Αυτό το βιβλίο όχι μόνο έχει αποσπάσει διθυραμβικές κριτικές, αλλά έχει βοηθήσει ένα ευρύ αναγνωστικό κοινό να εντοπίσει και να επουλώσει τα τραύματά του. Μου είχε δημιουργηθεί λοιπόν τεράστια περιέργεια να το διαβάσω.

Τα συναισθήματα ήταν ανάμεικτα.

(Θα ξεκινήσω από τα θετικά:)
Εντόπισα κάποια εξαιρετικά δυνατά σημεία που μου έκαναν εντύπωση (κεφάλαιο 3, Ανάπτυξη και Θρησκεία), όπως για παράδειγμα η ιστορία της Κάθυ (αυτές οι ιστορίες μου θύμησαν τον αγαπημένο μου Γιάλομ). Εδώ ο Πεκ μας καθιστά σαφές το πόσο βαθιά μπορεί να βλάψει τον ψυχισμό του ανθρώπου η έννοια της θρησκείας. Η ιστορία του Θίοντορ ήταν επίσης αξιόλογη.
Επιπροσθέτως, με εξέπληξε ευχάριστα η σκέψη του συγγραφέα ότι η ύπαρξη της θρησκείας ίσως να είναι μια εκδήλωση μεταβίβασης, "μία έννοια των γονιών μας, που προερχεται από το μικρόκοσμο και εσφαλμένα προβάλλεται πάνω στο μακρόκοσμο".
Ο συγγραφέας αναρωτιέται μήπως τελικά η πίστη στο Θεό είναι "κάποια ασθένεια; ή μια μορφή πρωτόγονης ή παιδικής σκέψης από την οποία θα έπρεπε να βγούμε καθώς αναζητάμε υψηλότερα επίπεδα συνειδητοτητας". Η παραδοχή του Πεκ ότι η θρησκεία και ο δογματισμός μπορεί να αποτελούν από μόνα τους μια μορφή νεύρωσης με ενθουσίασε. Τα επιχειρήματα του εδώ είναι απτά, επιστημονικά, κατανοητά.

Και μετά το χάος.

Στο επόμενο κεφάλαιο (Θεία Χάρη) ο Πεκ έχει στήσει ένα γαϊτανάκι πνευματικότητας, αναμεμιγμένης με φιλοσοφία, θρησκεία και νευρολογία. Έννοιες όπως η εντροπία και η σερεντιπια δεν με έπεισαν. Τουναντίον, μου φάνηκαν άκρως αντιεπιστημονικές και βασισμένες σε ένα συναίσθημα ή μια αίσθηση που ναι μέν μπορεί να έχει υπάρξει για τον Πεκ, αλλά δεν μπορεί να αρθρωθεί με επιστημονικά δεδομένα και ντοκουμέντα. Κορωνίδα όλων αυτών η αρχή της συγχρονικοτητας, κατά την οποία ο Πεκ μπορεί να βλέπει τα ίδια όνειρα με ένα φίλο του και να προσπαθεί να μας πείσει ότι αυτό δεν είναι τυχαίο (σελ. 369 της ελληνικής επετειακής έκδοσης). Και μόνο ο τίτλος "Θεία Χάρη" σε παραπέμπει σε μία συνυποδηλωση που εξ' ορισμού δεν θα έπρεπε να έχει χώρο στην ψυχιατρική.

An extraordinary book about Life and the art of Living. It was the most complete and indepth book about personal development from which one become much more aware of the nature of all kinds of relationships.
This book will help to shape your vision of Life!
Please, just read it. Your perspective about things will never be the same. Notable, indeed!

This book starts out extremely engaging and helpful in nature - worthy of four or five stars. But midway through Peck reveals his psychology of teaching his patients and readers to become like God. While I'm certain he means no malice in this objective, he seems ignorant of negative psychological aspects of this philosophy. Indeed, the book "Toxic Faith" cites "You can become God" as one of the twenty-one Toxic Beliefs of a Toxic Faith (p.98). Having observed the deleterious effect of this belief among the Mormon population I find Peck's thesis professionally reckless regardless of the popularity of his message.

A little foreword from me before I begin reviewing this book:

During my post-graduation years, I had the priviledge of working with a madam who used to tell us, “If your slit lamp (used for eye examination) stops working, my verdict will remain the same, ‘I will need all patients worked up by 1:30 p.m. sharp. I don’t care HOW you will go about making that happen but that I will have no other result.’”

Sounds bossy? Actually, on the contrary, it served us more than otherwise (Thank you Sushmita ma’am). This do-or-die attitude of hers had served to strip us off the small excusal ways of being most of us are wont to endorse at the drop of a hat. In a matter of days of working with her, our entire way of being had altered from a problem-oriented mindset into a solution-oriented mindset. If things went out of our hands, we clamoured like crazy to flip past options available to us, selecting whichever best dissolved the issue away. If none worked, we improvised.


(Foreword over)

This (as stated above) is the same attitude the author, M. Scott Peck urges us to make use of when dealing with life. He says,


Life is a series of problems. Do we want to moan about them or solve them? Do we want to teach our children to solve them?


I won’t beat around the bush and leap into footnotes that are of relevance here. First, on the flaws of authoritarian parenting (Gosh! It is so so flawed!) I would say:

(I’ll combine my thoughts and the author's thoughts to help extend the messages that so many adults in the world need to hear)....apologies for the sarcasm that I will bring along but they are GROSSLY essential here!


Author’s voice—> The feeling of being valuable— ‘I am valuable person’- is essential to mental health and is a cornerstone of self-discipline, which is a direct product of parental love.

My thoughts——> Most homes I have personally come by (in India) have revealed corporal punishment as the mode of disciplining someone.

Hah! How deluded such homes are! Tch! Tch! Raising broken individuals and releasing them into the world, adding to the depression bank of the world!

Author’s voice—> The only way healthy-minded individuals (ones who value their time, are disciplined and delay gratification) could be sent out into the world is by first ushering them with parental love. If that isn’t secured, the rest cannot follow.

Hence, if authoritarian language or a demeaning tone of voice is used while speaking to the child, how would that serve to foster him with the feeling of goodness he would need for maturity to come about?

My remark—“Makers of men, creators of leaders, be careful what kind of leaders you are producing here!”

(Line borrowed from “Scent of a Woman,” very appropriate in salutation of the author’s message)

So I feel that this is a novel every human who wishes to have a family someday must read. A child isn’t someone you yank into existence over ruling prejudices (“You have to marry by 30 and have a child” ) or out of a bucket-list selection.

A child is a spirit if you will, and given the time and contemplation, I reckon every parent is bound to come to recognise monumental responsibility that one naturally begins to adhere to in understanding who it is she or he has conceived. The problem is so many never grant themselves that moment of contemplation (ever!)

This book helped me understand love/ relationships and romance in a way no book has ever conveyed to me before

What is popularly considered as love (and very wrongly so), the author observes, is the jolt of fancy that blinds one when he impresses another. While a large chunk of the world, including songs and movies endorse this concept, it really has absolutely nothing to do with what a person really is after, which is a complete dissolution of the self when loving someone, whereby the ego is constantly left behind in interactions/exchanges with the person.

What I understood from the author’s language is this—>Love is forevermore just one thing, and that is personal expansion, where you are no longer this puny small “me-right-here” version of yourself but an ever-expanding piece of existence. For only when you expand yourself can you include another as a part of your own self. Once you include another as part of your own self, there is only one way to be—> devotion/ putting their needs before your own (not alongside). Think about it——there really is no other way to be when expansion happens! : )


My additional word here—>The degree of deflection from this truth some communities endorse here is way shocking——coercing individuals to marry against their will. The message one is supposed to mutter from then on (many of my friends will know where these words are coming from : D), “Marry first then love with follow” (I wonder what degree of reversal-charge must such a belief carry for dreamers that wish the Earth spun from East to West?! Huge! *holds-her-chin-and-thinks-deeply*)

So, jokes apart, it’s really sad that more than half of the people in the world are floundering in their relationships. What good it would have done them to have read a book like this first! You don’t love to get, you love to expand and include that ‘other’ as ‘yourself.’ : )

More insights on ‘Love’ as stated by the author….

“Genuine love, on the other hand, implies commitment and the exercise of wisdom.”

“True love is not a feeling by which we are overwhelmed. It is a committed, thoughtful decision.”


I have never spent so much time writing a review on ‘Love,’ but the urge to do so arrived after reading this book. The author wrote many chapters on the topic of ‘Love,’ which, if you read would start revealing to you that you can only be truly loving if you prioritise the value of the other person above all else (even beyond your own possessions and honour). Never losing sight of the value that exists in the life of another automatically makes one prioritise the importance of good behaviour no matter what the situation at hand demands. In a sub-chapter on the umbrella heading of ‘Love,’ the author speaks of the art of loving confrontation (because there will often be times when one maybe correct in a situation while the significant other will be wrong in the decision-making). In realising the value of the other person in such a situation, one never assumes a position of a pedestal while speaking to him or her and communicates with utmost care the reasons for which he or she (person ‘A’ say) thinks that it would be wise in that moment of their lives to act in accordance with his/her word (and not the word hailing from the significant other, person ‘B’ say)


Beautiful! I feel very proud having read this book!

What’s more, and one comes to recognise this as one continues reading, is that love does not and will never naturally happen. It is in keeping continuous check with the leaps of ego that continues to want to poke its nose, that one genuinely comes to impart the highest form of love, the kind that doesn’t mind being invisible, obscure, and wholly inclusive of the other’s needs and making them one’s own.

There are a total of 14 chapters on ‘Love,’ and an enormous weightage has been lent on unraveling the myth of 'romantic love.' : )
It’s a myth, folks! The more one reads this book, the more one recognises that what really is love is, is disciplined. (And naturally so : ) )

To keep this review from lengthening too much, I would just like to say that ultimately the author stresses on the importance of utilising every single experience of one’s own life to evolve into higher consciousness and this includes ‘love’ and ‘creative pursuits.’ That is, not using anything for the expansion of the ego but for the ultimate expansion into infinite consciousness.

Every creative pursuit must serve to stretch one into the higher echelons of who they are. It ought to be a stepping stone for that. Feeling all bloated and full of oneself is the exact opposite : )
Reminds me of a line by Lao Tzu— “When the work is done, it is forgotten, that is why it lasts forever.”


Amongst every book that I have read in my life, this is definitely one I am very grateful for! : ) What a teacher this book has been!

"The Road Less Traveled" is an American classic of psychological self-help. A friend of mine gave me this book several years ago, and the book surprised me in several ways. For one thing, it was not a feel good book that seeks to tell readers that they are not to blame for their own problems. This book actually teaches the reader that there are aspects of his personality that will add or take away from his own happiness and success in life. Things like virtue actually mean something in this book. That's a refreshing departure from the "I'm OK, you're OK" school of psychology from the 1970s.

Another refreshing aspect of this book is that it actually recognizes that there is such a thing as good and evil. When Peck talks about love, he is not talking about the abstract concept of flowers and sunshine. He really believes that love is an attitude built on work and commitment to the relationship.

These two aspects of this book make it a departure from the feel-good psychology books that people love to read. Now, this book is not all perfect. Peck does preach a bit of the narcissistic ethic that if you don't feel good about a relationship you should leave. Commitment to one's life partner and children are still not as important as one's subjective feelings of happiness, and that's a shame. But, Peck does not take a condescending attitude toward faith, love and virtue. I actually took away quite a bit from this book. I think that most readers will learn a lot from it.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in a good book of psychological self-help.

O Eterno Jogo dos Problemas


Problemas...

Problemas...

Problemas...

Quem não os tem?!
Quem não os cria?!
Quem não os adia?!...

Estão por cá desde os primórdios e não há meio de se extinguirem!
São as carraças dos nossos neuronios que nos torturam a alma e infectam a Paz!
São uma praga intemporal que tinge de negro a nossa felicidade!...

Mas quem seríamos nós sem os nossos odientos problemas?!
Não são eles os despertadores das nossas capacidades?!
As ferramentas que desenterram o nosso potencial?!
Que fazem emergir uma identidade doutra forma soterrada?!
Então porque não agradececê-los com um sorriso ao invés dum esgar de desagrado?!
Ou talvez com um risinho Gioconda, para começar?!...
Encará-los como um jogo desafiante que é mandatário ir vencendo, ao invés duma Monumental Chatice!

Abordar problemas com uma atitude positiva será, obviamente, investir na almejada felicidade

I give this book five stars because I can honestly say that reading it has made me a better person. I have plenty of criticisms, which I will get to, but the bottom line is that there are a lot of difficult truths in this book and it stands as a challenge and a guide to the reader to progress and develop beyond where you may be comfortable. I do not often read or like this genre of book, but my mom has been recommending this book to me for years and I finally borrowed her copy (which incidentally was published the year I was born!).

There is quite a bit in here that I do not agree with and some things that just seem banal or just untrue. But there are other parts that are so incredibly insightful and overwhelmingly true--which made me wish that I had read this book earlier. A lot of people may have issues with the last 1/3 of the book when the author delves into his religious beliefs and philosophy, but I have to admit that that was my favorite part. I think he accurately describes the nature of God and the process of man becoming like God. This part is the least "scientific", but the most inspiring.

(I also admit that the book made me want to be a therapist (again) as this sort of analysis is like a hobby for me and this type of book may not be for everyone as he really gets into some psychology theory and jargon.)

I read the Road Less Travelled because several Internet sites rated it the most read self-help book ever. As a therapist and fan of self-help books I felt like I needed to get right on it. I'm glad I did. Peck has wisdom and depth to spare on the topics of psychotherapy and human fulfillment. He offers a fundamental jumping-off point to anyone hoping to improve their life, whether through therapy or introspection. So you need to read it! That being said, there are some cautions. Peck can by turns be loving then judgmental toward therapy patients. His language choice and lack of sympathy at times made me cringe. He puts forth questionable opinions on boundaries as well, over-estimating (in my opinion) the degree of importance and control the therapist exercises in the patient's progress. He uses that importance to justify breaking well-established standards of professionalism and ethics in the counseling field. Finally, the last section, which addresses his spiritual beliefs, meanders. There are valuable nuggets to be mined, but they're buried within some bizarre musings. As he reflects on God and grace, Peck seems to forget he's writing to a general audience and instead expounds on his philosophies In a form more suited to autobiography than therapeutic enlightenment. At the end of the day, I'm aware I'm standing on the shoulders of a giant. Peck wrote this book in the '70s. Therapy has evolved quite a bit since then. Professionals brave enough to put forth their theories and thoughts are to be commended -- they push us forward. And Peck, whatever his imperfections, clearly comes from a place of courage and love serving not only as teacher but example for us all.

This book was recommended by one of my seminary teachers whose specialty was mitzvos bein adam l'chavero, i.e. the Biblical laws that govern interpersonal relationships. It was the only non-Jewish self-help book she respected, and considering her own expertise, I think that's quite a compliment.

As the subtitle states, this is a book about the union of psychology and spirituality, or more specifically, how psychotherapy and spirituality are so close, they are almost one and the same. Having been through a fair amount of therapy myself, I long ago came to the same conclusion: therapy, when done right, is the practical application of the self-improvement ideas of religion. As a matter of fact, this book was my Shabbos reading, far more appropriate than any fiction or politics I'd otherwise choose.

Having said that, I must warn my Jewish friends that the author writes from a Christian standpoint. Some of the ideas can be translated into Jewish terms, particularly the concept of "grace," which we Jews see as "Divine Providence." The words "yetzer hara" and "yetzer tov" are also not in the book, but the concepts are certainly there. The quotes from the Christian Bible - and there weren't that many - I just skipped over.

Actually, the author doesn't get too into Christianity until the second half of the book. The first two sections, called "Discipline" and "Love," are pretty much free of this, and I found them absolutely riveting. I'd read something like, "Listening is an act of love" and then find myself trying to listen better to my kids, which is what any self-help book should do to its reader. I found myself looking forward to reading more so that I could apply more ideas. To put it in Jewish terms, this book is an "avodah."

Naturally, I disagreed with some of his Christian-based conclusions. We are not commanded to become G-d, which is impossible, but to emulate His ways. I don't know if the author would consider that a "cop-out" on my part, but that's the Jewish point of view. G-d is much greater than we are. It's not an avoidance of responsibility to say so.

So overall, I thought it was an excellent book, one that I learned from and one that encouraged me. And I consider it a bit of "grace," (read: hashgacha) that I read the publisher's afterword at the end. The author's next book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, takes these concepts to the community level. Community involvement is something I've been thinking about quite often lately, so now I've been shown a new step toward that goal. May Hashem help that I use His guidance toward real growth.

This book is second only to the bible to me. It teaches you what love is. What love is not. Why old fashioned values like honesty, hard work, discipline and integrity are important. Every person should read it. This book should be required reading in high school or college.

I wish I had read that book in earlier stage of my life! I wouldn't have suffered that much from dealing with neurotics & unstable characters that I've met & almost affected me badly!!
It focuses on 4 areas: [ Discipline, Love, Religion & Grace]..
While I was enjoying & benefited from the first 2 parts , I wasn't convinced of the 3rd & finally I almosr lost my interest in the last part of the book "Grace" ..
Useful to read though!

“If your goal is to avoid pain and escape suffering, I would not advise you to seek higher levels of consciousness or spiritual evolution. First, you cannot achieve them without suffering, and second, insofar as you do achieve them, you are likely to be called on to serve in ways more painful to you, or at least demanding of you, than you can now imagine. Then why desire to evolve at all, you may ask. If you ask this question, perhaps you do not know enough of joy.” ~ Scott Peck