by Trudy Seagraves ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 30, 2014
An often illuminating psychiatric memoir.
In this debut memoir, a woman tells of abusive therapy sessions with a New-Age doctor.
When Seagraves began writing a book about her “journey through incest,” she wrote glowingly of her therapist. She noted his gentle guidance, helpful suggestions and comforting manner. But in that first draft, she didn’t accuse him, as she does here, of “cupping my breast, kissing me on the lips at his wife’s wake and funeral….I left out that he slid his hand under my underpants to stroke my abdomen.” She writes that her therapist, known for his “enthusiastic championing of esoteric spiritual systems,” was trained in bioenergetics, a body-oriented psychotherapy based upon the work of Wilhelm Reich. Seagraves was emotionally vulnerable when she began seeing him in 1985 at age 53, and during their sessions, she recalled disturbing memories of being raped by her abusive, sadistic father. She alleges that her therapist’s methods, however, were manipulative and disrespectful: “I’m not being weird. I’m not being sexual,” she says he told her, before lying on top of her, belly to belly, on the floor. When Seagraves eventually sued for medical malpractice, she says that she discovered that the therapist had “betrayed the confidences of at least fifty-four persons, mostly patients, many of whom I knew”; she also realized that she’d spent $17,000 on recommended “conferences, sessions, consultations, lessons, classes, exercises, weird treatments, and healers over three years.” Seagraves, a sensitive, skillful writer, vividly describes childhood scenes, her father’s cruelty, her mother’s distance, and her anguish and confusion. However, some readers may wonder why the author kept going to the therapy sessions for so long. Seagraves includes transcripts from recorded sessions, however, that show the powerful web that she claims the therapist wove.
An often illuminating psychiatric memoir.Pub Date: April 30, 2014
ISBN: 978-1489568014
Page Count: 302
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by Daniel Kahneman ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 2011
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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BOOK REVIEW
by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
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