Despite our justified fears of its destructiveness, anger is an essential part of our social life. I.A.M. (Integrated Anger Management) provides a way to take advantage of this by offering a step-by-step guide for 1. keeping the emotion safe, 2. learning to tolerate its sometimes over-whelming intensity, 3. evaluating its often disguised objectives, 4. relinquishing impossible aims, and 5. realistically employing its power to obtain critical goals. Practical and straight-forward, the approach spells out why what works in one social situation may not in another.

Among I.A.M.'s insights...

"Role Change: A Resocialization Perspective" is a comprehensive introduction to role change theory and the first volume to systematically apply resocialization concepts to problem solving. Based on the premise that most personal problems are actually role problems best corrected by role change, this volume thoroughly explores the nature of role dysfunction. Focus is placed on how social coercion generates unsatisfying roles; how role conservation mechanism prevent easy change; and how role loss mechanisms-- similar to those found in mourning--must be set in motion for change to occur....

This book reinterprets psychotherapy from a social role perspective, permitting a grand synthesis that explains many of the apparent contradictions in contemporary therapy, and challenging the usual definitions of therapy in terms of personality, behavior, and mental illness. Dr. Fein surveys all major therapies, placing them in a role-change context. He documents how each approach specializes in different aspects of role change, and shows that therapies differ only in their level of intervention, phase of resocialization addressed, or barrier to change tackled. All therapies, Fein argues,...

This comprehensive sociological analysis sheds light on the informal rules governing our moral decisions. According to Fein, we may not be aware of how we really play the morality game. His Negotiation/Emotion Paradigm (NEP) demonstrates that morality entails creating, enforcing, and modifying important social rules. Rather than a particular set of truths or a peculiar form of mental activity, moral behavior is a social activity--a kind of hard-edged game This study sets forth a unique paradigm, in addition to bringing together aspects of many theories in an accessible way. Fein's...

All people suffer instances of personal loss that cause distress. All too often, their discomfort is treated as a medical issue requiring treatment--usually through medication. Melvyn L. Fein argues for a broader understanding of loss and losing that offers another approach, which he characterizes as "resocialization." Indeed, how a person thinks, feels, and acts may all need to be reorganized if personal distress is to be overcome.

Fein urges that we distinguish between the loss of something we once possessed and losing something that never came to fruition. Thus, it is possible...

Human beings are hierarchical animals. Always and everywhere, people have developed social ranking systems. These differ dramatically in how they are organized, but the underlying causal mechanisms that create and sustain them are the same. Whether they are on the top or bottom of the heap, people attempt to be superior to some other persons or group. This is the root of Melvyn L. Fein's thesis presented in Human Hierarchies: A General Theory.

Fein traces the development of changes from hunter-gatherer times to our own techno-commercial society. In moving from small to large...

Liberalism is dying--despite its superficial appearance of vigor. Most of its adherents still believe it is the wave of the future, but they are clinging to a sinking dream. So says Melvyn L. Fein, who argues that liberalism has made countless promises, almost none of which have come true. Under its auspices, poverty was not eliminated, crime did not diminish, the family was not strengthened, education was not improved, nor was universal peace established. These failures were not accidental; they flow directly from liberal contradictions. In Post-Liberalism, Fein demonstrates why...