Why Can't We Sleep?

From the brilliant psychoanalyst behind Strictly Bipolar and What is Madness, a short and fascinating guide to the history of human sleep - and why we can't seem to sleep any more 
 
'Persuasive, absorbing and refreshingly sane... [A] bracing and important intervention in the debate... Leader points the way to a richer and more humane understanding of our problems with sleep' Guardian 
 
One in four adults sleeps badly. 
Sleeping pill prescriptions have increased dramatically over the last three decades, as have the incidence of sleep clinics. 
Sleep used to be a natural state, easy as breathing, but increasingly it is an insecure commodity. 
...Isn't it? 
 
Our relationship to sleep surfaces and resurfaces throughout human history, each time telling us something new about our indivudual and collective psychology. From the industrial revolution to blue-light on our phones, from the ancient art of dream interpretation to the modern science of Freud, sleep is connected to wider social patterns, to shifting norms and expectations. Weaving together cultural, social, economic and psychoanalytic influences, Darian Leader delves into the truth about this universal human experience.

One in four adults sleeps badly. Sleeping pill prescriptions have increased dramatically over the last three decades and our bookshelves and browser histories are littered with experts promising to 'fix' our insomnia. 
 
But is this so-called sleep crisis anything new? Our relationship to sleep has always been irregular and changeable, variously shaped by social conventions, commercial imperatives and personal psychologies. Look beneath the headlines and it seems that there is no such thing as a perfect night's sleep. 
 
Here Darian Leader reveals the history and pathology of sleeplessness - from the industrial revolution to Freudian dream analysis to the fears around blue light on our phones. Along the way, he dispels the pervasive myths and anxieties around this most universal human experience.

What We Do with Them – and Why

Hands

How much do you really know about your own hands? 
 
Throughout history , civilisations have been defined by the work of human hands: inventing tools, writing records, operating machinery, typing, texting, swiping. But beneath this known history is another, secret story: our hands are not the obedient servants that they seem to be. Through conscious and unconscious gesture, they reveal our deepest psychology, our weaknesses and obsessions, our personal history and our social conditioning. 
 
Why do zombies walk with their hands outstretched? How does a new-born baby 'talk' with his hands? What is the connection between prayer beads, snuff boxes and cell phones? And most importantly, can we unlock the mystery of our hands in order to truly know ourselves? 
 
The key to understanding everything around you - and everything within you - is staring you in the face. Take a journey through fascinating anecdotes and brilliant psychoanalytic research, through a legacy of ideas from da Vinci to Dickens to Die Hard. With wit and dexterity, Darian Leader reveals that there's much more to your hands than meets the eye.

Publisher's description.  Why do we play with our fingers when nervous? Why do zombies walk with their hands out? What connects prayer beads with iPhones? Journey down the psychoanalytic rabbit hole to discover the strange and fascinating secrets of what our hands really say about us...

Leader is a psychoanalyst with a sideline in smart, elegant books that explain ourselves to ourselves without using the jargon of clinical literature

An intriguing meditation on how vital our hands are to our understanding of ourselves and our world

Throughout history, civilisations have been defined by the work of human hands: inventing tools, writing records, operating machinery, typing, texting, swiping. But beneath this known history is another, secret story: our hands are not the obedient servants that they seem to be. Through conscious and unconscious gesture, they reveal our deepest psychology, our weaknesses and obsessions, our personal history and our social conditioning. 
 
The key to understanding everything around you - and everything within you - is staring you in the face. Using fascinating anecdotes and brilliant psychoanalytic research, from da Vinci to Dickens to Die Hard, Darian Leader reveals that there's much more to your hands than meets the eye.

Strictly Bipolar

Strictly Bipolar is Darian Leader's treatise on the psychological disorder of our times. 
 
If the post-war period was called the 'Age of Anxiety' and the 1980s and '90s the 'Antidepressant Era', we now live in Bipolar times. Mood-stabilising medication is routinely prescribed to adults and children alike, with child prescriptions this decade increasing by 400% and overall diagnoses by 4000%. 
 
What could explain this explosion of bipolarity? Is it a legitimate diagnosis or the result of Big Pharma marketing? Exploring these questions, Darian Leader challenges the rise of 'bipolar' as a catch-all solution to complex problems, and argues that we need to rethink the highs and lows of mania and depression. 
 
What, he asks, do these experiences have to do with love, guilt and rage? Why the spending sprees and the intense feeling of connection with the world? Why the confidence, the self-esteem and the sense of a bright future that can so swiftly turn into despair and dejection? 
 
Only by looking at these questions in a new way will we be able to understand and help the person caught between feelings that can be so terrifying and so exhilarating, so life-affirming yet also so lethal. 
 
Strictly Bipolar is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary views of the self, bipolarity and a deeper understanding of manic-depression. 
 
Praise for Strictly Bipolar: 
 
'A beautifully thoughtful understanding not just of highs and lows,mania and depression, but of why and how these mechanisms work in our mindsand bodies and how the human subject is coerced todayto embrace a culture of 'bipolarity'' Susie Orbach 
 
'A timely book. Darian Leader's thoughts are more fixated strong-arm interesting, more humane and more persuasive than the profit coercion of the madness industry. Instead of the shoddy reasoning that leads to wrong treatment and over-treatment, he offers illumination and insight; his book is a contribution to a debate, but it could also change lives' Hilary Mantel 
 
Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and of the College of Psychoanalysts - UK. He is the author of What is Madness?, The New Black, Why do women write more letters than they post?, Promises lovers make when it gets late, Freud's Footnotes and Stealing the Mona Lisa, and co-author, with David Corfield, of Why Do People Get Ill? He is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University.

If the post-war period was called the 'Age of Anxiety' and the 1980s and '90s the 'Antidepressant Era', we now live in Bipolar times. Mood-stabilising medication is routinely prescribed to adults and children alike, with child prescriptions this decade increasing by 400% and overall diagnoses by 4000%. 
 
What could explain this explosion of bipolarity? Is it a legitimate diagnosis or the result of Big Pharma marketing? Exploring these questions, Darian Leader challenges the rise of 'bipolar' as a catch-all solution to complex problems, and argues that we need to rethink the highs and lows of mania and depression. 
 
What, he asks, do these experiences have to do with love, guilt and rage? Why the spending sprees and the intense feeling of connection with the world? Why the confidence, the self-esteem and the sense of a bright future that can so swiftly turn into despair and dejection? 
 
Only by looking at these questions in a new way will we be able to understand and help the person caught between feelings that can be so terrifying and so exhilarating, so life-affirming yet also so lethal. 
 
Strictly Bipolar is essential reading for anyone interested in contemporary views of the self, bipolarity and a deeper understanding of manic-depression.

What is Madness?

What is Madness? is Darian Leader's probing study of madness, sanity, and everything in between 
 
What separates the sane from the mad? How hard or easy is it to tell them apart? And what if the difference is really between being mad and going mad? 
 
In this landmark work Darian Leader undermines common conceptions of madness. Through case studies like the apparently 'normal' Harold Shipman, he shows that madness rarely conforms to standard models. What is Madness? explores the idea of quiet madness - that at times many of us live interior lives that are far from sane but allow us to function normally and unthreateningly - he argues that we must seek a new way to assess, treat and deal with those suffering mental health problems. 
 
What is Madness? is Darian Leader's radically insightful and masterfully convincing exploration of a painful, complex but endlessly fascinating area of humanity. 
 
'A terrific intellectual stylist' Joseph O' Neill, Guardian 
 
'Engrossing and enlightening . . . Leader is as much a philosopher as a psychoanalyst' Metro 
 
'The mad . . . have been segregated and often confined; for fear, perhaps, that they will contaminate the rest of us. But as Darian Leader brilliantly shows, things are never so simple' Hanif Kureshi, Independent 
 
'Provides valuable insights into how psychiatry can help those who have suffered psychosis to rebuild their lives' Sunday Times 
 
'Witty, probing. A myth-busting diagnosis of the method in our madness' Independent 
 
'Leader's insights could have radical consequences for the way we regard madness' Daily Telegraph 
 
'Fascinating. A formidable grasp of psychiatric history and a storyteller's flair for detail. What Leader does so effectively is to give us a sense of what it might be like to live inside the mind of a psychotic. A humane and timely book' New Statesman 
 
'Superb insights, brilliant' Observer 
 
'One of our most important contemporary thinkers' Guardian 
 
Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and of the College of Psychoanalysts - UK. He is the author of The New Black, Strictly Bipolar, Why do women write more letters than they post?, Promises lovers make when it gets late, Freud's Footnotes and Stealing the Mona Lisa, and co-author, with David Corfield, of Why Do People Get Ill? He is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University.

Engrossing and enlightening . . . Leader is as much a philosopher as a psychoanalyst

Fascinating, humane and timely . . . Leader forces us to rethink our assumptions about 'mental health' with a formidable grasp of psychiatric history and a storyteller's flair for detail

Witty, probing . . . A myth-busting diagnosis of the method in our madness

[Says] something that very much needs to be said

What separates the sane from the mad? How can we tell them apart? And what if the difference is really between being mad and going mad? 
 
In this landmark work Darian Leader undermines common conceptions of madness. Through case studies like the apparently 'normal' Harold Shipman, he shows that madness rarely conforms to standard models. And by exploring the idea of quiet madness - that at times many of us live interior lives that are far from sane but allow us to function normally and unthreateningly - he argues that we must seek a new way to assess, treat and deal with those suffering mental health problems.

Mourning, Melancholia and Depression

The New Black

A vital and searching exploration of sadness and depression in the age of anti-depressants and quick-fix solutions

The New Black is Darian Leader's compassionate and illuminating exploration of melancholy 
 
What happens when we lose someone we love? A death, a separation or the break-up of a relationship are some of the hardest times we have to live through. We may fall into a nightmare of depression, lose the will to live and see no hope for the future. What matters at this crucial point is whether or not we are able to mourn. 
 
In this important and groundbreaking book, acclaimed psychoanalyst and writer Darian Leader urges us to look beyond the catch-all concept of depression to explore the deeper, unconscious ways in which we respond to the experience of loss. In so doing, we can loosen the grip it may have upon our lives. 
 
'His orthodox, psychoanalytical approach, produces an unpredictable, occasionally brilliant book. The New Black is a mixture of Freudian text, clinical assessments and Leader's own brand of gentle wisdom' Herald 
 
'Compelling and important . . . an engrossing and wise book' Hanif Kureishi 
 
'There are many self-help books on the market . . . The New Black is a book that might actually help' Independent 
 
Darian Leader is a psychoanalyst practising in London and a member of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research and of the College of Psychoanalysts - UK. He is the author of The New Black, Strictly Bipolar, Why do women write more letters than they post?, Promises lovers make when it gets late, Freud's Footnotes and Stealing the Mona Lisa, and co-author, with David Corfield, of Why Do People Get Ill? He is Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Human and Life Sciences, Roehampton University.

Compelling and important . . . An engrossing and wise book

Rigorous and engaging . . . a rich, cogently argued and very timely book

His orthodox, psychoanalytical approach, produces an unpredictable, occasionally brilliant book. The New Black is a mixture of Freudian text, clinical assessments and Leader's own brand of gentle wisdom

What happens when we lose someone we love? A death, a separation or the break-up of a relationship are some of the hardest times we have to live through. We may fall into a nightmare of depression, lose the will to live and see no hope for the future. What matters at this crucial point is whether or not we are able to mourn. 
 
In this important and groundbreaking book, acclaimed psychoanalyst and writer Darian Leader urges us to look beyond the catch-all concept of depression to explore the deeper, unconscious ways in which we respond to the experience of loss. In so doing, we can loosen the grip it may have upon our lives.

Exploring the Mind-body Connection

Why Do People Get Ill?

'Fascinating, important, unusual and timely' Hanif Kureishi, Daily Telegraph

'Well-argued, thought-provoking . . . will make you think twice before reaching for the painkillers' Daily Mail 
 
Have you ever wondered why we get ill? Can our thoughts and feelings worsen or even cause conditions like heart disease, cancer or asthma? And what - if anything - can we do about it? 
 
 Why Do People Get Ill? explores the relationship between what's going on in our heads and what happens in our bodies, combining the latest research with neglected findings from medical history. 
 
With remarkable case studies and startling new insights into why we fall ill, this intriguing book should be read by anyone who cares about their own health and that of other people. 
 
'Fascinating . . . compelling' Observer 
 
'An absorbing examination of the mind-body connection' Harper's Bazaar 
 
'Illuminating, fascinating' Financial Times

Have you ever wondered why we get ill? 
 
Can our thoughts and feelings worsen or even cause conditions like heart disease, cancer or asthma? 
 
And what - if anything - can we do about it? 
 
Why Do People Get Ill? explores the relationship between what's going on in our heads and what happens in our bodies, combining the latest research with neglected findings from medical history. With remarkable case studies and startling new insights into why we fall ill, this intriguing book should be read by anyone who cares about their own health and that of other people.

Darian Leader

Sensitively written and full of insight . . . Leader’s examples are highly accessible . . . undoubtedly compelling

The revered psychoanalyst has penned a thoughtful book about our everyday sexual lives – and why there is no such thing as “just sex”. With a convincing argument as to why it is so much more than that, this is a thoroughly engaging and ever-illuminating read

Leader writes beautifully, with majestic clarity and an easy flow between argument and case-study

‘It was just sex…’It’s a familiar claim. But it’s also an impossibility, as Darian Leader shows in this delightfully thought-provoking study.Our bodies aren’t just sticks that make fire when you rub them together, and our minds don’t simply stand by – as we can see from the pain, heartache and regret that so often accompany the highs of sexual excitement.As acclaimed psychoanalyst Darian Leader argues, with his trademark clarity, energy and wit, sex is always about so much more than itself – it’s about phantasy, anxiety, guilt, revenge, violence, love. Drawing on his long analytic experience, historical research and case studies to explore their importance to every aspect of our sexual lives, Leader brilliantly reveals what we are really thinking about when we think about sex – and what we are really doing when we do it.

Darian Leader

Praise for Is It Ever Just Sex?

Sensitively written and full of insight . . . Leader’s examples are highly accessible . . . undoubtedly compelling

The revered psychoanalyst has penned a thoughtful book about our everyday sexual lives – and why there is no such thing as “just sex”. With a convincing argument as to why it is so much more than that, this is a tho ...

Leader writes beautifully, with majestic clarity and an easy flow between argument and case-study

Sensitively written and full of insight . . . Leader’s examples are highly accessible . . . undoubtedly compelling

The revered psychoanalyst has penned a thoughtful book about our everyday sexual lives – and why there is no such thing as “just sex”. With a convincing argument as to why it is so much more than that, this is a tho ...

Leader writes beautifully, with majestic clarity and an easy flow between argument and case-study

Sensitively written and full of insight . . . Leader’s examples are highly accessible . . . undoubtedly compelling

The revered psychoanalyst has penned a thoughtful book about our everyday sexual lives – and why there is no such thing as “just sex”. With a convincing argument as to why it is so much more than that, this is a tho ...

Leader writes beautifully, with majestic clarity and an easy flow between argument and case-study

Books by Darian Leader

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