This gives psychology a bad name.

Truly offensive.

Throughout the book, my thoughts were:
- "Why give evidence to your assumptions? Just assume things and take it from there! The conclusions will definitely be credible."
- "Whoa, is he really saying that the unconscious mind is God? Wow, no."
- "Is he really alluding to slavery as a nice way to control your emotions? Ouch."
- "OMG, was he really reporting a success case when his male homossexual patient asked a girl out? How is this guy allowed to practice?!"
- "I would be very angry if I told my therapist I was an atheist and he told me 'No, you're actually extremely religious, you just don't know it yet!'"
- "Well, I don't have to imagine in this case, as a polytheist, I'm offended. My Gods and Goddesses are no way inferior to yours. Way to insult whole cultures and religions, man."
- "Ahh stop! Why does he keep putting his Christian God in the middle of everyone's psyche all the time?!"

Προτείνω το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο; Σίγουρα ναι.
Αρκεί κάποιος να το διαβάσει με ανοιχτό μυαλό και φυσικά να του αρέσει το κομμάτι της ψυχοθεραπείας, της ψυχολογίας και της αυτοβελτίωσης.
Δεν θα γράψω πολλά στην κριτική μου.
Παρά μόνο το εξής κομμάτι που κάτι άγγιξε μέσα μου.
"Ορίζω την αγάπη ως εξής: Είναι η βούληση ενός ανθρώπου να ανοιχτεί και να διευρύνει τα όριά του με σκοπό να συμβάλει στην πνευματική ανάπτυξη την δική του ή ενός άλλου."
Από εμένα:
5/5

I read this book to make my mom happy. Her church book group was reading it, and she got all stoked about it after reading the first section. It was a fairly bland combination of basic common sense (self-discipline is good, laziness is bad), pseudo-spiritual psychobabble (your unconscious mind is God!), and the occasional moral zinger (open marriage is the only real form of marriage). Overall, I was unimpressed, but I wasn't begging the Lord for the 6 hours of my life back, either. I never even asked my mom what she thought of the book after the first part. I suppose that would be a good thing to do. I love my mom.

The fact that I am reading this book for the first time 30 years after its publication reflects how far behind I am with my reading, not to mention how much worthy stuff there is out there to be read. It also means that without a lot of buzz about it day-to-day, I really had no idea what it was about and, therefore, waded into it rather naively. What surprised me most was where he takes us—namely that while mental health aka spiritual growth is all about discipline and love, the question of why some accept the gifts of the unconscious and work their way toward spiritual health and some don’t has to do with grace…the grace of God, I think he would be comfortable saying. And why grace chooses one and not another…he doesn’t know…we still don’t know. Nonetheless, for me it was a loving and encouraging book.

Rightfully a classic. Moving, eye-opening, challenging, and inspiring. Full of lots of seminal ideas about self-growth that are simultaneously demanding and benevolent.

Really interesting insights that I haven’t read about before.

For me, this book was quite an interesting journey, with ups and downs. The author plays with the thin line that exists between psychology as a science and spirituality. I really enjoyed it, but in the same time, while reading it, I felt the need of taking some time to properly understand his vision and filter it. I appreciate that while he is exposing his theories he highlights the fact that people have different needs and that there is not a theory that is universal.

It offers you a different way of understanding life from a psychological point of view. It also gives you a different vision, underlined by therapy examples, about how childhood experiences or previous experiences can influence the way you see the world and explains the role of society (exterior world) and fear, in the process of understanding and accepting yourself.

An open mind will help you better understand the connection he makes between psychological processes and spirituality.

A really interesting book and vision. I mostly enjoyed the way he presents the concept of love and its power and the connection between the conscious and the unconscious mind.

I loved the first 80% of the book, mostly about the lessons psychology has to offer to improve our lives. Towards the end religious and more mystical elements become predominant, and at that stage the author lost me. Still, well worth reading for everything else. And of course those that believe in a god will probably feel less alienated than I did when reading the final sections.

الطريق الأقل ارتيادا

في هذا الكتاب يضع الاخصائي النفسي مورغان سكوت بيك خلاصة تجاربه ليقدم ارشاداته للطريق نحو النمو الروحي. انه يتحدث عن المعاناة والمسؤولية والانضباط والحب شارحا تأثيرات العلاقة مع الآباء في الطفولة على المراحل التي تليها في الحياة، وكيف يقدم العلاج النفسي حلولا تبدأ من قبول الانسان لمبدأ التعب والألم من أجل تجاوز ضعفه والنمو بروحه.

في فصل الانضباط يقدم فكرة ان القبول بمبدأ ان الحياة هي معاناة هو السبيل للتوقف عن الشعور بالألم. يتحدث عن الاعتراف والالتزام بمسؤولية الفرد عن حياته، وكيف يمكن ان يقع الناس في خطأ الهروب من الاعتراف بهذه المسؤولية او تحميل انفسهم اكثر مما يتحملون مسؤوليته فعلا. يتحدث عن الاضطرابات النفسية المختلفة وعلاقتها بما حظوا به من محبة في الطفولة (الحرمان، او حتى الحب الذي يمكن وصفه بالمريض) ويتحدث ايضا عن العيش في الواقع والسماح بتجديد صورة هذا الواقع بحسب المعطيات الجديدة (في مقابل العيش في وهم).

في فصل الحب يعيد تعريف الحب ليكون ذلك السعي/الجهد الذي يهدف فيه الانسان للنمو بروحه او النمو بروح شخص آخر. يتحدث عن الوقوع في الحب وكيف يمكن ان يكون الوقوع خارجه هو الخطوة الاولى نحو علاقة روحية اشد عمقا. يتحدث عن الاستقلال بصفته الايجابية، عن التضحية غير المجدية في الحب، عن أن الحب يتعدى كونه عاطفة/شعور، وعن المخاطر التي يمكن ان يأخذها الناس للوصول الى مكان افضل ��ي علاقاتهم (خطر الفقد، خطر الاستقلال، خطر المواجهة).

في النصف الثاني من الكتاب يتحدث عن علاقة النمو الروحي بالدين، وعن معجزة الله ومحبته وعلاقة ذلك بالنمو الروحي والنفس.

وجدت الفصلين الاول والثاني أكثر تأثيرا بالنسبة لي، والكتاب حافل بقصص وشواهد من الحالات التي مرت به لتعزز الافكار التي يقدمها.

I initially picked up this book because I was told that this author was the inspiration for a women's retreat I went to a couple years ago. However, I found no connection to the theme of the retreat and this book.

Initially I found Peck's theories on discipline appealing. He promoted fundamental ideas of Buddhism, such as life is suffering and only through acceptance of that suffering can we truly live and be free of it. He believes that the pursuit of the truth regardless of the pain involved is fundamental to mental health, and that only through valuing ourselves can we value life and love those around us.

However, while reading examples of cases that Peck has worked on in psychotherapy I felt that his confidence in his prognosis's and what he thought his clients ought to do was rather pretentious. Furthermore as I read I got the suspicion that Peck was rather homophobic or at least that he thought homosexuality was a sign of poor mental health. First of all, in all his discussions on love and relationships not once does he relate his theories in the context of a homosexual relationship. Second he uses examples of actions that his clients took to move toward better mental health including an example of a young homosexual boy summoning the strength to ask a girl out. I was starting to really dislike this author at this point, but it was the next few pages that killed it for me.

Halfway through the book where Peck is saying that love is discipline, he thought it appropriate to use slavery as a metaphor. He states,

"While one should not be slave to one's feelings, self discipline does not mean the squashing of one's feelings into nonexistence. I frequently tell my patients that their feelings are their slaves and that the art of self discipline is like the art of slaving owning"

I can't believe he refers to slave owning as an "art". He continues,

"First of all, one's feelings are the source of one's energy; they provide the horsepower, or slave power, that makes it possible for us to accomplish the task of living. Since they work for us, we should treat them with respect."

It gets worse,

" One type of slave-owner does not discipline his slaves, gives them no structure, sets them no limits, provides them with no direction and does not make it clear whose the boss. What happens, of course, is that in due time his slaves stop working and begin moving into the mansion, raiding the liquor cabinet and breaking the furniture, and soon the slave owner finds he is the slave of his slaves"

Scott Peck author...phycologist...homophobe....racist.....got it. I'm done with this book!

Probably one of the best books I've ever read :)
I've seen recommendations from friends of mine and marked it as "must read this year".
I'm happy of being able to finish it. I couldn't stop reading it since I started and delayed previous books I was reading at the time.
Definitely a "must" for everyone.

first two sections of this book (on discipline and love) absolutely HIT... I felt like he was speaking to me, it was so directly relevant to my life. I like the way this author thinks through and defines different emotional experiences (bell hooks uses his definition of love within All About Love)

The cons are big too - firstly it was written in in 1979 and there are a few seriously racist metaphors..... like.... what??? who let this be published like that? secondly, the latter half of the book is pretty God heavy. At first it was a nice shift and really made me think about my relationship with religion, but after a while it was clear that his personal beliefs were coloring his text and it got old.

this book should be 3 starts but the first two sections were so good that I had to give it 4 stars still. strong recommend (just those two) if you are also someone who is emotionally restored by reading "psych books" during tough times. for me, it was what i needed right now!