States of Awareness - (Bibliographies and Indexes in Psychology) Annotated by John J Miletich (Hardcover)

About the Book

This work breaks new ground by assembling in one volume diverse information about nine frequently experienced, altered states of awareness. Many of these states, such as those involving near-death and out-of-body experiences, have gained increased attention in recent years. Other states are more commonplace, such as sleepwalking, amnesia, anesthesia, or deja vu. All altered states may be disruptive to society, as they tend to interfere with the social roles of individuals. If the shared assumptions upon which society operates are too frequently flaunted as a result of such states, chaos can ensue and family life and work can be impaired or even destroyed. Treatment of altered states of perception involves individuals from a variety of the helping professions, including anesthetists, endocrinologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and psychologists.

This English-language bibliography consists of over 1,000 references published from 1894 through the first quarter of 1988. The source publications include books, articles, conference proceedings, and dissertations and were mostly published in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Chapters on each of the nine altered states contain relevant entries arranged alphabetically by author. Also included are author, subject, and personal name indexes. This bibliography will interest many health care, counseling, and legal professionals. It will serve as a useful reference for a wide variety of courses, including death and dying; the sociology and psychology of religion; and topics in aerospace medicine, such as maintaining the health of astronauts, who are frequently subject to altered states of awareness caused by sensory deprivation and weightlessness.

Book Synopsis

This work breaks new ground by assembling in one volume diverse information about nine frequently experienced, altered states of awareness. Many of these states, such as those involving near-death and out-of-body experiences, have gained increased attention in recent years. Other states are more commonplace, such as sleepwalking, amnesia, anesthesia, or deja vu. All altered states may be disruptive to society, as they tend to interfere with the social roles of individuals. If the shared assumptions upon which society operates are too frequently flaunted as a result of such states, chaos can ensue and family life and work can be impaired or even destroyed. Treatment of altered states of perception involves individuals from a variety of the helping professions, including anesthetists, endocrinologists, neurologists, psychiatrists and psychologists.

This English-language bibliography consists of over 1,000 references published from 1894 through the first quarter of 1988. The source publications include books, articles, conference proceedings, and dissertations and were mostly published in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Chapters on each of the nine altered states contain relevant entries arranged alphabetically by author. Also included are author, subject, and personal name indexes. This bibliography will interest many health care, counseling, and legal professionals. It will serve as a useful reference for a wide variety of courses, including death and dying; the sociology and psychology of religion; and topics in aerospace medicine, such as maintaining the health of astronauts, who are frequently subject to altered states of awareness caused by sensory deprivation and weightlessness.

Review Quotes

"This ambitious project attempts to pull together citations to books, journals, conference proceedings, and dissertations on altered states of awareness, ' defined as deviations from normal' perception.' Grouped within the nine chapters are more than 1,000 annotated references to material published between 1894 and 1988 on a variety of topics such as drugs, brain tumors, thyroid disorders, meditation, and combat. Each chapter focuses on an altered state of awareness, and it is the grouping of all these references on seemingly diverse topics into one volume that makes the bibliography useful, especially in an undergraduate setting. The compiler, a librarian at the University of Alberta, has prepared two other annotated bibliographies for the same publisher: Retirement and Work and Alcohol Abuse. . . . [The] work is interesting and well annotated."-Choice

?Because of its retrospective and comprehensive English-language coverage, this bibliography will be especially useful for researchers and upper-level students in psychical research, clinical psychology, and psychiatry, and for others needing access to the literature on consciousness and altered states.?-ARBA

?This ambitious project attempts to pull together citations to books, journals, conference proceedings, and dissertations on altered states of awareness, ' defined as deviations from normal' perception.' Grouped within the nine chapters are more than 1,000 annotated references to material published between 1894 and 1988 on a variety of topics such as drugs, brain tumors, thyroid disorders, meditation, and combat. Each chapter focuses on an altered state of awareness, and it is the grouping of all these references on seemingly diverse topics into one volume that makes the bibliography useful, especially in an undergraduate setting. The compiler, a librarian at the University of Alberta, has prepared two other annotated bibliographies for the same publisher: Retirement and Work and Alcohol Abuse. . . . [The] work is interesting and well annotated.?-Choice

"Because of its retrospective and comprehensive English-language coverage, this bibliography will be especially useful for researchers and upper-level students in psychical research, clinical psychology, and psychiatry, and for others needing access to the literature on consciousness and altered states."-ARBA

About the Author

JOHN J. MILETICH is a Reference Librarian at the University of Alberta. He is the author of Retirement: An Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1986), and Work and Alcohol Abuse: An Annotated Bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1987).