Amman — Author Ikram Al-Ash has published a book titled Windows on the Self and Society, which explores psychosocial topics and real-life experiences. Drawing on a combination of scientific knowledge and practical and personal experience, the book examines a range of psychological, social and human issues in a style intended for general readers as well as interested professionals and specialists.
اضافة اعلان
The book explores the reciprocal relationship between individuals and their social environment. Its topics range from self-awareness and understanding the self to relationships with others, family and society, before moving on to questions of thought, truth, history and politics. It seeks to offer practical approaches to understanding various phenomena and challenges facing individuals and communities.
According to the author, the book combines scientific study with reflection on human experiences, drawing on her academic and professional background in the psychological, social and political fields. In his foreword, Dr. Hussein Taha Al-Mahadin said the book stands out for combining scientific knowledge with life experience and presenting specialized subjects in accessible language.
The book also draws on stories, events, and religious, cultural and scientific examples. Al-Mahadin described these as intellectual and scientific intertextual references that reinforce the ideas presented, give them additional dimensions and create a space for dialogue between academic knowledge and everyday life.
Dr. Hussein Taha Al-Mahadin, former dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Mutah University and a professor of sociology and criminology, wrote the foreword. He said the book brings together scientific knowledge and life experience, presenting interconnected and profound themes whose coherence is one of its key strengths and distinguishing features.
Al-Mahadin noted that the book contains “a forest of meanings and ideas, both apparent and direct,” that ordinary readers can readily grasp without linguistic difficulty or intellectual complexity. He highlighted the author’s fluent, accessible style compared with that of specialized scientific publications.
He said this approach gives the book its distinctive character and enables it to reach a broad audience of non-specialist readers, particularly because its topics relate to everyday concerns. These include the family and its current transformations, cognitive distortions and mutual misunderstandings, intuition and illness, as well as violence and aggression.
The foreword’s author added that Al-Ash does more than present issues: she offers analyses and suggestions based on her academic and life experiences. Her practical approach combines knowledge with application rather than relying on deeply theoretical or academic discussion. According to Al-Mahadin, this makes the book’s content relevant to readers’ everyday needs.
At a deeper analytical level, Al-Mahadin said the book demonstrates scientific rigor and a fluent, persuasive style suited to both specialist and more deeply engaged readers. He attributed this to the author’s academic experience in teaching and working with several ministries and international organizations, as well as her command of English, which provides an additional source of knowledge.
He also pointed to the breadth of the author’s knowledge, reflected in her use of Quranic verses relevant to the book’s themes and situations, alongside insights drawn from social psychology theories.
Despite the diversity of its topics, Al-Mahadin explained, the book combines the study of individual characteristics and traits from a psychological perspective with an examination of the interactions between individuals and the organizations and institutions of wider society. This approach, he said, deepens the understanding of the psychological and social issues addressed.
Al-Mahadin also highlighted the author’s skill in incorporating scientific and intellectual references by revisiting events, quotations and stories embedded in collective memory and using them to convey her ideas to readers.
Examples include a reference to One Thousand and One Nights in the subheading “What permissible words did Scheherazade leave unspoken?”
Another chapter, titled “Those who manipulate individuals,” echoes the internationally known book Mind Manipulators. The title “The energy vampires among us” draws on the familiar image of vampires in the collective imagination.
Al-Mahadin also noted the scientific references in the author’s discussion of the human brain, short-, medium- and long-term memory, and the relationship between the importance of information and how it is stored and retrieved. She connects these subjects to how contemporary scientists have drawn on certain mechanisms of brain function in developing computers.
Al-Mahadin concluded that his discussion of the book’s explicit and deeper themes does not replace the recognition the work deserves. He encouraged readers to explore what he described as a distinctive book that presents knowledge and experience in accessible language, bringing science together with the lessons of life and offering value to different segments of Arab society.
In the book’s introduction, Al-Ash explains that human beings are the cornerstone of the formation and development of societies within the field of humanities. Understanding the different dimensions of human nature, and examining the challenges, problems, capacities and potential surrounding individuals, cannot therefore be separated from their social environment. According to Al-Ash, the individual and society are like two facing mirrors: each directly and profoundly influences the other and is influenced in return.
From this perspective, Windows on the Self and Society: Psychosocial Topics and Real-Life Experiences seeks to offer intellectual approaches and practical solutions to the complex relationship between individuals and their surroundings.
Al-Ash says she divided the book into five sections. It begins with the individual and self-understanding, then moves to relationships with partners, friends and others, followed by the individual’s relationship with society, and finally an exploration of the world and history. The progression moves from the personal realm of the self to the broader spheres of family, society and the nation.
The first section, titled “Windows on Awareness and the Self,” addresses topics including self-acceptance, prioritizing oneself, psychological congruence, the Johari Window, psychological age, intuition, freedom, déjà vu, or the feeling that something has been seen before, and cognitive distortions.
The second section, “Windows on Others,” explores the art of maintaining distance, relationships between men and women, the complementarity and differences between opposites, “energy vampires,” and insights into understanding disagreements and verbal aggression.
The third section, “Transformations in Reality and Life,” examines the family amid technological change, the demands of change and the disruption of roles. It also explores poverty and ignorance as a struggle for survival in the absence of awareness, as well as the phenomenon of professional begging.
The fourth section, “Windows on Thought and Truth: Battles of the Mind,” addresses alternative facts, mind manipulation, the struggle behind masks, the game of intelligence and stupidity, and the question: “What permissible words did Scheherazade leave unspoken?”
The fifth section, “Windows on History and Politics,” examines civilization yesterday and today, a message to Umayyad caliph Muawiya ibn Abi Sufyan, and the story of Moses and Pharaoh.
Al-Ash emphasizes that the book is not an academic research work immersed in dry theories. Rather, it is the product of study and reflection in the psychological, social and political fields, combining her academic education in these disciplines with practical experience and personal insights shaped by many years of work in the humanitarian field.
At the end of her introduction, Al-Ash thanks her family for their continued support and expresses her gratitude to Professor Dr. Hussein Taha Al-Mahadin, former dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Mutah University, for writing the book’s foreword.
Recourse: Al-Ghad. Reporting: Aziza Ali
