Identities for Life and Death: Can We Save Us from Our Toxically Storied Selves?

This book is all about stories. The stories that shape our identities and how those identities shape our destinies - for better or worse, for good or evil, in humanizing or dehumanizing ways.

Working from the Shakespearian metaphor, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players," Pellegrini argues that only by understanding how our storied selves develop can we acquire the tools to modify the roles they dictate for us to play on the stage in the theater of real life. The author deconstructs a wide variety of what he calls "toxic," dehumanizing, death-oriented self-scripts as well as "creative," humanizing, life-oriented narratives of groups as well as individuals.

Following the Native American parable of two wolves engaged in mortal combat within us, one good the other evil, the fundamental premise here is that our identity determines which of our inner wolves we feed and thus, which of them will prevail. Pellegrini maintains that what's at stake in this battle between humanity's collective inner wolves, is not just the quality but the very survival of life on earth. From this perspective, as individual and group selves are humanizingly or dehumanizingly narratizedby the way we exercise our God-given free will in the choices we make, so shall life be impacted throughout the world. To advance the cause of "detoxifying" identities in our global society, the author presents a rationale and program for an international grass roots social movement aimed at achieving a universal sense of belongingness to a "global life system.

[You can watch and listen to a video in which Dr. Bob Pellegrini talks about this book, and why he wrote it, by entering "Identities for Life and Death" in the search bar at youtube.com.]

San Jose State University Professor Emeritus of Psychology Bob Pellegrini worked as SJSU Associate Dean For Research, Director of Sponsored Programs, and Psychology Department Chair. He received his B. A. degree from Clark University Phi Beta Kappa and with High Honors in Psychology. Supported by National Institute for Mental Health fellowships, he earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Denver, serving predoctoral internships at Children's Asthmatic Research Institute and National Jewish Hospitals in Denver and the University of Colorado School of Medicine, with National Science Foundation-sponsored post-doctoral study at Stanford University.

Having taught thousands of students from 1967 to 2009, he has won local, regional, and national awards as an outstanding teacher from SJSU, Western Psychological Association, and Psi Chi (national honor society for psychology majors), and been honored by inclusion among an elite group of invited contributors to the Lewis M. Terman Master Lecture Series.

A Past-President of the Western Psychological Association, America's largest regional association of psychologists, he has given dozens of talks and invited addresses at meetings of local, regional and national professional associations and published over 100 professional journal articles, twelve manuals and study guides, seven chapters in edited books, and two books. Based on Pellegrini's work with California prison inmates his book, Psychology For Correctional Education: Facilitating Human Development In Prison And Court School Settings (Payne Thomas Publishers), stands as a classical reference in the field it defines. His book, Between Fathers And Sons: Critical Incidents In The Development Of Men''s Lives (Haworth Press), has been acclaimed nationally in reviews by eminent scholars. A unifying theme throughout Professor Pellegrini's scholarly work is a humanistic search to understand social psychological processes that inhibit or promote actualization of human potential in all sorts of contexts.