QUICK FIXES AND SMALL COMFORTS: How Every Woman Can Resist Those Irresistible Urges

by Georgia Witkin ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 1988

In her earlier works (The Female Stress Syndrome, 1984; The Male Stress Syndrome, 1986) Witkin addressed stress, how to recognize it and how to overcome it. Here, she takes the subject a step further, pointing out the compulsive behaviors that women often rely on to cope with the stresses in their lives. Eating, shopping, yelling, napping, smoking, drinking, moving furniture, talking on the telephone--all these can spell trouble if women turn to them as Band-Aid solutions to serious problems. Sometimes Witkin's solutions to a quick fix are a quick fix in themselves, such as when she recommends that you reward yourself with a small gift for not watching so much TV, and some of her analyses seem glib or just plain wrong, as when she claims that men are less prone to certain kinds of quick fixes because they are left-brain dominated, unlike women who ""seem to use"" both brain hemispheres ""more equally."" Chock-filled with the requisite amount of true-false tests, questionnaires, and real-life anecdotes for self-help books of this kind, this offers just the kind of quick fix to serious problems that it is addressing. Yet the author does help to distinguish between appropriate amounts of instantly gratifying behavior (e.g., even though she feels guilty about it, it's perfectly reasonable for a young mother to take a quick nap before her children come home for lunch) and tree compulsive behavior which masks problems.

Pub Date: May 16, 1988

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Villard/Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1988

Categories: NONFICTION