The Last Self Help Book You'll Ever Need: Repress Your Anger, Think Negatively, Be a Good Blamer, & Throttle Your Inner Child - Hardcover

Pearsall, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0465054862 ISBN 13: 9780465054862

Publisher: Basic Books, 2005

Synopsis

You can't love someone until you learn to love yourself.” Being healthy means being in touch with your feelings.” Never lose hope." These are self-evident truths, right?Wrong charges best-selling psychologist Paul Pearsall in this provocative new book. Though everyone from talk show hosts to politicians mouths these platitudes, and self-help bibles are a dime a dozen, their advice simply hasn't helped us live happier or more satisfying lives. Pearsall cites scientific evidence to challenge what he calls the McMorals of self-potentialism: the unsubstantiated prescriptions, programs, guarantees, and gurus that define our pursuit of The Good Life.His message is timely: we're fed up with truisms masquerading as truth, and hungry for self-help that really helps. Filled with groundbreaking research and inspiring true stories from Dr. Pearsall's clinical practice, The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need offers a powerful antidote to the mindless mental languishing that characterizes so much of modern life.The solution is not just to get tough and suck it up.” Instead, Pearsall offers powerful if counterintuitive strategies. By abandoning the mandate to stay hopeful,” for example, we can begin to savor today rather than focus desperately on tomorrow. By allowing ourselves the natural process of grieving instead of relentlessly treating grief as a disease, we can recover from tragedy.With Pearsall's lively and informative roadmap to psychological health, we can say goodbye” to our inner child and hello” to a better life.

About this title

About the Author:

Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized neuropsychologist, and is an adjunct clinical professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is also a popular writer and speaker, and has appeared on national television and radio programs. His previous books include The Beethoven Factor and the best-selling The Pleasure Prescription. He lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.

From Publishers Weekly:

Kudos to Pearsall (The Pleasure Prescription) for arguing against the "platitudes of self-empowerment" that dominate the self-help bookshelves. Their relentlessly upbeat tone and unrealistic idea of happiness will only make you feel worse, he says. Using research studies to bolster his points, Pearsall takes on the "McMorals, tenets about life that go down easily but aren't good for our long-term well being," as well as popular practitioners, such as Dr. Phil. Pearsall, an adjunct clinical professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, wants readers to stop being so self-centered. It's more important, he says, to love others before oneself, and appropriate guilt and anxiety are essential to learning to live a better life. "Stop expressing yourself," he says. "Shut up and listen." And don't avoid blaming: "Finding the right person to blame is essential for mental health." He explains cogently why such statements make more sense than the usual self-help shibboleths. Sometimes, particularly in chapters that tackle diet and aging, Pearsall sounds preachy and falls into the self-help trap of making generalizations without backup. But this contrarian volume gives readers plenty to consider and offers a hopeful and helpful approach to being mindful and fully engaged in each moment—good or bad. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0465054862
• ISBN 13: 9780465054862
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256