It’s a tragic fact that life often recapitulates high school, that one’s place in the pecking order seldom changes, whether playground meat or prom king. Prinstein (Clinical Psychology/Univ. of North Carolina), a self-described “psychology nerd,” observes that the course of one’s popularity through life is firmly established way back in first grade. However, he notes repeatedly, there are two kinds of popularity: one is an indicator of status and thus highly variable, while the other is likability, which “captures those we feel close to and trust, and the people who make us happy when we spend time with them.” Confusing the two categories, by Prinstein’s account, is a good way to make oneself unhappy, as with one popular girl who, invited to all the right parties, began to ingest everything on hand at those festivities, earning herself an alcohol dependency. As the author writes, there are actual physiological reasons for seeking status, things that happen in the ventral striatum that reward us for success in the brain’s “emotional salience” network. Unfairly, the popular kids often live longer than the unpopular ones, perhaps as a consequence of the latter’s being “isolated, disconnected, lonely” and made mean by “hostile attribution bias,” the tendency to blame our problems on others. Prinstein closes his discussion with an enumeration of the qualities of likability, including self-reflection, taking turns in conversation and other activities rather than dominating them, and not disrupting the group in naked self-interest. A word for the downtrodden: the author suggests that the better kind of popularity is not necessarily inborn—i.e., people can change their own luck by cultivating these and other qualities.

Though repetitive, an eye-opening look at the ways of the world—at least the world as the cool kids know it.

Pub Date: June 6, 2017

ISBN: 978-0-399-56373-7

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Viking

Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY | BUSINESS | LEADERSHIP, MANAGEMENT & COMMUNICATION | GENERAL BUSINESS

- BOOK REVIEW
LIKE ABILITY
by Lori Getz & Mitch Prinstein

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STILLNESS IS THE KEY

by Ryan Holiday ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 1, 2019

A timely, vividly realized reminder to slow down and harness the restorative wonders of serenity.

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An exploration of the importance of clarity through calmness in an increasingly fast-paced world.

Austin-based speaker and strategist Holiday (Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue, 2018, etc.) believes in downshifting one’s life and activities in order to fully grasp the wonder of stillness. He bolsters this theory with a wide array of perspectives—some based on ancient wisdom (one of the author’s specialties), others more modern—all with the intent to direct readers toward the essential importance of stillness and its “attainable path to enlightenment and excellence, greatness and happiness, performance as well as presence.” Readers will be encouraged by Holiday’s insistence that his methods are within anyone’s grasp. He acknowledges that this rare and coveted calm is already inside each of us, but it’s been worn down by the hustle of busy lives and distractions. Recognizing that this goal requires immense personal discipline, the author draws on the representational histories of John F. Kennedy, Buddha, Tiger Woods, Fred Rogers, Leonardo da Vinci, and many other creative thinkers and scholarly, scientific texts. These examples demonstrate how others have evolved past the noise of modern life and into the solitude of productive thought and cleansing tranquility. Holiday splits his accessible, empowering, and sporadically meandering narrative into a three-part “timeless trinity of mind, body, soul—the head, the heart, the human body.” He juxtaposes Stoic philosopher Seneca’s internal reflection and wisdom against Donald Trump’s egocentric existence, with much of his time spent “in his bathrobe, ranting about the news.” Holiday stresses that while contemporary life is filled with a dizzying variety of “competing priorities and beliefs,” the frenzy can be quelled and serenity maintained through a deliberative calming of the mind and body. The author shows how “stillness is what aims the arrow,” fostering focus, internal harmony, and the kind of holistic self-examination necessary for optimal contentment and mind-body centeredness. Throughout the narrative, he promotes that concept mindfully and convincingly.

A timely, vividly realized reminder to slow down and harness the restorative wonders of serenity.

Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2019

ISBN: 978-0-525-53858-5

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Portfolio

Review Posted Online: July 20, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2019

Categories:

GENERAL BUSINESS | PHILOSOPHY & RELIGION | SELF-HELP | BUSINESS | MOTIVATIONAL & PERSONAL SUCCESS

- BOOK REVIEW
RIGHT THING, RIGHT NOW
by Ryan Holiday

- BOOK REVIEW
DISCIPLINE IS DESTINY
by Ryan Holiday

- BOOK REVIEW
COURAGE IS CALLING
by Ryan Holiday

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LETTERS TO A YOUNG THERAPIST

by Mary Pipher ‧ RELEASE DATE: Aug. 1, 2003

Although Pipher defines the therapist’s job as clarifying issues and presenting choices rather than telling people what to...

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A long-time psychotherapist mingles reassuring tips for a newcomer to the field with personal recollections of her own successes and failures.

Employing the same format as other volumes in this series (Todd Gitlin’s Letters to a Young Activist, p. 205, etc.), Pipher (Reviving Ophelia, 1994, etc.) writes letters to Laura, a young graduate student, setting forth some of her views on what therapy is all about and how good therapists do their work. The letters are grouped into seasons and date from early December 2001 to late November 2002. The winter correspondence discourses on the characteristics of good therapists, conducting family therapy, and helping clients connect surface complaints with deeper issues. Spring takes the author into the subjects of how to help patients deal with pain and achieve happiness, the use of metaphors as therapeutic devices, and the role of antidepressants in therapy. Pipher considers family therapy in more detail in the summer letters, which also take up the problem of the therapist’s personal safety. In the fall, she turns to ethical issues facing therapists, how storytelling can help clients see themselves in more positive ways, how to recognize and deflect patients’ resistance, and how to deal with failure. Ruefully recounting some of her own missteps and bad judgments, Pipher reminds her student that therapists are human and errors are inevitable. Throughout, she eschews psychological jargon and takes a commonsensical approach to the vicissitudes of living. As she puts it in describing her own sessions with clients, “I do bread-and-butter work”: she often suggests getting a good night’s sleep, going for a swim, or taking a walk.

Although Pipher defines the therapist’s job as clarifying issues and presenting choices rather than telling people what to do, giving advice seems to be second nature to her. Fortunately, the advice appears to be well considered and benign.