An important, insightful book explaining how society became a vortex of mental illness and offering possible remedies.
A sweeping examination of the roots of today’s mental illness epidemic.
Gabor Maté, a doctor who specializes in addiction treatment, is the author of the acclaimed 2008 book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction. In his latest, co-written with his son, composer and lyricist Daniel, he casts a wider net, investigating why an increasing number of people are suffering from mental and physical illnesses. “Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two,” write the authors, who sees two overlapping layers to the problem. The first is that traumas—a term he defines widely—are going unrecognized and untreated. Combined with the stress of modern life, the result is that many people retreat into addictive medication, which often causes or exacerbates physical ailments. Once, these mental strains were addressed by communal activities and personal connections, but those remedies are vanishing in the digital age. The second level is the economic organization of techno-capitalism, which creates conditions of inequality, reclusiveness, and manipulation. Taken together, these issues create a yawning gap between how people live and how their biology wants them to live. “A society that fails to value communality…is a society facing away from the essence of what it means to be human,” write the authors. They believe that individuals must accept their traumas in order to move past them and toward true healing. Stress, alienation, and isolation should be denormalized. At the sociopolitical level, the authors acknowledge that they do not have any simple answers, although making the medical, legal, and teaching professions more humanistic would be a good start. At more than 500 pages, the text demands attention and reflection, but it repays the effort, giving readers much to ponder.
An important, insightful book explaining how society became a vortex of mental illness and offering possible remedies.Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-08388-8
Page Count: 576
Publisher: Avery
Review Posted Online: Sept. 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
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
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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