Marital Love and Hate. New York: Macmillan, 1972. Paperback, New York: Lancer, 1973.
Editor, Strategies Against Violence: Design for Nonviolent Change. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1978.
How Can We Commit the Unthinkable?: Genocide, The Human Cancer. In collaboration with Chanan Rapaport. Foreword by Elie Wiesel. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1982. Click here to read reviews.
- Paperback [with title change: Genocide, the Human Cancer: How Can We Commit the Unthinkable?]. New York: Hearst. Professional Books [William Morrow], 1983
- Translation into Portuguese, with new Introduction to this edition by the author and updated bibliography: Anatomia do Genocídio: Uma Psicologia da Agressão Humana. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Rosa dos Tempos, 1998. [Translated by Ruy Jungmann]
Editor, with Shamai Davidson, The Book of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide. Book One. The Conference Program and Crisis. Tel Aviv: Institute of the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide, 1983.
Editor, Toward the Understanding and Prevention of Genocide [Selected Presentations at the International Conference on the Holocaust and Genocide]. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press; & London: Bowker Publishing, 1984.
Editor, Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review. London: Mansell Publishing; & New York: Facts on File, 1988. Awarded OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC BOOK OF THE YEAR by the American Library Association
Editor, Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review. Volume 2. London: Mansell Publishing; & New York: Facts on File, 1991.
Existential/Dialectical Marital Therapy: Breaking the Secret Code of Marriage. New York: Brunner/Mazel, 1992. E-book by Routledge in press (2018). Click here to read reviews.
Editor of book by the late Shamai Davidson, Holding on to Humanity – The Message of Holocaust Survivors: The Shamai Davidson Papers. New York: New York University Press, 1992.
Editor, The Widening Circle of Genocide, Volume 3 in the Series, Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1994.
Totten, Samuel; Parsons, William S.; and Charny, Israel W. (Eds.), Genocide in the Twentieth Century: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. New York: Garland Publishing, 1995. Click here to read Foreword and review.
- Paperback, revised and expanded, with title change: Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views, 1997.
- Second Edition of paperback, revised and expanded, with change of subtitle and change of publisher: Century of Genocide:Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts. New York and London: Routledge, 2004.
Note: Additional updates of this book have appeared edited by Samuel Totten and William Parsons.
Series Editor: Krell, Robert, & Sherman, Marc I. (Eds.), Medical and Psychological Effects of Concentration Camps on Holocaust Survivors. Volume 4 in the Series, Genocide: A Critical Bibliographic Review. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1997.
Editor-in-Chief, Encyclopedia of Genocide. Two Volumes. ABC-Clio Publishers. Santa Barbara, CA and Denver, CO, USA: December, 1999; Oxford, UK: February 2000. Awarded OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC BOOK OF THE YEAR by the American Library Association. Click here to read reviews.
- Associate Editors: Rouben Paul Adalian, Steven Jacobs, Eric Markusen, and SamuelTotten. Bibliographic Editor: Marc I Sherman.
Forewords by Bishop Desmond Tutu and Simon Wiesenthal: “Why Is It Important to Learn about the Holocaust and the Genocides of All Peoples?”2nd Printing, November 2000
- Partial French Edition, Fall 2001: Le livre noir de l’humanité: Encyclopédie mondiale des genocides. Ava-propos de monseigneur Desmond M. Tutu et de Simon Wiesenthal. Traduit de l’anglais par Janice Valls-Russell. Toulouse: Éditions Privat.
- 3rd Printing, December 2002
- Internet e-Book edition, 2003
Fascism and Democracy in the Human Mind: A Bridge between Mind and Society. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2006. Republished as a paperback in Spring 2008. Awarded OUTSTANDING ACADEMIC BOOK OF THE YEAR by the American Library Association. Click here to read reviews.
Fighting Suicide Bombing: A Worldwide Campaign for Life. New York: Praeger Security International [Greenwood Press], 2007. Republished in India and Sri Lanka by three publishers: Penguin Books, Pentagon Press, and Lancer. Click here to read reviews.
| Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind: Treating Intimacy, Tragedy, Violence, and Evil. Rowman and Littlefield and Lexington Books (2018). |
Excerpts from Selected Reviews of Recent Books by Israel W. Charny
The Genocide Contagion
A thought-provoking tome on the human capacity to commit genocide… According to Charny, we are all capable of participating in genocide even though a capacity for good dwells within us as well. Genocide is not a “thing of the past- this eye-opening book is so important. –Spirituality and Practice Book Award 2016, Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
This book is truly a cri de coeur – your concern that all life is sacred is a testimony to who and what you are. I do like the additions of the various quoted sources throughout and the exercises at the end, and hope to incorporate these when I teach my genocide course. –Steven Jacobs, University of Alabama.
A well researched, well documented work coalescing divergent perspectives – a task that most genocide writers are unable to do. As a seasoned clinician and as someone who has spent much of his career trying to understand genocide, I.W. Charny continues to shed light on the oldest and darkest parts of human existence.-Steven Baum, author of The Psychology of Genocide and Editor, Journal for the Study of Antisemitism
Delivered in lively, accessible, and approachable format, The Genocide Contagion is suitable for a broad array of audiences and learners. Charny neither minces words nor overloads (or overlords) with agony. Genocide Studies and Prevention, An International Journal: Mark A. Drumbl, Washington and Lee University School of Law
One of the pioneers of the field of genocide studies and an eminent psychologist, Charny is a scholar with a sharp mind and a compassionate heart. The unique combination of true incidents, fictional scenarios, and exercises encourages readers to explore who they really are and to delve deeply into what they really think, believe, and feel about a host of critical and controversial issues germane to crimes against humanity and genocide. These Learning Exercises make the book a powerful read. –Samuel Totten, University of Arkansas, author of Genocide by Attrition: Nuba Mountains, Sudan
While this book is at first glance an introductory text on genocide, it is at the same time much more than that. Israel Charny is one of the pioneers of genocide studies and a doyen in the field. Here, he has asked (and answered) key questions regarding the psychological dynamics of those who commit genocide and those who collaborate with the murderers. This is a fascinating journey. –Paul R. Bartrop, Florida Gulf Coast University
An innovative conversation with his readers. Drawing on his own well-known work, and that of several classic genocide studies scholarsCharny asks us to confront fundamental and difficult questions about ourselves. Could I be a bystander to genocide? Could I be a perpetrator? –Maureen S. Hiebert, University of Calgary
Amazon Customer Reviews
A fascinating study. –Arthur Kemelman
Fascinating book that is well-written and kept me riveted from beginning to end. I particularly appreciated how the author is personally present in the book as a human being and not as someone who is above the human condition. Highly recommended. –Z. Kemelman, MSW
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Charny’s most recent book, The Genocide Contagion, asks readers to reflect on their own reaction to a future genocide in their own lives. It makes uncomfortable reading. In today’s world, Charny says – slowly, carefully and with little forgiveness of us humanoids – he can see no “concerted political or culture-wide consciousness to take care of people”. On the contrary, “what I see is another replay of a truth that we haven’t faced fully enough. And this is that the human species – with all of its beauty – is a horrible, uncaring, destructive species that has delighted and excelled in the taking of human life for centuries. And there is no real addressing of this issue in our evolution that I know of.” – Robert Fisk, London Independent, reprinted California Courier |
| A Democratic Mind: Psychology and Psychiatry with Fewer Meds and More Soul. Lexington Books (2017).
Click here for the Order Form for A Democratic Mind — with a 30% Author’s Discount that is not available anywhere else . |
COVER BLURBS A DEMOCRATIC MIND
Groundbreaking
“The argument for freedom of thought in our work and in our lives is emblazoned in this groundbreaking book for our times. A Democratic Mind marshals cogent arguments against the social and psychotherapeutic trends toward the surrender to imposed constraints on thought and action, and toward the suggestion that rule-bound ideas of mental health and illness will suffice. If you long for a unifying call for freedom of thought, read this book!”—David E. Scharff, MD, International Psychotherapy Institute and the IPA Committee on Family and Couple Psychoanalysis.
Compelling
“This compelling book held my interest throughout. It is written by a man who loves life and speaks with candor, clarity, and courage. A Democratic Mind is a critical exploration of the limits of contemporary psychotherapy, and a passionate plea to expand its agenda to not only treat the individual, but also the impact that he/she has on his/her family, community, and world. Israel Charny stresses the necessity of cultivating open, compassionate, and engaged people who embrace life. Charny’s writing is lucid and interesting; his work is passionate and lively.”—Michael Berenbaum, PhD, American Jewish University
Empowering
“The release of A Democratic Mind could not be at a better time, as the world contends with polarizing forces that pit tribal populism against global democratic principles. Israel W. Charny offers a metaphor of the ‘Fascist versus Democratic Mind’ as a new framework with which to understand symptoms and direct treatment. Like Albert Bandura’s Moral Disengagement, Charny offers readers an approach to assessment and psychotherapy that is firmly grounded in democratic, life-affirming values, and that emphasizes the choice between good and evil. He expands assessment of the rigid, fascist mind—how we humans hurt ourselves—to how we also hurt others. The addition of these relational considerations is critical for a full understanding of the human condition. To be mentally healthy in the twenty-first century is to cultivate calm in the midst of uncertainty, to embrace and learn from diversity, and to hold our own and others’ behaviors accountable as life-affirming. Charny offers an empowering and integrative psychotherapy to achieve these goals. We need this approach now more than ever.” —Susan McDaniel, University of Rochester Medical Center; Past President, American Psychological Association
Fascinating
From the Foreword to the book by Allen Frances, MD, Editor of DSM IV:
“This is a fascinating book, expressing noble aims. Charny’s premise is that our species is limited by a fairly primitive mental apparatus that needs a “software upgrade” to provide us with the tools to live more at peace with ourselves and with each other. Diagnosis and treatment must also extend beyond the individual to encompass relational problems at the family and societal level. We must not be satisfied with treating pathology; instead, we must strive to create goodness where once there was evil. Would it were possible, but I fear it isn’t. I believe in human happiness, but not in human perfectibility. Let the reader decide between my skeptical reservations and Dr. Charny’s hopes. I hope he is right.”
Allen Frances was the editor of DSM-IV and Susan McDaniel is a past president of the American Psychological Association.
| Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind:Treatment of Intimacy, Tragedy, Violence and Evil, published January 2018
Click here for the Order Form for Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind — with a 30% Author’s Discount that is not available anywhere else. |
COVER BLURBS PSYCHOTHERAPY FOR A DEMOCRATIC MIND: Treating Tragedy, Intimacy, Violence and Evil
Psychotherapy for A Democratic Mind will be published by Lexington Books in 2017
Captivating
“Israel W. Charny provides a captivating journey exploring a framework for therapy that charts a course for today’s and tomorrow’s mental health professionals. Charny’s therapeutic wisdom and existential insight into the human condition, combined with his pioneering work on the Holocaust and genocide studies, informs his courageous approach to perplexing issues. He provides essential truths, including a prescription for therapists and patients alike, to achieve a ‘free mind’ that does no harm to one’s own life or that of others. This book provides approaches to diagnosis and therapy that must be studied, savored, and implemented.”—Robert Krell, MD University of British Columbia
Original
“This is one of the most original psychotherapy books I have ever read. Israel W. Charny does not flinch when describing evil in the human experience. He calls on therapists to see psychological health as inclusive of how personal behavior affects the well-being of others, and to make the connection between political democracy and democracy in the mind and heart. There is an ethical consciousness at work on every page, which is much needed in today’s world.” Bill Doherty, PhD, Family Social Science, University of Minnesota
Creative
“Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind presents a creative focusing of Israel W. Charny’s general concept of democratic and fascistic minds to a crucial field of application. An unusual blend of material from clinical psychology, personality theory, and political psychology, its core terms symbolize broad personality types. The result is a set of novel and thought-provoking ideas for clinical theory, diagnosis, and treatment.”—Peter Suedfeld, PhD, University of British Columbia
Brilliant
Response to Rap Poem-Like Closing Chapter, “Author’s Voice: What Is Going to Happen to All of Us? What Can I Do in MY Time?”
“Psychotherapy for A Democratic Mind concludes with a brilliant summation of an extraordinary life spent grappling with the human condition. Truth is in essence dialectical, and this book is a twenty-first century embodiment of the rabbinic concept of “yetzer hara/yetzer tov” (in Hebrew: the good impulse and the bad impulse). Israel Charny offers a profound understanding of the human story. There is so much substance, depth, and truth in Charny’s life perspective.” — Samuel Karff, Temple Beth Israel, Houston and University of Texas Medical School
Wonderful
From the Foreword to the book by Douglas Sprenkle, Ph.D., Former Editor of the Journal of Marriage and Family Therapy
“This is a wonderful book. It is the most provocative—very much in a positive sense– book I have read on psychotherapy in the past decade. All of the chapters are enlivened with case studies that reflect the author’s exceptional wisdom, sensitivity, and courage. It is rare to read a book that offers a synergy of theory, research, and practice in a way that is so scholarly, compelling, and practical. I felt that it was a privilege to be drawn into the consulting room of a master clinician who handles very difficult cases with such sensitivity and brutal honesty.”
Karff, Samuel E. (Summer 2018). Review of Israel W. Charny, A Democratic Mind and Psychotherapy for a Democratic Mind. CCAR Journal: The Reform Jewish Quarterly. https://www.ccarpress.org/shopping_product_detail.asp?pid=50444
At the heart of Israel Charny’s ground-breaking work is a trenchant critique of the DSM, the diagnostic bible of contemporary psychotherapy. Charny explains that “ the DSM diagnoses are oriented most of all to a person’s capacity to function effectively and very little to the value meanings of a person’s functioning”
With intentional irony Charny points out that “ if a Nazi guard starts shaking and trembling because of pangs of conscience, according to DSM psychiatry he is in a disturbed state.. but if the Nazi guard feels just fine, eats well, and sleeps well, and is untroubled by the fates of the victims, he is a DSM specimen of psychiatric health.”
Charny convicts the DSM of lacking an ethical guiding system. In contrast, he offers the belief that “the key or basic standard of mental health is “a principled forceful stand on behalf of protecting and fulfilling life, first your own life and then too the lives of others.”
Thus Charny distinguishes 2 stages of therapy. “The first “pertains to symptom control, removal, and reduction—help in living with troubling symptoms. The second …should bring about a significant counseling experience for learning how to improve management of one’s mind, style of life, and personal relationships…I find myself more genuinely excited and enlivened by the second part of therapy for improving one’s life style.”
Charny’s most powerful and succinct summation of his belief as a psychotherapist is the following: “One cannot be defined as psychiatrically normal while engaging in sick heinous behaviors such as child abuse, spousal abuse, insulting, dominating and brutalizing other people…but our mental health professions have never had the guts to confront such behaviors by defining them formally and authoritatively as ‘sick.’
Israel W. Charny is to be saluted and thanked for striving to restore ethical judgment and assessment of character to psychotherapy.