Saturday, September 17, 2016

Book review: 50 Psychology Classics by Tom Butler- Bowdon

It is one of the very interesting reads. The book covers 4 to 6 page summary of 50 best psychology's classic books. It covered almost all the top 50 thinkers and researchers in Psychology. Thus the book gives a bird-eye view of Psychology's insightful findings. It informs about the richness of the subject which covers everything including Brain, Happiness, Personality behaviour, Intelligence, Social behaviour, Pathologies, Sexual instinct and male-female differences.

However, It is more suited for a person who has some background in psychology. No summary can do justice with the classic works of all time. At times, the paucity of words robs the subject of its beauty. The text seems abstract and devoid of example and interesting observation. Therefore a prior knowledge of subject helps in feeling the gaps and allows us to interlink various concepts.

Despite the complexity of the task, Tom Butler has tried his best to compile interesting quotes, observations, one liner and provided a background of subjects under discussion. Here, I am compiling some of the interesting one-liners and amazing facts from the book.

De becker writes in "Gift of Fear", "Never let someone talk you out of refusal because then they know they are incharge". He adds that trust your intuition, rather than technology, to protect you from violence. He is an expert in threat assessment and prediction and management of violence. He describes the tendency of violent people like "forced teaming" and "loan sharking" in the book.

Alfred Adler writes in "Understanding Human Nature" that "What we think we lack determines what we will become in life". So true is this quote in our Indian life. Every parent who could not become doctor or IAS wants their progenies to take up the challenge and scale the wall of competition to become doctor or IAS. He gave the concept of "Inferiority Complex". Napolean, a small man making a big impact on the world was a classic case of inferiority complex.

Eric Berne in "Games people play" shows the dark view of human nature in his own witty humorous style. He identifies various situations in our daily lives and put them in a frame of the game which helps us in protecting our ego states. For example, our statements like spouse game "if it weren't for you....." or marital game "Look how hard I've tried... " and so on. Using these phrases, we avoid responsibilities and deflect anxieties.

Robert Bolton in "People Skills" talks about listening and assertiveness skills. He says nearly 85% of the communication is nonverbal in nature and we miss or ignore 75% of the oral communication. He describes listening as a psychological interaction instead of physical process.

De Bono in "Lateral Thinking" describe the techniques of creative thinkers. For example generating alternatives, brainstorming, finding the dominant idea, challenging assumptions, quotas, suspended judgement etc.


Similarly, there are many other interesting observation in each summary. I'll write about each book in coming days. Till then good bye.





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