A useful addition to the popular psychology shelf, although readers acquainted with self-help literature may find the...
A self-help manual for those who wish to overcome destructive behavioral patterns.
Psychotherapist O'Connor (Undoing Depression: What Therapy Doesn't Teach You and Education Can't Give You, 2010, etc.) presents exercises to help readers overcome destructive behavior that has become habitual. He buttresses his claim by referencing Israeli-American psychologist Daniel Kahneman's thesis that there are two systems of thinking that govern our mental processes: The first is a rapid, automatic response, such as that used by an athlete in a high-pressure situation, and the second is a slower process of conscious reflection. “[O]ur choices and actions are much more influenced by unconscious processes than we feel comfortable admitting to ourselves,” writes O'Connor. However, he differs from Kahneman, who “argues that self-control is of necessity an act of the conscious mind.” O’Connor writes that “with time and repetition, it can become more and more a part of the automatic self, so that it becomes easier to practice.” The author supports his contention by referencing research on the remarkable plasticity of the human brain, which can rewire its neural circuitry to compensate for brain injury. His proposed exercises include keeping a daily journal and practicing mindfulness meditations in order to suppress impulsive behavior. Others involve transforming social relationships through small steps—e.g. striving for honesty rather than accommodation, becoming self-assertive where appropriate—and he recommends strengthening will power by avoiding triggers—e.g., alcoholics should stay out of bars and avoid friends who act as enablers. If done regularly, these exercises can reveal habitual patterns of self-destructive behavior and play a part in removing the need “to distort our world through psychological defenses.”
A useful addition to the popular psychology shelf, although readers acquainted with self-help literature may find the exercises overly familiar.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1594632563
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Hudson Street/Penguin
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2014
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.
More life reflections from the bestselling author on themes of societal captivity and the catharsis of personal freedom.
In her third book, Doyle (Love Warrior, 2016, etc.) begins with a life-changing event. “Four years ago,” she writes, “married to the father of my three children, I fell in love with a woman.” That woman, Abby Wambach, would become her wife. Emblematically arranged into three sections—“Caged,” “Keys,” “Freedom”—the narrative offers, among other elements, vignettes about the soulful author’s girlhood, when she was bulimic and felt like a zoo animal, a “caged girl made for wide-open skies.” She followed the path that seemed right and appropriate based on her Catholic upbringing and adolescent conditioning. After a downward spiral into “drinking, drugging, and purging,” Doyle found sobriety and the authentic self she’d been suppressing. Still, there was trouble: Straining an already troubled marriage was her husband’s infidelity, which eventually led to life-altering choices and the discovery of a love she’d never experienced before. Throughout the book, Doyle remains open and candid, whether she’s admitting to rigging a high school homecoming court election or denouncing the doting perfectionism of “cream cheese parenting,” which is about “giving your children the best of everything.” The author’s fears and concerns are often mirrored by real-world issues: gender roles and bias, white privilege, racism, and religion-fueled homophobia and hypocrisy. Some stories merely skim the surface of larger issues, but Doyle revisits them in later sections and digs deeper, using friends and familial references to personify their impact on her life, both past and present. Shorter pieces, some only a page in length, manage to effectively translate an emotional gut punch, as when Doyle’s therapist called her blooming extramarital lesbian love a “dangerous distraction.” Ultimately, the narrative is an in-depth look at a courageous woman eager to share the wealth of her experiences by embracing vulnerability and reclaiming her inner strength and resiliency.
Doyle offers another lucid, inspiring chronicle of female empowerment and the rewards of self-awareness and renewal.Pub Date: March 10, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-9848-0125-8
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
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SEEN & HEARD
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
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