A Self-Help Psychology Book For Boys?
Fifty-five years ago, a Norman Vincent Peale, a protestant minister, offered a book called "The Power of Positive Thinking." It quickly became a best-seller, and has sold upwards of 7-million copies. Peale's book was religious-based, of course, but could be considered a precursor to what is now called cognitive behavior theory.
Today we are beginning to understand that the root of most emotional and personality problems is low self-esteem. Our self-image arises from judgments we make about ourselves over the years. These are often invalid, having been arrived at using information we have stored away in our brain from the time that our minds began to function in a cognitive way. In the beginning, our minds have very little data available that can be applied to understanding what's happening to us, and what's going on around us. Therefore, much of what we conclude about those inputs is invalid. Those flawed perceptions are then applied to understanding new inputs, and thereby beget even more invalid perceptions about our little world and ourselves.
To make matters worse, children have a lot to learn, and are almost constantly being instructed and corrected. Unless handled with sensitivity to the possibility of misperceptions, the learning process intrinsically engenders feelings of inferiority as the learner evaluates himself in comparison to those doing the teaching. The process is usually not conducted with great patience and sensitivity to the learner, since those imparting the instruction - parents, teachers, and other authority figures - often have problematical emotional issues and personality organizations of their own, which resulted from the same flawed upbringing.
Unfortunately, by the time we embark upon our second decade in life, our minds are loaded with lots of misperceptions and incorrect information about almost everything, including ourselves. During our waking hours, we are continuously presented with new sensations and observations, which the mind must make some sense of and appropriately file. What is already in our minds serves as the data by which we evaluate these new inputs, so to the extent that the data is bad, the new thinking is likely to be flawed. Thus, misperceptions beget more misperceptions, and as we continue to grow during our second ten years in life, we become progressively more self-defeating and unhappy.
Sometimes this process ends in death. Some develop a feeling that they are so flawed and worthless that their death would not be a great loss, and therefore feel no need to worry much about keeping themselves out of harms way. In the absence of such care, or the presence of such a "death wish," harm often catches up with them. Others resort to suicide as a means of finally ending their misery and emotional pain.
Otherwise, the misery is apt to continue until an emotional crisis occurs, usually not until we are well into adult life. If it is mild, it is usually called a "mid-life crisis" or "menopause." Often it is diagnosed as a full-blown nervous breakdown, or worse.
Dr. Peale attempted to teach his readers how to employ the amazing powers of the mind through positive thinking to correct their self-image and improve their lives. That is the opposite of what often takes place. Through unbridled negative thinking, those same powers can turn the mind into a monster that ultimately destroys it host.
Over the past generations, people have been led to believe that behavior was inherited, or the result of one's particular brain physiology. In recent generations, emotional issues and personality problems have been thought to arise from deeply repressed psychological problems; things so shameful or otherwise disturbing as to be reachable only through lengthy treatments in therapy. These were seen as mental problems or disorders, and sometimes even insanity. People involved in therapy were referred to as "patients", the term suggesting that they were sick in the head, or "mentally ill." These ideas did much to discourage people from facing up to the fact that they had such problems, and doing anything about them. This has been especially true for men, who are typically taught to be tough, and that emotional vulnerability is a sign of weakness. Now we are beginning to realize these stereotypes are not only invalid, but also harmful.
Meanwhile, we are also learning that the mind is far more powerful than anyone knew, and is easily capable of dealing with the roots of our unhappiness and ineffectiveness, which, on the other hand, are far less complicated than previously thought. Furthermore, it is clear that emotional issues and personality problems do not have to happen in the first place, but have become the norm simply because through our ignorance we have permitted them to do so.
It seems obvious to me that it makes no sense to permit children's' minds to develop however they will, then worry about changing their minds somewhere in their adult years, often after they've wasted the best part of their lives in neuroticism. Young people can be taught enough about how their mind works as to be able to take control of what goes into it, making rational judgments about the meaning and significance of what is presented to it, before storing the information away. The question is who will do this?
At this point in our culture, any institutionalized attempt to teach our children "mind control" is apt to be abhorrent to many. Most parents would interpret that as an attempt to usurp their prerogatives, especially if they had reason to fear that their children might wind up more rational and emotionally well-adjusted than they are.
This is the purpose of my writing "Mind Over Monster," a book for pre-adolescent boys; to make the knowledge available on a voluntary basis for those who want to take advantage of it. Mind Over Monster is not a religious book, or a self-help book that promises easily achieved miracles. It is a plain-English introduction to what neurologists and psychologists are presenting as a new understanding, but what grandparents of generations past were apt to commonly share with young members of their families - that happiness and success in life, like any other skill, is something that can be learned and constantly improved upon through practice.
[-=glw=-]
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Today we are beginning to understand that the root of most emotional and personality problems is low self-esteem. Our self-image arises from judgments we make about ourselves over the years. These are often invalid, having been arrived at using information we have stored away in our brain from the time that our minds began to function in a cognitive way. In the beginning, our minds have very little data available that can be applied to understanding what's happening to us, and what's going on around us. Therefore, much of what we conclude about those inputs is invalid. Those flawed perceptions are then applied to understanding new inputs, and thereby beget even more invalid perceptions about our little world and ourselves.
To make matters worse, children have a lot to learn, and are almost constantly being instructed and corrected. Unless handled with sensitivity to the possibility of misperceptions, the learning process intrinsically engenders feelings of inferiority as the learner evaluates himself in comparison to those doing the teaching. The process is usually not conducted with great patience and sensitivity to the learner, since those imparting the instruction - parents, teachers, and other authority figures - often have problematical emotional issues and personality organizations of their own, which resulted from the same flawed upbringing.
Unfortunately, by the time we embark upon our second decade in life, our minds are loaded with lots of misperceptions and incorrect information about almost everything, including ourselves. During our waking hours, we are continuously presented with new sensations and observations, which the mind must make some sense of and appropriately file. What is already in our minds serves as the data by which we evaluate these new inputs, so to the extent that the data is bad, the new thinking is likely to be flawed. Thus, misperceptions beget more misperceptions, and as we continue to grow during our second ten years in life, we become progressively more self-defeating and unhappy.
Sometimes this process ends in death. Some develop a feeling that they are so flawed and worthless that their death would not be a great loss, and therefore feel no need to worry much about keeping themselves out of harms way. In the absence of such care, or the presence of such a "death wish," harm often catches up with them. Others resort to suicide as a means of finally ending their misery and emotional pain.
Otherwise, the misery is apt to continue until an emotional crisis occurs, usually not until we are well into adult life. If it is mild, it is usually called a "mid-life crisis" or "menopause." Often it is diagnosed as a full-blown nervous breakdown, or worse.
Dr. Peale attempted to teach his readers how to employ the amazing powers of the mind through positive thinking to correct their self-image and improve their lives. That is the opposite of what often takes place. Through unbridled negative thinking, those same powers can turn the mind into a monster that ultimately destroys it host.
Over the past generations, people have been led to believe that behavior was inherited, or the result of one's particular brain physiology. In recent generations, emotional issues and personality problems have been thought to arise from deeply repressed psychological problems; things so shameful or otherwise disturbing as to be reachable only through lengthy treatments in therapy. These were seen as mental problems or disorders, and sometimes even insanity. People involved in therapy were referred to as "patients", the term suggesting that they were sick in the head, or "mentally ill." These ideas did much to discourage people from facing up to the fact that they had such problems, and doing anything about them. This has been especially true for men, who are typically taught to be tough, and that emotional vulnerability is a sign of weakness. Now we are beginning to realize these stereotypes are not only invalid, but also harmful.
Meanwhile, we are also learning that the mind is far more powerful than anyone knew, and is easily capable of dealing with the roots of our unhappiness and ineffectiveness, which, on the other hand, are far less complicated than previously thought. Furthermore, it is clear that emotional issues and personality problems do not have to happen in the first place, but have become the norm simply because through our ignorance we have permitted them to do so.
It seems obvious to me that it makes no sense to permit children's' minds to develop however they will, then worry about changing their minds somewhere in their adult years, often after they've wasted the best part of their lives in neuroticism. Young people can be taught enough about how their mind works as to be able to take control of what goes into it, making rational judgments about the meaning and significance of what is presented to it, before storing the information away. The question is who will do this?
At this point in our culture, any institutionalized attempt to teach our children "mind control" is apt to be abhorrent to many. Most parents would interpret that as an attempt to usurp their prerogatives, especially if they had reason to fear that their children might wind up more rational and emotionally well-adjusted than they are.
This is the purpose of my writing "Mind Over Monster," a book for pre-adolescent boys; to make the knowledge available on a voluntary basis for those who want to take advantage of it. Mind Over Monster is not a religious book, or a self-help book that promises easily achieved miracles. It is a plain-English introduction to what neurologists and psychologists are presenting as a new understanding, but what grandparents of generations past were apt to commonly share with young members of their families - that happiness and success in life, like any other skill, is something that can be learned and constantly improved upon through practice.
[-=glw=-]
M.O.M. Webpage
Technorati Profile
posted by Gene Warner at
1:10 PM
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