IF I UNDERSTOOD YOU, WOULD I HAVE THIS LOOK ON MY FACE?

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IF I UNDERSTOOD YOU, WOULD I HAVE THIS LOOK ON MY FACE?

Name: IF I UNDERSTOOD YOU, WOULD I HAVE THIS LOOK ON MY FACE?
Author: Alan Alda
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8914-4

MY ADVENTURES IN THE ART AND SCIENCE OF RELATING AND COMMUNICATING

by Alan Alda ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 6, 2017

A sharp and informative guide to communication.

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A distinguished actor and communication expert shows how to avoid “the snags of misunderstanding” that plague verbal interactions between human beings.

When Alda (Things I Overhead While Talking to Myself, 2007, etc.) first began hosting the PBS series Scientific American Frontiers in 1993, he had no idea how much the job would change his life. In the 20 years that followed, he developed an enduring fascination with “trying to figure out what makes communication work.” As a TV show host who interviewed scientists and engineers, Alda became painfully aware of his own shortcomings as a communicator and how his background as an actor could help him improve. In the first section of the book, he discusses how effective communication requires listening with ears, eyes, and feelings wide open. Drawing from research, interactions with science professionals, and his work as an actor, Alda reveals how individuals who aren’t “naturally good” communicators can learn to become more adept by practicing their overall relating skills. He describes activities like the “mirror exercise,” in which partners observe and mimic each other’s actions and speech. Not only do people learn how to focus on each other, but they also “strengthen cohesion and promote cooperation” in groups. In the second section, Alda, who founded the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science at Stony Brook University, points out the importance of empathy in communication. He discusses, among others, an exercise that forced him to name the feelings he saw others express. Raising awareness of emotion increases empathy levels, which can trigger the release of oxytocin, the feel-good “love hormone.” By adding emotion to communication, using storytelling, avoiding jargon, and eliminating the assumption that others share the same knowledge base, message senders can forge closer bonds with recipients. The book’s major strength comes from Alda’s choice to take an interprofessional approach and avoid offering prescriptive methods to enhance interpersonal understanding. As he writes, communication “is a dance we learn by trusting ourselves to take the leap, not by mechanically following a set of rules.”

A sharp and informative guide to communication.

Pub Date: June 6, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-8129-8914-4

Page Count: 224

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: March 14, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2017

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY

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PATTERNS IN THE MIND

LANGUAGE AND HUMAN NATURE

by Ray Jackendoff ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 20, 1994

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In a challenging, timely, and persuasive argument, Jackendoff (Brandeis; the scholarly Semantics and Cognition, 1983—not reviewed) proposes that language and, by extension, music and visual experience in part culturally engendered—but that, fundamentally, they're expressions of innate, perhaps even genetic, properties of the brain. Redressing the balance between nature and nurture to explain language, Jackendoff contends that language acquisition, a fundamental characteristic of humanity, depends on a universal mental grammar—a set of unconscious grammatical principles that condition the organization, production, and reception of human speech—that's a form of innate knowledge. Considering the ways in which children acquire language (understanding more than they can say, generating speech they haven't heard); American sign language (of which he offers a brief and cogent history); and the learning- impaired and language-deprived, he explores the concepts of this universal grammar. Jackendoff proposes a physiological basis for language in a specialized area of the brain, which can be identified even though its organization is still a mystery. He then extends these principles of universal grammar and innate knowledge to the understanding of music, visual signs, and, most challenging, social interaction. Meaning is ``constructed'' by the innate patterns of the auditor as well as by the speaker, he says, and, by extension, human experience of the world is ``constructed by'' similar unconscious principles—principles that, unlike Freud's unconscious, can never be brought into awareness. In his discussion of semantics, Jackendoff distinguishes between language and thought, between grammar and concept, and between the translatable and the untranslatable, emphasizing human interaction and its implications for society. A powerful, direct, and tidy argument that vindicates Jackendoff's initial purpose: to make linguistics ``part of every educated individual's intellectual repertoire.''

Pub Date: Jan. 20, 1994

ISBN: 0-465-05461-7

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Basic Books

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 1993

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY

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SOUL MATES

HONORING THE MYSTERIES OF LOVE AND RELATIONSHIP

by Thomas Moore ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 26, 1994

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More spiritual self-help from the author of the bestselling Care of the Soul (1992—not reviewed), this time focusing on relationships among spouses, family, and friends. Moore occupies a middle ground in the thriving subgenre of pop-psych/religion books: less jargon-infested than John Bradford but sometimes as platitudinous (urging ``the importance of being individuals'' and proclaiming that ``every relationship calls for a unique response''); less anecdotal and less penetrating than the master of the form, M. Scott Peck. Perhaps his most notable achievement has been to turn ``soul'' into a buzzword, never defined but apparently synonymous with ``psyche.'' Here, Moore tackles soul-to-soul relations, drawing from mythology, theology, literature (from Plato to Emily Dickinson), his own life, experiences of patients in psychotherapy, and the writings of Marsilio Ficino, a 15th-century Florentine thinker. Predictably, Moore counsels people to court imagination and feelings and to beware of excessive rationality. The shoptalk is neo-Jungian, as filtered through James Hillman and other modern depth psychologists. The practical advice—write letters to, and strike up conversations with, friends; tell your spouse your dreams; forgive your parents; guide your children, and so on—is innocuous and may well be helpful. But by far the most invigorating moments come when Moore swims against the tide of current opinion by declaring marriage ``a sacred symbolic act,'' rather than a financial or social convenience, and by upholding the ancient virtues of chastity and obedience. Underneath the pop-psych sheen lies a devout traditionalist, which may explain Moore's great success. There's no mystery about where this one is heading: right on to the bestseller lists.