Ivan Tyrrell

Long winded pop psychology book that is trying to promote the authors' specific theories and techniques, much of which are highly speculative and unsupported by even qualitative observation. The authors' approach the psyche primarily from a materialistic - brain - biology standpoint rather than from a mind standpoint. They are often critical of depth psychology which convinces me that they do not fully understand the functioning of the unconscious or the structure of the psyche. They refer to dreams as "left over" vestiges of waking consciousness or consider them a byproduct of psychological problems rather than a window into unconscious psychological processes that may elucidate a problem. This understanding is contrary to over 100 years of observation and work in the field of depth psychology. It's as if a physicist was rejecting the work of Newton and Einstein to promote their "new physics," and if you are going to do that you better have a lot of data and a solidly written theory on it instead of just speculation. They do make good points that physical doctors should consider psychological causes of ailments far more often and they also embrace a certain degree of innateness over the blank slate (tabula rasa) assumptions often found in our society. They also have a lot to say about the brain being a metaphoric computer of sorts, which has interesting implications for AI and shares some overlap with depth psychology that has long recognized metaphor, symbol and the story as the language of the psyche. Generally, though, this book is a waste of trees and will be forgotten by history.… (mehr)