An analytical, ultimately optimistic blueprint for taking charge of life and improving it.
A schematic new analysis of the human condition.
Basing his nonfiction debut on extensive experience in the mental health industry—dealing with, among other things, patients with PTSD—Amberg likens the totality of the human experience to an extremely complex piece of machinery, the parts of which need to be working in perfect alignment in order for the machine to function at its peak. Though “humans are clearly much more complex than the machinery we create,” human life can malfunction, and Amberg has isolated five “dimensions” whose efficiencies are essential to the success of the whole. The biological deals with physical health and well-being; the psychological encompasses all varieties of human interaction; the educational “inevitably gives definition to who we are”; the genetic concentrates on DNA, which contains “that which makes us special”; and the energetic connects humans to whatever they conceive of as God. (This is a spiritual rather than strictly religious book; all denominations, even atheists, might find it thought-provoking, since Amberg makes ample allowance for secular forms of inspiration.) The book takes an in-depth look at each dimension in turn, and given the author’s specific area of expertise, it’s not surprising that a group of seven case studies is the book’s most accomplished and rewarding section. These case studies involve people struggling with challenges such as substance abuse, learning disabilities and, of course, PSTD, and Amberg uses them to good effect as illustrations of the workings of the five dimensions he’s sketched out. These case studies also serve to highlight the element of personal accountability that runs through the whole book; for Amberg, “[t]he more responsibility we are willing to assume, the more access we have to our internal power and intelligence.” Accessing that internal power, he says, can lead to “self-actualization.” There’s a good deal of levelheaded, common-sense advice in these pages, all of it presented more in the clear prose of a diagnostic manual than in the fuzzy generalities of a self-help guide.
An analytical, ultimately optimistic blueprint for taking charge of life and improving it.Pub Date: April 18, 2014
ISBN: 978-1491076118
Page Count: 282
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: July 3, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
PROFILES
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SEEN & HEARD
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