From the man who brought us the ``inner child'' (Homecoming, 1990—not reviewed), here's a new serving of psychobabble aimed at the maladjusted: an exploration of the ``mysterious power of love'' and how to attain it. One doesn't doubt Bradshaw's sincerity, especially as he packs this book with revelations about his mixed-up childhood, failed bid for the priesthood, lousy marriage, and alcoholism—with such disclosures being part of the ``original pain work'' (Bradshaw is a whiz at coining jargon) toward the ``reclaiming of the inner child.'' What one questions is his taste, for this resembles nothing more than a mound of Turkish delight, gooey sugar base with bits of real food buried here and there. Bradshaw encourages renewed relations with God, oneself, lovers, and the world—sage advice, but to be attained by enduring a barrage of New-Agespeak (``as you looked into your source figures' faces, you were psychologically born. Your original oneness with yourself was either soulfully mirrored and validated or rejected and invalidated''). Translated into English, Bradshaw seems to be saying that we deceive ourselves and others (a ``mystification quiz'' helps measure the degree); that patriarchy is to blame; and that we can come to see reality through a process that includes mental exercises such as returning to childhood and getting mad at our parents, ``inrage to outrage'' being part of ``grieving your own grief.'' Good grief! Only then can we create ``soulful'' love with ourself and others. Sometimes Bradshaw's advice sounds solid (championing the virtues of silence); at other times, perverse (encouraging anger; terming the belief that one's love can change others—a fundamental principle in many religions—a sign that ``you are in a trance''). One wonders whether Bradshaw will leave confused readers yet more confused—thus making them ideal clients for the self-help gurus. Soon to be a PBS series—during the afternoon soap hour, one hopes.
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-553-07510-1
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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