Do you want to get more out of life? Develop your talents? Identify your weaknesses? Discover why you're having problems with your boss, your neighbours, or your family? Hand psychology can help you. The answers to many nagging difficulties which crop up day to day are, quite literally, right there in your hands. By their size, shape, lines and other markings, your hands reveal a vast amount of information about you. Hand psychology interprets this information and applies it to everyday life. Professional palmist Andrew Fitzherbert demonstrates clearly and straightforwardly how to identify your talents and weaknesses, and how to evaluate key facets of your personality such as self-esteem, sex drive and sense of humour. He shows how to use this knowledge in solving your problems. Unlike ordinary palmistry books, there are no complex rules or mysterious names to learn. Everything is explained step by step with clear illustrations and real-life examples. And there is even a set of lessons for those who want to learn more about reading palms, a teach-your-self section complete with examples and clear instructions. Home, work, leisure interests and personal relationships can all benefit from Hand Psychology's new and exciting approach to solving life's problems. Book jacket.

Used for gestures of communication, environmental exploration, and the grasping and manipulating of objects, the hand has a vital role in our lives. The hand's anatomical structure and neural control are among the most complex and detailed of human motor systems.Hand and Brain is a comprehensive overview of the hand's sensorimotor control. It discusses mediating variables in perception and prehension, the coordination of muscles with the central nervous system, the nature of movement control and hand positioning, hand-arm coordination in reaching and grasping, and the sensory function of the hand.In the last decade the rapid growth of neuroscience has been paralleled by a surge of interest in hand function. This reflects the fact that many of the fundamental issues facing neuroscientists today--including the problem of relating physiology to behavior--are central to the study of sensorimotor control of the hand. This book takes a broad interdisciplinary perspective on the control of hand movements that includes neurophysiology, neuroanatomy, psychology and neuropsychology, and biomechanics.The authors, who have all made significant scientific contributions in their own right, have sought to introduce their chosen topics in a manner that the undergraduate reader will be able to follow without sacrificing detailed and up-to-date coverage ofthe major developments.Uses an interdisciplinary approach including behavioral and neurophysiological dataDescribes a variety of experimental methodologiesTreats neural computations necessary for the control of movementCovers implications of biomechanics for control, sensory mechanisms, and perceptual processing (haptics)Includes manipulative hand function as well as reachingOverviews each group of chapters using link sectionsContains an integrated index and a glosssaryThe five sections cover:Mediating variables in perception and prehensionThe coordination of muscles with the central nervous systemThe nature of movement control and hand positioningHand-arm coordination in reaching and graspingThe sensory function of the hand

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER "My Grandmother's Hands will change the direction of the movement for racial justice."— Robin DiAngelo, New York Times bestselling author of White Fragility In this groundbreaking book, therapist Resmaa Menakem examines the damage caused by racism in America from the perspective of trauma and body-centered psychology. The body is where our instincts reside and where we fight, flee, or freeze, and it endures the trauma inflicted by the ills that plague society. Menakem argues this destruction will continue until Americans learn to heal the generational anguish of white supremacy, which is deeply embedded in all our bodies. Our collective agony doesn't just affect African Americans. White Americans suffer their own secondary trauma as well. So do blue Americans—our police. My Grandmother's Hands is a call to action for all of us to recognize that racism is not only about the head, but about the body, and introduces an alternative view of what we can do to grow beyond our entrenched racialized divide. Paves the way for a new, body-centered understanding of white supremacy—how it is literally in our blood and our nervous system. Offers a step-by-step healing process based on the latest neuroscience and somatic healing methods, in addition to incisive social commentary. Resmaa Menakem, MSW, LICSW, is a therapist with decades of experience currently in private practice in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in trauma, body-centered psychotherapy, and violence prevention. He has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and Dr. Phil as an expert on conflict and violence. Menakem has studied with bestselling authors Dr. David Schnarch (Passionate Marriage) and Dr. Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score). He also trained at Peter Levine's Somatic Experiencing Trauma Institute.

Preface -- Introducing hands -- Building hands -- Energizing hands -- Willing hands -- Seeing hands -- Hearing hands -- Feeling hands -- Joining hands -- Extending hands -- Notes -- References -- Index

Drawing on the latest findings from neuroscience, as well as cultural observation and her own unique laboratory research, psychologist Kelly Lambert puts forth a provocative new theory about the cause and treatment of depression. Today's young adults are up to ten times more likely to experience depression than their grandparents were. Could it be that in our increasingly automated world, the reduced physical effort needed to accomplish anything may somehow interfere with our level of happiness and subsequent responses to stress? Neuroscientist Kelly Lambert finds compelling evidence that having to work hard for rewards significantly improves mood and prevents depression. Beginning with her innovative research on rats - she compared ''trust-fund rats'' (whose rewards came with no effort on their part) to hard-working ''trained-to-succeed'' rodents - Lambert offers hope of treatment for people without debilitating (and often ineffective) drugs. Drawing on a wealth of information from the fields of anthropology, neuroscience, and evolutionary psychology, Lambert develops a unique theory suggesting that physical effort directed toward tangible outcomes activates particular regions of the brain and builds resilience against the emotional emptiness and negative thinking associated with depression. Whereas most therapies emphasize the importance of mental activity, Lambert reminds us of the importance of physical activity in establishing control in a fast-paced culture that is focused more on the prospect of immediate gratification than savoring the fruits of our labor.

Originally published in 1942, this book was very different from anything else written about the psychology of hands. The author had worked amongst apes and monkeys at the zoo, patients in what at the time were called ‘mental hospitals’, and amongst all manner of men, women and children. The results of her research are found here where she looks at how the hands link to the brain and ultimately our personality. A pioneer in this field the author continued her research in this area for a number of years. A fascinating glimpse into early personality psychology.

In Why We Bite the Invisible Hand, Peter Foster delves into a conundrum: How can we at once live in a world of expanding technological wonders and unprecedented well-being, and yet hear a constant drumbeat of condemnation of the system that created it? That system, capitalism, which is based on private property and voluntary dealings, is guided by the "Invisible Hand," the metaphor for economic markets associated with the great Eighteenth Century Scottish philosopher Adam Smith. The hand guides people to serve others while pursuing their own interests, and produces a broader good that, as Smith put it, is "no part of their intention." Critics. however, claim that the hand is tainted by greed, leads to inequity and dangerous corporate power, and threatens not merely resource depletion but planetary disaster. Foster probes misunderstanding, fear and dislike of capitalism from the dark satanic mills of the Industrial Revolution through to the murky concept of sustainable development. His journey takes him from Kirkcaldy, the town of Smith's birth, through Moscow McDonald's and Karl Marx's Manchester, on a trip to Cuba to smuggle dollars, and into the backrooms of the United Nations. His cast of characters includes the man who wrote the entry for "capitalism" in the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia, a family of Kirkcaldy butchers, radical individualist Ayn Rand, father of evolutionary theory Charles Darwin, numerous Nobel prizewinning economists, colonies of chimpanzees, and "philanthrocapitalist" Bill Gates. Foster suggests that the key to his conundrum lies in the field of evolutionary psychology, which offers to help us understand both why some of what Adam Smith called our complex "moral sentiments" may be outdated, and why so many of our economic assumptions tend to be wrong. We are hunter gatherers with iPhones. The Invisible Hand is counterintuitive to minds formed predominantly in small close-knit tribal communities where there were no extensive markets, no money, no technological advance and no economic growth. Equally important, we don't have to understand the rapidly evolving economic "natural order" to operate within it and enjoy its benefits any more than we need to understand our nervous or respiratory systems to stay alive. But that also makes us prone to support morally-appealing but counterproductive policies, such as minimum wage legislation. Foster notes that politicians and bureaucrats -- consciously or unconsciously -- exploit moral confusion and economic ignorance. Ideological obsession with market imperfections, income gaps, corporate power, resource exhaustion and the environment are useful justifications for those seeking political control of our lives. The book refutes claims that capitalism's validity depends on the system being "perfect" or economic actors "rational." It also notes the key difference between capitalism and capitalists, who are inclined to misunderstand the system as much as anyone. Foster points to the astonishing rise in recent decades of radical, unelected environmental non-governmental organizations, ENGOs. Closely related to that rise, Foster examines with one of the biggest and most contentious issues of our time: projected catastrophic man-made climate change. He notes that while this theory is cited as the greatest example in history of "market failure," it in fact demonstrates how both scientific analysis and economic policy can become perverted once something is framed as a "moral issue," and thus allegedly "beyond debate." Foster's book is not a paean to greed, selfishness or radical individualism. He stresses that the greatest joys in life come from family, friendship and participation in community, sport and the arts. What has long fascinated him is the relentless claim that capitalism taints or destroys these aspects of humanity rather than promoting them. Moreover, he concludes, when you bite the Invisible Hand... it always bites back.

A research subject is shown a cartoon like the 1950 Canary Row--a classic Sylvester and Tweedy Bird caper that features Sylvester climbing up a downspout, swallowing a bowling ball and slamming into a brick wall. After watching the cartoon, the subject is videotaped recounting the story from memory to a listener who has not seen the cartoon. Painstaking analysis of the videotapes revealed that although the research subjects--children as well as adults, some neurologically impaired--represented a wide variety of linguistic groupings, the gestures of people speaking English and a half dozen other languages manifest the same principles. Relying on data from more than ten years of research, McNeill shows that gestures do not simply form a part of what is said and meant but have an impact on thought itself.

The simple task of grasping objects has been studied for centuries by scientists, therapists and engineers who have tried to understand and duplicate the versatility of the human hand. Using an interdisciplinary approach and new framework for looking at prehension, the authors uncover the subleties of the amazing interaction between the hand and the brain. They draw from such diverse fields as experimental psychology, kinesiology, robotics, neural networks, artificial intelligence, neuropsychology and rehabilitation. A triangle strategy is presented, starting from conceptual models that suggest both experimental and computational models. Chapters describe the multiple postures established by the hand, phases in the dynamic process of reaching for, grasping and manipulating various objects, and the constraints acting on such activity.Appendices provide the complete anatomy of the upper limb, the basics of computational modelling, and the fundamentals of prosthetic and dextrous robot hands. The ultimate goal of this book is to develop a common vocabularly for multidisciplinary researchers who strive to understand a system as complex as the hand under the control of the human brain.