By: Roy Gruber on April 14, 2022
His name was Herb. He attended our church on the east coast and saw that we sought a custodian. I hired him, knowing he had a history of changing jobs frequently. All went well until summer came. Forest surrounded the church and became lush and green as the weather warmed. A nearby army munitions plant…
By: Troy Rappold on April 14, 2022
After thirty years of clinical practice dealing with human trauma of all varieties, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk penned his 2014 book, “The Body keeps the Score.” The book is an intelligent guide to how the human body and mind deal with trauma. Although the book is packed full with science and neurological research, van…
By: Michael Simmons on April 13, 2022
Dutch Author Bessel Van der Kolk masterfully clarifies the complexities of the human psyche and inner world. His work specifically focuses on trauma, how it is carried in the body, and how that trauma can be addressed, befriended, and integrated. I am distinctly struck by his work around embodiment. Arguably, this book is summed up…
By: Andy Hale on April 13, 2022
“When the brain’s alarm system is turned on, it automatically triggers preprogrammed escape plans in the oldest part of the brain. As in other animals, the nerves and chemicals that make up our basic brain structure have different connections with your body,” informed Bessel van der Kolk in his work The Body Keeps The Score. [1] Ultimately, the…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on April 13, 2022
How are you so normal? It is a question I get a lot of times after someone hears a bit of my life story. My answers is always Jesus – and I will never be convinced otherwise. Reading through Bessel Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score was for me an invitation to dive…
By: Eric Basye on April 13, 2022
I remember the day I first met her. Walking into the hospital room, I wasn’t sure what to expect. She was so tiny and surprisingly whiter than I anticipated and had a tuft of black hair. She was precious. We had prayed and waited for this day for months, and finally, the day had come.…
By: Mary Kamau on April 11, 2022
Daniel Nettle is a Behavioral scientist, biologist and social scientist whose research work is notable for integrating Psychology with evolutionary and comparative biology who is a professor with Newcastle University. In his book, Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are,” Nettle does a great job at linking human behavior to evolutionary development, and at…
By: Nicole Richardson on April 10, 2022
This past week I tripped over a makeshift gate in our garage. In order to protect my ribs I put out my right hand to break my fall. My right shoulder took the brunt of the fall as my arm was forces upward. I could hear the pop in my shoulder as enjoyed the exquisite…
By: Elmarie Parker on April 8, 2022
Reading Daniel Nettle’s “Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are” was worth it for many reasons, but especially for his closing encouragement: “None of this [the content of his book] means changing your personality. It means understanding what your personality entails, and using this information to make wise choices. This requires many things, one…
By: Michael Simmons on April 7, 2022
Of the many books I have read or encountered on the topic of personality or typology, Daniel Nettle’s book “Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are” is certainly one of them. Throughout his introduction, I realized the concept of the “big five” was familiar. I encountered it for the first time only a few…
By: Henry Gwani on April 7, 2022
Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are demystifies human personality by providing an empirical, yet easy-to-read, examination of individual differences and human uniqueness. Written by Daniel Nettle, a widely-published professor of behavioral science in the UK, Personality builds on the work of Galton[1], Jung[2], and other theorists to discuss the psychology of personality, enduring…
By: Denise Johnson on April 7, 2022
I love maps. It may feed my need to be in control and aversion to be being told what to do by a mechanical woman or maybe it is my desire to see the whole journey all at once. I even prefer a good hand drawn path on a paper napkin complete with the personal…
By: Jonathan Lee on April 7, 2022
In this book Personality : What makes you the way you are, Daniel Nettle explores the psychology of our human personality. He writes to “vindicate the idea that people have enduring personality dispositions which partly predict what they will do, and which stem from the way their nervous systems are wired up.”[1] Nettle introduces the…
By: Roy Gruber on April 7, 2022
The age-old question asks: Is it nature or nurture? What makes us the way we are? Why does one person want to bungee jump over a river gorge while their sibling cautiously stands back from the railing? Daniel Nettle in Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are examines the mysterious and complex topic of…
By: Troy Rappold on April 6, 2022
In Daniel Nettle’s 2007 book, Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are, human personalities are examined and explored to better understand each other and ourselves. I took the author’s advice and after reading the introduction and before starting chapter one, I took the Newcastle Personality Assessor test in the Appendix of the back. It…
By: Kayli Hillebrand on April 6, 2022
Daniel Nettle’s Personality focuses on the psychology behind personality and focuses primarily on what is known as the five-factor model of personality, or ‘the big five.’ In this book, Nettles attempts to explore “how we measure personality, what the measures mean, what they predict, and why personality variations exist in the first place.”[1] He describes…
By: Andy Hale on April 6, 2022
What makes us human? What makes us tick? Why do we do the things that we do? What has shaped and formed us? These are just some of the existential questions that many of us have probably thought about over the course of our lives, certainly after a challenging interaction with a difficult person. “Human personalities…
By: Eric Basye on April 6, 2022
Daniel Nettle, a professor at Newcastle University, is a behavioral and social scientist and the author of several books. One of his books, Personality: What Makes You the Way You Are, addresses the importance of understanding the science behind personality. Whereas cognitive psychology and the function of the brain have been a focal point of…
By: Mary Kamau on April 4, 2022
Vincent Miller is a North American Catholic theologian, author and the Gurdorf Chair in Catholic Theology at the University of Dayton, USA. Miller is the author of the book “Consuming Religion” in which he tackles the topic of consumerism and expresses his concern that little is covered of this topic in contemporary theology.[1] He provides…
By: Elmarie Parker on March 31, 2022
As I read Vincent J. Miller’s “Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture,” I couldn’t help but think of Spider-Man 3 and the identity struggle that ensues when Peter Parker’s Spider Man bonds with the Symbiote.[1] Perhaps this connection was also encouraged as I read Jason Clark’s engagement with Miller’s central thesis.[2]…
