What You Can Change And What You Can't: The Complete Guide To Successful Self-Improvement (2007) - Plot & Excerpts
This is a very clinical and research-based psychology book, not a feel-good pop-psych self-help book. I imagine it would be great reading for a Psych 101 class. It gives an overview of several common mental health issues, a review of the research that has been done about various treatments, and recommends the treatment that is most effective in the long term. It’s really good information, and some of it is counterintuitive or goes against what some therapists and psychologists routinely do with their patients.In the introduction, Seligman says that his goal is not just normal functioning, but optimal mental health for all. At the same time, there are limits to how much we can change certain conditions, and if we try to change something that can’t be changed, it’s a recipe for disaster. Seligman hopes to draw those boundary lines as clearly as he can. I appreciated this grounding in reality.The issues covered are: anxiety, panic, phobias, obsessions (OCD), depression, anger, PTSD, sex, weight, and alcoholism. I’d recommend most readers to read only the chapters that pertain to them or their loved ones. I read the whole book, and I’m not sure that I got much out of the chapter on phobias, for instance. Each chapter contains a quiz readers can take to see if they have a particular problem, so it would be easy to use those quizzes to screen for which chapters you really need to read. The chapters I cared the most about were the ones on anxiety, depression, and weight.In the anxiety chapter, Seligman does a great deal of work to distinguish what he calls “everyday anxiety” from more debilitating forms, and rational from irrational anxiety. The treatment he recommends is relaxation and meditation, preferring these techniques over tranquilizer drugs.Seligman has research claiming that depression is the dominant emotion of the current time. I really appreciated the fact that he discussed the cultural issues that lead to women becoming depressed at much higher rates than men: learned helplessness, rumination, and the pursuit of the thin body ideal. Later in the book, Seligman recounts a study that showed that depressed people were more realistic in their assessments of their own performance than others, who were overly optimistic: “Basically, depressed people see reality correctly, while nondepressed people distort reality in a self-serving way.” Seligman’s recommended treatments were cognitive therapy or interpersonal therapy.In the chapter on weight, Seligman basically says that diets never work permanently because we all have a “natural weight” that our body returns to after a diet. He debunks some myths about dieting and overweight people, including the idea that you can’t be both healthy and overweight. There have been very, very few long-term studies of dieters to see if they were able to keep the weight off. He even suggests that the yo-yo up-and-down dieters may be damaging their health more than they would if they just kept the weight on.Seligman also spends a good deal of his conclusion time debunking what he calls the “inner child recovery movement.” I liked this section. It’s a thorough take-down of therapy that consists of remembering childhood and blaming parents for one’s current problems. It creates a victim mindset.This is an informative book with a sensible message for anyone concerned with their mental health or hoping to improve their emotional life.For more of my reviews, see www.mereader.wordpress.com
Another Martin Seligman psychology book that just snuck into my pile and got itself read. Dr. Seligman fairly dispassionately gives us the good news and the bad news about what psychological traits, functional and dysfunctional, are amenable to change or are immutable for the vast majority of people, depending on how deeply these characteristics are embedded in the psyche. Phobias are moderately changeable with treatments that were available when the book was written in 1996. Sexual identity is unchangeable. Panic attacks are curable. Not being a psychologist myself, I can't argue with his claims for these and many other specific disorders and behavior patterns, and thankfully I don't suffer from any of the ones he discusses so I can be as dispassionate is he is and take him at his word. But he doesn't offer the book as a self-diagnosis and self-treatment manual. Instead, his overarching goal is to make those entering what he calls "the second season of life" aware of their potential growth, and which areas will be most amenable to change. The first season of life is the season of expansion, discovering and claiming your place in the world. He says "In the second season, your life will be defined not so much by the outside world as by certain realities that have been coalescing inside you...You will rearrange your life to fit what you have discovered you are." According to Dr. Seligman, this second season begins somewhere between the ages of 30 and 45 (and what with 50 being the new 40, I think we can safely adjust his timeline to allow some delay entering this second season for us late bloomers.)This is the topic of the final section of the book titled "Shedding the Skins of Childhood" and for this section, I would recommend the book to anyone who wonders if it is too late to change.
What do You think about What You Can Change And What You Can't: The Complete Guide To Successful Self-Improvement (2007)?
Martin Seligman says that this book is his "attempt to review with unflinching candor the effectiveness of most of the different kinds of treatment for the major psychological disorders", and that is precisely what he has done. In the age of self-improvement, many of us struggle to change, taking and embarking on a variety of activities perceived to be able to improve our lives. Sometimes it works but distressingly often, they fail. Focusing on addiction, genes, anxiety (panic attacks, phobias, obsessions), depression, anger, sex, weight loss, Martin Seligman sets out to present what is heritable and hence, what can or cannot be changed easily, if not at all; and also, the effectiveness of various forms of treatment methods.
—Rubina
This is the best psychology book for the general public that I have read. Written concisely and with illuminating examples, Seligman sticks to the empirical evidence rooted in rigorous methodology. It highlights that we can change many aspects of our lives, but that there are other arenas in which we will face much more difficulty.While some of his claims are likely to be wrong or inaccurate, most of them seem to be grounded in clear thinking and what the evidence tells us.I highly recommend this book to anyone, whether you're a fan of the genre or not.
—Colin
قرأت هذا الكتاب مترجما من مكتبة جرير قبل ان اعرف من هو المؤلف وأهميته وكيف أسس أيضاً علم النفس الإيجابي ورغم ان عندي كتابين أخرين له واحد أكاديمي بالانجليزية عنوانه علم نفس اللاسواء حصلت عليه من الرياض قبل اكثر من ١٢ سنة والثاني مترجم من جرير بعنوان تعلم التفاؤل وكتب الكترونية اخرى ولذلك قررت ان يكون المؤلف هو احد المؤلفين المفضلين عندي
—Mo Al-Mulla
