A provocative reevaluation of addictive behavior that considers it not within the prevalent ``disease model,'' as California-based therapist Grof puts it, but within the context of a universal need for spiritual satisfaction. Grof's understanding of addiction is firsthand and hard-won: She's a recovering alcoholic and draws on her experience (``The day I hit bottom with my alcoholism, I was brought to my knees'') to ground what's sometimes an otherwise heady, theory-laden argument. The heart of the argument is that society's growing tendency to consider all addiction—as well as the ``attachments'' (to money, prestige, other people, etc.) that characterize much human behavior—as disease ``paints a picture of humanity as being universally sick.'' Instead, Grof proposes ``a wellness model for the understanding and treatment of addictions.'' That model—worked out with reference to spiritual teachings from Hinduism to Jung- -posits that we each consist of two ``selves'': a ``deeper,'' perhaps divine, self that's our original nature, and a grafted-on ``small self,'' equivalent to the ego. From prenatal days onward, Grof says, we're pushed by outside, often abusive, forces away from the greater self and into the smaller self. Yet we retain a ``craving'' for the deeper self, which most of us try to slake through inappropriate means—through the pursuit of wealth, for example, or, in the case of addicts, through drug highs. Addictive behavior thus springs from a healthy impulse to return to the deeper self—which, in fact, can be recovered only through spiritual practices (including, apparently, Grof's own ``Holotropic Breathwork,'' which she touts here). Addicts probably should work with the Twelve Steps, which the author reads as a spiritual blueprint, though one rife with pitfalls. Grof's two-selves model of human nature is as old as the myth of the Fall; but her application of it to addiction is inspired, well argued (though more case histories would have enlivened the text), and alight with hope and promise.
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 1993
ISBN: 0-06-250314-6
Page Count: 288
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1993
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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
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