WHAT YOU CAN CHANGE AND WHAT YOU CAN'T

Provocative overview by Seligman (Psychology/U. of Penn.; Learned Optimism, 1991) of human psychological and behavioral characteristics: Which ones are subject to change? Which are more or less fixed? Fortunately, there's a great deal of plasticity in human nature, Seligman says, so many troubling patterns of thinking and acting can be altered: anger, depression, phobias, anxiety, depression, sexual-performance problems, alcoholism. Included among Seligman's list of traits that are resistant to change—or are even unchangeable—is the tendency to overweight (our body weight is genetically determined and defended by primal evolutionary forces, he contends; we can attain our own natural, healthy weight but few of us can achieve or maintain the model slimness that the multibillion-dollar diet industry and the media have established as ideal). In what the author describes as ``the saddest chapter'' here, he discusses the irreversibility of post-traumatic stress disorder, claiming that for some people—for instance, those who have lost a child, survived the Holocaust, or endured terrible wartime experiences—the damage to their psyche and outlook is permanent. Sexual identity (whether you regard yourself as a man or a woman, irrespective of what your physical characteristics are) and sexual orientation—homosexual or heterosexual—are more or less fixed as well. Among Seligman's more controversial assertions is his claim that childhood experience is a relatively weak influence on adult character and worldview. Flying in the face of a century of psychoanalytic theory—as well as the powerful new Inner Child movement—he maintains that ``only a few childhood events, like the death of your mother, have any documented influence on adult emotional life..,'' and that childhood influence ``is surprisingly small, particularly when compared to the effect of genes on adult personality.'' Readable, solidly rooted in research, and offering—for the most part—a hopeful message. (Tables throughout rate treatments for various disorders according to effectiveness and expense) (First printing of 75,000)