Our mind deceives us by parking rose-colored glasses on our nose, writes neuroscientist Sharot, but only with the best of intentions.
In this lively, conversational book, the author puts on firm footing what many of us have sensed all along—that we are, by and large, a pretty optimistic bunch. Indeed, “optimism may be so essential to our survival that it is hardwired into our most complex organ, the brain.” So prevalent are these optimistic tendencies that they compose a bias, a steady inclination to overestimate the likelihood of encountering more positive events in the future than negative ones. The optimism bias protects us from being stymied by the inevitable tribulations of everyday life, or to perceive that our options are limited in some manner; it helps us relax, improves our health and motivates us to act. Sharot is a friendly writer—her book brims with anecdotes and scientific studies that attest to optimism’s gentling hand—though no empty smiley face: There is plenty in these pages about how we cope with root canals and chemotherapy, disappointment and dread. Sharot presents this evolutionary scenario: “an ability to imagine the future had to develop side by side with positive biases. The knowledge of death had to emerge at the same time as its irrational denial…It is this coupling—conscious prospection and optimism—that underlies the extraordinary achievements of the human species.” Otherwise, considering the future would be paralyzing. The author circulates through much of the optimism/pessimism map, touching down on the importance of control, relativity and anticipation. What is most stunning, however, are the ways in which optimism not only evokes new behavior in the individual (optimistic heart-attack victim modeling healthy new behavior), but helps deliver the irrationally expected goods (Joe Namath guaranteeing victory in Super Bowl III).
Pub Date: June 21, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-307-37848-4
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Pantheon
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Although Pipher defines the therapist’s job as clarifying issues and presenting choices rather than telling people what to...
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.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2003
ISBN: 0-465-05766-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2003
Clever and accessibly conversational, Manson reminds us to chill out, not sweat the small stuff, and keep hope for a better...
The popular blogger and author delivers an entertaining and thought-provoking third book about the importance of being hopeful in terrible times.
“We are a culture and a people in need of hope,” writes Manson (The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life, 2016, etc.). With an appealing combination of gritty humor and straightforward prose, the author floats the idea of drawing strength and hope from a myriad of sources in order to tolerate the “incomprehensibility of your existence.” He broadens and illuminates his concepts through a series of hypothetical scenarios based in contemporary reality. At the dark heart of Manson’s guide is the “Uncomfortable Truth,” which reiterates our cosmic insignificance and the inevitability of death, whether we blindly ignore or blissfully embrace it. The author establishes this harsh sentiment early on, creating a firm foundation for examining the current crisis of hope, how we got here, and what it means on a larger scale. Manson’s referential text probes the heroism of Auschwitz infiltrator Witold Pilecki and the work of Isaac Newton, Nietzsche, Einstein, and Immanuel Kant, as the author explores the mechanics of how hope is created and maintained through self-control and community. Though Manson takes many serpentine intellectual detours, his dark-humored wit and blunt prose are both informative and engaging. He is at his most convincing in his discussions about the fallibility of religious beliefs, the modern world’s numerous shortcomings, deliberations over the “Feeling Brain” versus the “Thinking Brain,” and the importance of striking a happy medium between overindulging in and repressing emotions. Although we live in a “couch-potato-pundit era of tweetstorms and outrage porn,” writes Manson, hope springs eternal through the magic salves of self-awareness, rational thinking, and even pain, which is “at the heart of all emotion.”
Clever and accessibly conversational, Manson reminds us to chill out, not sweat the small stuff, and keep hope for a better world alive.Pub Date: May 14, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-288843-3
Page Count: 288
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: April 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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