Engaging, useful, and sometimes annoyingly repetitious.
How some people achieve the “unforeseen blessing” of growth from adversity.
In an era of increasing stress and adversity—whether from global issues like war, terrorism, and climate change or personal setbacks like divorce and financial loss—many Americans are embracing the change and uncertainty of challenges, write the Marstons, and improving and transforming their lives as a result. Both Ama, a strategy and leadership expert, and her veteran psychotherapist mother, Stephanie (If Not Now, When?: Reclaiming Ourselves at Midlife, 2001, etc.), have consulted widely on stress, work, and leadership. In this collaboration, they recount research from many disciplines and the inspiring stories of individuals demonstrating the power of “Transformative Resilience” to “learn, grow, and spring forward” after severe challenges. These survivors do not simply recover or bounce back; they emerge transformed. “Type Rs” range from a woman doctor who lost both legs in a tornado and became a determined advocate for children with prosthetics to an HIV-positive man diagnosed as terminally ill who has lived another 35 years as a leader of various causes. Their adversities vary, but all share a determination not to allow their setback to define them, to keep a positive mindset and “move away from a tendency to catastrophize,” and to reframe their situations, thereby choosing their own attitudes. Whether individuals, families, or organizations, those successful at turning adversity into growth tend to go through stages, beginning with comfort, then disruption and chaos, and finally (after a catalyst triggers transformation) a re-engagement with the world, “but in a new way.” The authors spell out the essential skills of TRs (adaptability, purpose, active engagement, etc.) and show how these transformational traits can benefit families and groups in turbulent times. While the phrase “Transformative Resilience” has the odor of marketing hyperbole, the authors offer an informative and inspiring book on some remarkably positive responses to misfortune and change.
Engaging, useful, and sometimes annoyingly repetitious.Pub Date: Jan. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-61039-806-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Oct. 9, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2017
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should...
Greene (The 33 Strategies of War, 2007, etc.) believes that genius can be learned if we pay attention and reject social conformity.
The author suggests that our emergence as a species with stereoscopic, frontal vision and sophisticated hand-eye coordination gave us an advantage over earlier humans and primates because it allowed us to contemplate a situation and ponder alternatives for action. This, along with the advantages conferred by mirror neurons, which allow us to intuit what others may be thinking, contributed to our ability to learn, pass on inventions to future generations and improve our problem-solving ability. Throughout most of human history, we were hunter-gatherers, and our brains are engineered accordingly. The author has a jaundiced view of our modern technological society, which, he writes, encourages quick, rash judgments. We fail to spend the time needed to develop thorough mastery of a subject. Greene writes that every human is “born unique,” with specific potential that we can develop if we listen to our inner voice. He offers many interesting but tendentious examples to illustrate his theory, including Einstein, Darwin, Mozart and Temple Grandin. In the case of Darwin, Greene ignores the formative intellectual influences that shaped his thought, including the discovery of geological evolution with which he was familiar before his famous voyage. The author uses Grandin's struggle to overcome autistic social handicaps as a model for the necessity for everyone to create a deceptive social mask.
Readers unfamiliar with the anecdotal material Greene presents may find interesting avenues to pursue, but they should beware of the author's quirky, sometimes misleading brush-stroke characterizations.Pub Date: Nov. 13, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-670-02496-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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