Good classic book :)

Hard to get into it at the beginning, but once you are at the core of it you wrap yourself deep inside as you cannot leave the book for a minute! the author is a very priest in the background disguised with modern psychology and theology. if you are not that much of a spiritual person you might get annoyed at some parts, but even the greatest unbelievers would find big life lessons, helpful tips to life and a lot of modern psychology revealed.

ALWAYS thought provoking, conscious raising, and ultimately life changing. I had a major epiphany while reading this book and will buy for my collection.

This was the third and (hopefully) final book in the series that M. Scott Peck wrote relating to his breakthrough work The Road Less Traveled.  As someone who is by no means hostile to positive psychology and who shares many of the fundamental beliefs of the author concerning the difficulties of life, the benefits of suffering and difficulty, and the need for responsibility and personal growth, there is much to enjoy in all of the books in this series, of which I am aware of and have read three.  While this is by no means a bad book or even a disappointing book, it is a reminder that at this point in Peck's writing he had said most of what he wanted to say.  Like many writers, he points the reader continually, sometimes multiple times in the same paragraph, to books he has written before.  There are hundreds and even perhaps thousands of references that the author makes to a previous case, a previous novel, an insight from a previous book, and all of that makes this book seem somewhat inessential, merely as an opportunity for the writer to remind the reader to turn to his existing works, rather than something new for the reader to appreciate.

Like the other books in the series, this one is divided into several parts, in this case three.  And like the other books in this series, the parts are themselves somewhat complicated.  After an introduction and an editor's preface, the book begins with a crusade against simplism (I).  This includes chapters on thinking (1), consciousness (2), and learning and growth (3), each of them with smaller sections that deal, for example, with paradoxes, and the reality that while thinking too little is your problem, thinking too much is someone else's problem.  After that, the second part of the book wrestles with the complexity of everyday life (II) with chapters on personal (4) and organizational (5) life choices as well as choices about society (6), including sections on civility and various paradoxes about human nature and responsibility.  The book then closes with a brief look at the simplicity that lies on the other side of complexity (III), with chapters on the "science" of God as well as a lengthy and somewhat awkward poem to God where the author explores his own tangled and complex path to belief.  While the author may have felt very strongly about this poem it comes off a bit cringy at least to me as a reader.

And that is my sense of the book as a whole.  To a great extent this book feels like a good stopping point.  The author reaches the point where he has little more to say than a strident reminder to the reader to remember (or to go back and read) previous works where the author has explored some aspect of psychology and spirituality.  The author shares some embarrassing poetry as part of an otherwise serious book.  This work feels like a summary of previous efforts tied together to remind the author of their coherence as well as an excellent demonstration of the author's reading of others and some personal discussion of the author's own life history and his own path to what he viewed as insight.  There is a lot to appreciate here, and if the work does not disappoint, it does at least remind the reader that at this point M. Scott Peck had little new to say, and had exhausted his means of saying it by the time one comes to the conclusion of his closing poem.  But while he had little new to say here, what he had to say was worth reading, at least.

What a gem of a book. It closely looks at discipline and how from a young age its developed through our parents influence, transference and environment. It also looks at the characteristics and reasons for not being discplined. Its simply states that people without discipline are not able to delay gratification, don't take responsibility, having an unrealistic view of the world and cannot balance their lives.

Psychoanalysis is a process that an individual has to take I believe to better understand his own reality or the map that they have in their head while trying to make it a better one through a therapist.

In the second part the author explains or tries to define love or what is not love. Some surprising definitions and myths about love squashed so hard you will re think the word love all over again. Listening was also discussed and advice is given how to listen to your spouse and children, very useful I thought. The correlation between love and listening as the author would put it " Love in action "

This book is about growth and self examination through the mind of a psychoanlisis, you will understand how they work what they do for you and how they help people. It is truly an ART fixing people's realities only is accomplished by LOVE. The author wrote this book for other psychotherapist that are studying psychoanalysis. He is indirectly helping them to grow spiritually. In addition this book looks at how to deal with religion when using psychoanalysis with patients. In some way its enlightening to read other people's stories with religion and how it helped them and dramatically also destroyed their lives. You will also find a good analysis about religion and science and how each team perceives one another.

I really think this book should be taught in schools. Should be part of schools curriculum. It will allow future generations to discuss their realities and question religion for their own benefit and will most definitely make them know how to love.

Thank you for taking the time to read my review.


Dr Peck, Rest in peace, you have gifted the world a great gift. Your Love is evident in every page of this book. Thanking you is not enough rather spreading your book and explaining it to other is the least one can do.

Enjoyed it.

This book gave some great insight as to how we develop mentally and how our childhood and the love that we receive in childhood or lack thereof can affect how we handle situations and life as an adult. This also gave some interesting perspective about what it would be like to be a psychotherapist and some of the different ways of dealing with people who are going through different situations or illnesses in life. There was somewhat of a religious/God aspect of the book that I was not expecting but it was interesting to read the perspective on such. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who would like to achieve more of an understanding about how what motivates us and also what holds us back from living the life that we desire and being truly happy.

3,5 stars, despite being heavy on religion it has some really helpful insights.

I reread this book about once a year and it always has a calming effect

I listen to the audiobook. There is so much good wisdom for parents and partners here. The last 1/4 of the book was not as relevant to me, but I really enjoyed the first part of the book

I hadn't read any books on spirituality for a while, but I'd heard of Peck and I'd heard of his "Road" books, so I thought I'd give them a go. Unfortunately, it was a major disappointment. It started well: his background in psychiatry and mine in psychology gave us a common understanding, and his comments on Western society "dumbing down", the negative effects of lying, the positive effects of feeling grateful, all hit the mark. His own personal anecdotes, illustrating various points, made it more real. So there were many positive aspects to this book.

Despite this, he managed to completely destroy his own credibility. He constantly wavered between Freudian psychology and Christian theology, with blind faith in both, one contradicting the other, and neither showing any basis in scientific enquiry. For a psychiatrist, he showed an amazing lack of understanding of human behaviour, assuming that all evil is inherent rather than learned - and when he started hearing voices, he chose to believe it was the "voice of God" rather than a problem with his own mental health. Yet his most annoying habit was constantly referencing his own books as if he was the font of all knowledge without equal. His arrogance stifled whatever message his text was supposed to impart.

I am open-minded in my views on human spirituality, but this book left me feeling that something very important was missing.

Also useful and insightful, but still not as good as the original The Road Less Traveled.