What You Can Change . . . and What You Can't*: The Complete ...

From Publishers Weekly

Psychologist Seligman ( Learned Optimism ) here examines common psychological disorders according to their biological and societal, or learned, components. Most enlightening are his analyses of the effectiveness of relaxation, meditation, psychoanalysis and cognitive therapies in the treatment of anxiety, which, along with depression and anger, he claims, can largely be controlled by disciplined effort. Tables demonstrating the success rates of various approaches to given problems, evaluative questionnaires and mostly jargon-free prose complement Seligman's comprehensive, unformulaic discussion. Maintaining that dieting will not help people who are overweight ("Weight is in large part genetic"), the author urges a focus on fitness and health; asserting that a child's psyche heals faster than an adult's, he observes that childhood trauma does not necessarily shape one's adult life: "the rest of the tapestry is not determined by what has been woven before." Direct, instructive and nonreductive, Seligman's observations and theories are positive, realistic and sound. 75,000 first printing; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The subtitle of this psychological self-help adviser seems to promise impossibly more than could be delivered. But Seligman is so much more sensible and lucid than most self-help gurus that he encourages thinking that, yes, this is all we can say--and do--right now about changing undesirable behaviors. "Two worlds views are in collision," Seligman says, over the prospects of behavioral change. Those products of the Western concept of free will--psychotherapy and self-improvement--maintain that behavior is malleable through a variety of conscious techniques. Biological psychiatry asserts that mental illness is physically caused, personality is genetically fixed, and brain chemistry determines emotions; change is possible only by physical interventions, primarily pharmaceutical but also surgical. Seligman comes down between those two extremes in recommending what to do about anxiety, phobias, depression, sexual problems, weight, alcohol use, etc. He advocates techniques that have demonstrably achieved lasting change or--what is far more likely--reduction in the frequency of undesired behavior. He bases his advice in sound research and highly educated inference, which means that his book constantly rewards anyone interested in individual psychology. In the last two chapters, Seligman offers first a devastating critique of the notion that childhood traumas shape adult behavior, particularly as that belief is exploited by the recovery movement, and then his own theory of behavioral change, in which change is possible according to the depth of the behavior--e.g., sexual orientation is very deeply entrenched, hence very difficult to alter, but panic attacks are very shallow and fairly easily eradicated. Absolutely splendid. Ray Olson

Source: http://www.top-verkaufer.de/produkt/what-you-can-change-and-what-you-can-t-the-complete-guide-to-successful-self-improvement.html

dan quayle brett favre packers stock packers stock mastectomy st. nicholas st. nicholas