders face.

A chance meeting with a charismatic photographer will forever change Elizabeth’s life. Until she met Richard, Elizabeth's relationship with Georgia O’Keeffe and her little-known Hawaii paintings was purely academic. Now it’s personal. Richard tells Elizabeth that the only way she can truly understand O’Keeffe isn’t with her mind—it’s by getting into O’Keeffe’s skin and reenacting her famous nude photos. In the intimacy of Richard’s studio, Elizabeth experiences a new, intoxicating abandon and fullness. It never occurs to her that the photographs might be made public, especially without her consent. Desperate to avoid exposure—she’s a rising star in the academic world and the mother of young children—Elizabeth demands that Richard dismantle the exhibit. But he refuses. The pictures are his art. His property, not hers. As word of the photos spreads, Elizabeth unwittingly becomes a feminist heroine to her students, who misunderstand her motives in posing. To the university, however, her actions are a public scandal. To her husband, they’re a public humiliation. Yet Richard has reawakened an awareness that’s haunted Elizabeth since she was a child—the truth that cerebral knowledge will never be enough. Now she must face the question: How much is she willing to risk to be truly seen and known?

The Formula for Happiness is a self-help book which popularizes cutting-edge discoveries made by a board certified clinical psychologist about the nature of happiness and the behaviors and beliefs which enable people to become and remain happy. His groundbreaking way of understanding life and how to live has attracted worldwide attention since it was originally introduced to the scientific community in New Ideas in Psychology: an international journal of innovative theory in psychology in 1996. This is a peer reviewed journal produced by the worlds largest publisher of original scientific work and overseen by an editorial board consisting of faculty from departments of psychology in several of the worlds leading universities. The Formula for Happiness presents this paradigm for the pursuit of happiness in a format which is entertaining and easily understood. It familiarizes readers with what they need to become and remain happy and how to proceed with their personal pursuit of happiness. Readers are provided with an objective means of measuring current levels of happiness as well as methods for increasing happiness and forecasting the effect potential courses of action are likely to have on their happiness at some future point in time. The Formula for Happiness is the product of an innovative approach to the study of happiness which incorporates and surpasses research currently going on in the field of positive psychology in a number of important ways. It is based on generalizations emerging from the review of massive amounts of positive psychology research integrated with insights into the nature of happiness emerging from the fields of clinical and developmental psychology. It provides a comprehensive and coherent set of propositions about the nature of happiness which is different from anything available elsewhere in scientific and self-help literature today. The Formula for Happiness is the first solidly scientifically-based self-help book to assert that happiness is primarily a matter of how people are situated with respect to the circumstances of their lives. Beyond making this assertion, it actually specifies exactly which circumstances make a difference in the of quality of human life. It precisely identifies what we require in order to become and remain happy. The Formula for Happiness is also the first solidly scientifically-based self-help book to assert that happiness is a matter of choice. In addition to advancing this proposition, it provides readers with the only set of scientifically formulated guidelines for making choices which have happiness as their effect. It is the first book to present a set of principles for the pursuit of happiness which, like the principles of nutrition and health, are the product of scientific reasoning and research. In showing readers how happiness is mainly a matter of circumstances and that circumstances are largely a matter of choice, The Formula for Happiness provides a new and much needed counterpoint to most of the thinking within psychology as well as much of what is available on the self-help market today. Instead of promoting the notion that happiness is a matter of what we think, how we perceive, or how we interpret things, The Formula for Happiness shows readers how quality of life is a matter of the way things really are and what we actually do. It is the first self-help book to provide a blueprint for constructing a durable high quality life. In addition to presenting a pioneering paradigm for the pursuit of happiness, The Formula for Happiness contains a set of newly developed psychometric instruments. Readers can use these instruments to measure happiness, to develop goals for personal strategic planning, and to make momentous decisions such as what to major in at college, which career to pursue, whether to take a particular job, whether to remain in a romantic relationship, whether to get married, whether

Grade level: 2, 3, 4, 5, p, e, i, t.