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Zusammenfassung von Psychobabble

Name: Psychobabble
Rating: 3.2 (156 reviews)
Author: Stephen Briers

Stephen Briers

Exploding the Myths of the Self-Help Generation

3.2 (156 Bewertungen)

23 Min.

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What’s in it for me? Find out why so many self-help manuals fall flat.

Pop psychology and self-help books claim to have all of the answers to all of your problems.

Are you struggling at work? Fake it till you make it! Do you suffer from depression? Just change your attitude! Is chemotherapy not curing your cancer? Just imagine all of those cancerous cells imploding on themselves! It’s that easy!

Considering how “easy” it is to cure our woes with self-help manuals, and considering how many people actually read self-help material, you’d think that by now we’d live in a paradisical utopia. And yet we don’t. Why?

That’s because self-help often advocates amazingly simplistic philosophies, which then produce woefully inadequate strategies for our complex lives.

It’s no wonder that all too often neither their basic assumptions nor their ultimate solutions stand up to scientific scrutiny.

And not only are the pompous promises found in pop-psych books ineffective, they’re sometimes downright harmful. They raise our expectations to the point where we can no longer be content with anything that is less than perfect, which is simply not possible in an intricate world with so many influences and actors.

In these blinks, you’ll discover

why you might make better decisions when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed;
why spotting negative thoughts is a lot like finding a flea;
how useless it is to try to keep a train from flying off the rails; and
why, no matter what, we can’t all be winners.

Self-esteem is overrated.

It seems obvious that self-esteem is critical for our happiness. After all, it’s good to feel good about ourselves, right? But how important is high self-esteem really? Is it an integral part of every successful and healthy person, as self-help books want you to believe?

In pop psychology books, poor self-esteem is blamed for a whole slew of problems. For example, authors attribute underachievement at school or work to the student’s or employee’s underdeveloped belief in himself and his abilities.

In the same vein, some popular self-help books link marital problems to one or more partners’ lack of self-respect.

Many texts suggest that even school bullies resort to tyrannizing other kids and extorting their lunch money merely as a means to improve their own painfully low self-esteem. The assumption is that, by dominating their peers, bullies can enhance their own lack of self-worth.

Yet for many behavioral problems, it turns out that self-esteem just isn’t an issue.

For example, research has shown that there is no link between a teen’s self-esteem and problematic behaviors like stealing, excessive drinking and promiscuity.

Going back to the playground, bullies have been shown to be even surer of themselves than their peers, rather than the pitiable, doubt-stricken souls we might otherwise imagine them to be.

Moreover, neither a person’s job performance nor their relationship skills are affected by their level of self-esteem. Employees with a high self-esteem, for example, don’t necessarily outperform others in either their jobs or in laboratory tasks.

What’s more, psychological programs that aim to boost students’ self-esteem do nothing to improve their performance in school. In fact, when struggling college students received messages intended to bolster their self-esteem, they actually did even worse in the exams that followed.

It would seem that people with high self-esteem can have problems, too. If we’re interested at all in the taxonomy of our problems, then we’ll have to look for something better than the catch-all “self-esteem.”

Behaving too assertively is just as bad as behaving too meekly.

Here’s a question: in what way are a bullied school kid and an aspiring executive the same?

Answer: both are likely to be told to be more assertive.

Meditation or changing your mindset will do little to change your outcomes if you have cancer.

At one point or another, we’ve all heard some tear-jerking story about cancer patients who, by visualizing imploding malignant cells or working their way through childhood trauma, find themselves tumor-free with a long, healthy life ahead of them.

But did those people really “think away” their illness? And what about the countless other people who finally succumbed to their illnesses: did they bring it upon themselves by thinking the wrong thoughts?

We overestimate the impact of parenting on a child’s personality.

Have you ever seen one of those horror movies where an excited, good-natured mother gives birth to an evil child? Thankfully, this can’t happen in real life: a child’s personality isn’t predetermined, and depends mostly on his upbringing – or does it?

Actually, our personalities are strongly influenced by our genetic makeup. Identical twins, for example, share many personality traits even if they are raised apart. In fact, their personality traits, such as their their degree of self-control, correlate 75 percent of the time when they are raised apart and an astounding 85 percent of the time when they are raised in the same home.

You’re weaker than you think.

If you’ve ever flipped through any self-help manual you probably found “advice” that reads something like this: With the right mindset and lots of practice, you can accomplish anything!

What a load of rubbish!

Overestimating your control over life events may prove harmful.

Imagine an obsessed man who runs after every car he sees driving down his road, just to make sure it doesn’t hit a pothole. Sounds crazy, right? Of course! It is utterly exhausting and impossible to stop a car hitting a bump in the road.

But when you think about it, trying to control your life is just as futile.

Neuro-Linguistic Programming is ineffective and based on fallacies.

If you want to make positive changes in your life, why not try to change your mind itself? Why don’t you try Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to reprogram your brain?

What is NLP exactly? NLP is a practice based on the belief that all high-functioning people have specific thinking habits, and that anyone can become higher-functioning if they learn to think like a successful person.

Another therapeutic approach, cognitive behavioral therapy, is also far from infallible.

Have you ever wondered what causes your feelings and behavior? Cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, maintains that both are caused by our thoughts.

Consequently, behind every problematic behavior or negative emotion there’s bound to be some unhelpful thought. Thus to overcome your problem, you’ll first have to find, explore and alter that thought.

Positive thinking can be counterproductive.

Is it possible to be a pessimistic curmudgeon and still live a good life? And can the power of positive thinking lift someone out of depression?

Studies show that people who already feel bad may feel even worse if they are confronted with positive affirmations. In one study, after repeating the positive mantra “I am a lovable person,” participants with a low self-esteem actually felt worse. But why?

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Worum geht es in Psychobabble?

Psychobabble explains how the self-help industry is misleading people, and why the human mind can't be swayed by catchy self-help mantras and lucid pop-psychology diagrams alone.

Bestes Zitat aus Psychobabble

The degree to which we are affected and influenced by other people is actually quite terrifying.

—Stephen Briers

Wer Psychobabble lesen sollte

Anyone who reads self-help books but has not become a genius, a billionaire or even reasonably happy
Anyone interested in psychology
Anyone who feels overwhelmed by the constant pressure to improve themselves

Über den Autor

Dr. Stephen Briers is a clinical psychologist who has authored several best sellers, including Psychobabble, Superpowers for Parents and Brilliant CBT.

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Psychology Personal Development

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