Bookforum Omnivore: Psychology and Its Discontents

From August 9th, this collection of articles was featured in Bookforum's Omnivore blog. There are some good pieces, especially the Allen Frances article on the pathologizing of human emotions.

Psychology and its discontents

Aug 9 2012
11:00AM

• A new issue of The New School Psychology Bulletin is out.
• The paradox of popular psychology: Samuel McNerney on the irrationality of irrationality. 
• From Arena, John Cash on obedience to authority and its discontents. 
• Psychology and its discontents: We see an area in the brain “light up” when we think about a topic, and assume we know something about thought — but what, exactly? 
• Decisions, decisions: Why humans can’t seem to make the “right” choices. 
• Are people probabilistically challenged? Alex Stein reviews Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. 
• Are we systematically biases against changing the status quo? Nick Bostrom discusses this tendency and its implications when it comes to making decisions about cognitive enhancement. 
• Is crazy the new normal? We are at risk of turning everyday struggles into illnesses, according to prominent U.S. psychiatrist, Allen Frances. 
• George Miller, who wrote the almost-magical essay “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two”, dies.