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Quick Looks Psychology

Understanding Motivation and Emotion by John Marshall Reeve

520p (H) latest edition

Everything you ever wanted to know on the subject and more. Just kidding. For 63 buckolas, I’m not too motivated to buy this book. Must be the moralist in me. Hell, I’m not motivated to buy one dollar books. Not recommended.

The Myth of Neurosis: Overcoming the Illness Excuse —Garth Wood

294pp. (H) 1986

Excoriates psychoanalysis and espouses a moral therapy that could use refining. Overemphasizes conscience as a guide and ignores the importance of moral reasoning as a guide to action and as a guide to forming conscience. Often equates difficulty with morality. Difficult challenges don’t always equal worthy moral challenges. Challenges often have wonderful affects on the mind, and a better mind beats a worse mind, but this work pays scant attention to the fact that some challenges are profoundly trivial or misguided. To wit: Chasing great white whales. Not recommended.

Necessary Losses —Judith Viorst

Good idea, but too long and too much psychoanalytic gunk in this 499 page tome.

Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy —Dean Ornisch

Love is wonderful, but the feelings are never wrong reasoning in here is not. Not worth the bother.

Listening to Prozac —Peter D. Kramer

Fascinating case studies and philosophical ruminations wrapped in some ennui inducing historical developments. I would rather read The Illustrated History of Extension Cords than the drug history in this book. Someone should take a permanent marker and write in big, fat letters, “We don’t care about the history of a drug’s development.” This book is too long by at least 100 pages. Why bother.

The Lightin’ Fires Series by Ellen Kreidman

Have passion and make your lover feel good when they are with you—not much new here. You can order Ellen Kreidman’s material for big money from her spastic infomercials or you can order it cheaper somewhere else. Or you cannot order it at all.

Teaching with Heart: Making Healthy Connections with Students—Judith A. Deiro

230pp. (H) 1996

Deiro argues that it is good for a teacher to be unfreakable, baby! Teachers should develop relationships, nurture dignity and respect. Some bad definitions, edubabble and psychobabble are also included.

The worst part of this book argues in favor of the superiority of androgyny. Who decided that strong and caring actions equal androgynous actions? Being androgynous isn’t morally superior any more than having detached earlobes is morally superior. Andro “superiority” is an ontological based superiority and that is bad. Worth browsing.

Swimming with the Sharks

More like Sinking with Remarkably Obvious Advice.

The Pursuit of Happiness: Who Is Happy—and Why

by David G. Myers

331p (H) 1992

Meyers explores some of these factors as potential causes of happiness: Accomplishments, strong purposefulness, exercise, optimism, religion, extroversion, intimate relationships, having a playful spirit, and feeling in control,

Once people are out of poverty, income is weakly correlated with happiness. There may be many factors interfering with the nice, neat lack of correlation between income and happiness. For example, there is some research to suggest that less happy workers work harder in general than happier individuals. And people who work harder generally earn more than people who do not. Increases in happiness due to increases in income may not show up in the correlation because less happy people work harder. Happy people see work as something that could ruin their happiness. The less happy see work as a way to distract themselves from their unhappiness or they see working harder as a way to make them selves feel better. I don’t know how happy it would make me to write 105 pages of notes and bibliography. Worth a browse.

How to Talk to Your Kids About Really Important Things: Specific Questions and Answers and Useful Things to Say by Charles E. Something and Theresa Foy DiGeronimo

Or if all else fails, use your head. Not recommended.

You Are the Message: Getting What You Want By Being Who You Are by Roger Ailes and Jon Kraushar

The appendix is the message because its all one might want to bother to read. Except, of course, when a 15 second political ad is the message. This is different from the book I would write. My book? You Are the Moral Being: Being Who You Should By Doing What You Should—and Wanting It. Not recommended.

Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus by John Gray

Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Psychologists with degrees from mail order diploma factories are from Pluto. Not recommended.

Myths of Childhood by Joel Paris

This is a moderate version of The Nurture Assumption. This is a decent book but the “extremist” version offered by Judith Rich Harris is better. Paris writes that pain, death and disease were common to our ancestors and they were not psychologically paralyzed by these events. Research suggests that individual thought responses to bad events have a much greater impact on resiliency than events themselves. The younger the child, the more psychologically resilient they are. Studies suggest that only 20 percent of children having backgrounds that were all screwed up developed mental disorders. When foster children are placed in secure, permanent homes before age six early deprivation is entirely reversible. Persistence, intelligence and social skills are important protective factors. Successful marriages correlate with high levels of persistence and low impulsivity.

Resilient people:

· Focus on important matters.

· Are tenacious.

· Cut Gordian knots.

· Believe they deserve better.

· Believe they can control matters.

· Get help from others.

In addition, Deborah Blum claims elsewhere that resilient people share these traits:

· Believe and act as if they can make a difference now and in the future.

· Believe in the importance of now and the future.

· Make the environment their ally.

· Set short and long term goals, then monitor what they do.

· Believe they have what it takes.

· Know their strengths and use them.

· Visualize themselves as strategists.

Worth skimming.

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers

227p (H) 1987

Great title—at least if the feared thing should be done—but a half bad book. You can not always be unafraid, but you can act as if you were unafraid.

Meanings of Life by Roy Baumeister

Baumeister’s work has a tendency to imply this is the way things are, so that is the way they should be. Worth browsing.

A Dose of Sanity: Mind, Medicine and Misdiagnosis 1996 —Sydney Walker III

I was planning to write a full review of this, but I lost my notes. Oh, well. Explores psychological philosophy and brain disorders that often go unrecognized. It includes a fine chapter on protecting yourself from misdiagnosis. Case studies do not often interest me, but these ones did. I read this well past my bedtime (acute interest apnea disorder). Worth a look.

Your Own Worst Enemy: Understanding the Paradox of Self-Defeating Behavior —Steven Berglas and Roy Baumeister

Choking, abuse, self-handicapping, perseveration, over commitment, overconfidence, procrastination and pyrrhic revenge are among the topics here. Much of this is covered in Losing Control. Worth browsing.

Why We Do What We Do by Edward L. Deci

1995 (H) 230p

This work may explain what wantons do what they do. As I read this, Peter Marin’s “ritual ignorance” phrase kept popping in my mind. This contains the immoralist tendencies that make psychology such a joy. Deci thinks it is our responsibility not to have responsibilities. He argues against duty because it is not intrinsically interesting enough. This world view sees humans as merely outer directed by controlling measures or outer directed by “friendly” persuasion. Where is the self-direction? This is typical Alfie Kohnism.

Human Motivation by David McClelland

Years ago a fascinating and disturbing article appeared in The Atlantic Monthly around the time The Atlantic last had a worthwhile article. It was about the theory of psychology espoused by David McClelland, who has since died. His theory attributes three important motives to humans: Power, efficiency and affiliation. All three can be altered. He argued that humans should increase their efficiency motive while reducing or channeling their power motive. The power motive often is preoccupied with keeping or increasing status, instead of changing things in the world.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to come up with a copy of this book. Oh, well.

Discipline with Dignity—Richard L. Curwin and Allen N. Mendler

267pp. (H) 1988.

A broad discipline system, discipline with dignity covers specific techniques and the psychology of discipline. It even discusses guided fantasy. Like nearly all discipline works, the arguments used to support the methods are skimpy.

According to Curwin and Mendler, teachers should borrow a script from planet obvious: Explore alternatives, reject lame reasons, ignore the things they can do nothing about, listen well, use humor, avoid victim hood, speak clearly, set standards beforehand, avoid power struggles, touch students, live with mistakes, have a short memory, excite students, act consistently, use variety, discuss situations, speak quietly and carry consistent enforcement, develop social contacts, provide warnings, discipline with proportion, use proximity, avoid embarrassing students, make a distinction between a consequence and punishment and buy paper clips (oops, that’s from my to-do list). They define punishment as unjust discipline.

Multiple Intelligences

I don’t care whether there are one, seven, eight, 54 or forty trillion intelligences. This book is about as beneficial as a book exploring how many types of two wheel vehicles exist.

Why We Do What We Do by Edward L. Deci

This work marks a shift from the outer directed personality directed by controlling measures to outer directed by friendly persuasion. Where is the self-direction? Deci’s book contains the immoralist tendencies that make psychology such a joy. Deci argues against having duties. His new duty is to have no duties. Freedom makes right. Duty is not intrinsically interesting enough. Not recommended.

1995 (H) 230p

Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide by Gillian Butler and Tony Hope

Bland advice. For eleven bucks, it beats going to the therapist who kept a fire extinguisher nearby in case his patient’s brains should happen to catch fire. Not recommended.

Building Classroom Discipline —C.M. Charles

Now in its sixth edition, this work keeps getting better. Charles provides a general overview of most of the discipline contenders. It contains a ton of ideas to entertain.

What You Can Change and What You Can’t by Martin Seligman

Decent combination consumer’s and self-improvement guide. Somewhat dated. Worth browsing.

Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman and Nan Silver

This is a dumbed down, slapped together version of Gottman’s works. They debunk the myths of pop relationship experts. Gottman and Silver offer the four horsemen of the relationship apocalypse: Criticism, contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling. Instead of a general criticism of criticism, I wish this book made distinctions between beneficial and harmful forms of criticism. Misguided criticism and the failure to be open to criticism both damage relationships. Absence of beneficial criticism does not respect individuals or relationships.

Some claims here are obvious to the point of tedium, but then, some of the most important things in life are the most neglected things. Simple pleasures are treasures, not to be confused with simplistic pleasures. Better to read Gottman’s other books.

288p (H) 1999

Finding Flow : The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life by Mihaly Cszikszentmihalyi

Diet flow. Includes more of the anti-moral implications that make psychology such a joy. Worth a glance.

144p (H) 1998

Symbols by Allen Pease

331p (H) 1993

According to the so-called experts, influence is 55 percent non-verbal, 38 percent vocal quality, and seven percent words. On mean? On median? On people named Shasta? On people who don’t care about reasoning? At conventions? I have no idea. Much of body language is too complicated for me to follow. My limited brain has reduced body language down to one rule: Keep my hands off my face and body. Apparently, most of the ways humans touch themselves in public do not send good signals.

This is the best of a bad lot of body language books. The material is well suited to manipulative purposes, but it can also be useful for good ends. Image does often matter more than it should. Your style and personality speak so loudly the morally deaf cannot hear your character. Symbols is potentially beneficial for fixing bad, oblivious habits. The limb pointing and touching that I rarely noticed sometimes means something. Do not, however, use body language interpretation to become a neurotic what-do-they-really-mean fool.

Symbols consistently employs the concept of the illustration—a book about body language that has bodies, a novel and inspired idea. I enjoyed the retro 1980s drawings.

What I learned:

· Rejection should be fun. It means you do not have to spend time where it probably will not be worth a damn.

· There is almost never a good reason to act intimidated.

Worth skimming.

—book reviews by J.T. Fournier

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