THE VISCOTT METHOD: A Revolutionary Program for Self-Analysis and Self-Understanding

How to be your own psychotherapist--with a daunting, often-comical assortment of tapes, charts workbooks, notebooks, bulletin boards, and 3x5 cards. First: ""Go ahead, get your tape recorder. We're ready to begin."" Dr. Viscott (Feel Free, Risking, etc.) gives you some 400 questions about ""Who You Are and How You Got That Way""--so you dictate your answers onto ""Tape One."" Then you listen objectively and critically to your tape--noting voice-changes (make a chart of them), fitting your answers in with Dr. V.'s six-page chart of childhood development. Next comes Tape II, ""The Feeling Tape"": in a notebook, for two weeks, ""write down every irritation, anger, hurt, worry, concern, fright, regret, bitterness, jealousy, sadness, and frustration""; then (after studying Dr. V.'s ""Feeling Cycle"") transfer the feelings onto tape nightly; later, ""transcribe each feeling onto a separate 3-by-5 card following the plan of the guides."" Then you replay Tape II while rearranging your ""Feeling Cards""--answering more questions, looking for angers and defense mechanisms, etc. (Standard express-your-anger exercises are included too.) And finally comes Tape III, ""The New Life Tape"": another question-session is followed by the creation of an ""Action Board that defines your goals and develops a plan for reaching them""--with hundreds of 3x5 cards describing your Chances, Excuses, Praise, Criticisms, etc. (""In column 4 post your Point of View card, and directly below the summary cards for the Lessons to Learn, Praise, Keys to Success, and Criticisms. Finally, post the Improvement Key summary card in this column as well."") True, Dr. Viscott intersperses this board-game chaos with reasonable reminders of basic psychological principles--along with lots of California-style self-improvement jargon. But anyone determined enough--or unhappy enough--to wade through this time-consuming morass of tape and paper is surely a strong candidate for treatment with a flesh-and-blood therapist.