Customer Reviews

What You Can Change and What You Can't: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement

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This is a decent book, however I found a lot of the content to be either common sense, common knowledge, or something you could easily find yourself doing minimal research. However, it is nice to have all of the information presented in one place without having to go looking different places for it. It has a nice summary of everything it covers in the back of the book along with the results of various treatments. If you want to know more about common ailments and their respective treatments, such as dieting, trauma, alcoholism, anxiety, depression, anger, and many more things, then this book would be a good source of information. This book basically briefly discusses these things, and others, and talks about the different treatment options that are available for each and what the statistical data is for the success of the different available treatments. An interesting read, but I wouldn't buy it expecting it to change my life. I would recommend this book for someone who knows they have one of these problems and wants to know what options they have in regards to different treatments and what the typical results of those treatments are. Although you should keep in mind that nothing in this book is anything you couldn't find through your own research.

Psychologist Martin Seligman acknowledges that psychology sends us two contradictory messages about change. Psychotherapists and the self-improvement literature tout our ability to change ourselves for the better, whether with help from a trained professional or on our own. The biomedical model of psychology claims that mental illness is really a form of physical illness, emotion and mood are determined by brain chemistry, and personality is determined by genes. Neither view is true in the general sense--the things we struggle to change are either more or less changeable. The author cites research findings to help us see the difference.

The author plays it straight. "This book walks a political tightrope. On one side is the racist segment of the right, fervently hoping that intelligence, femininity and criminality are all entirely genetic. On the other side are many aging 1960s liberals and their 'politically correct' campus heirs, condemning all who dare to speak ill of victims; failure, they say, results from poverty, racism, a bad upbringing, a malevolent system, underprivilege, deprivation--from anything but oneself." Examining therapy outcome research, Seligman finds that panic and sexual dysfunction can be easily unlearned, destructive moods can be controlled, depression can be cured by conscious changes in thinking patterns, and optimism can be learned. However, it is vanishingly difficult to make dieting work, change the gender orientation of children, shortcut the natural course of recovery from alcoholism, change homosexuality into heterosexuality, or fix adult personality problems by reliving childhood trauma. Seligman takes us through these and related issues examining what research tells us about realistic possibility for change.

This book is recommended for those who want to understand personal change, to attempt it when it can be achieved and avoid frustration and unrealistic expectations when it cannot. Readers may also enjoy Seligman's The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and BuildLifelong Resilience.

You be a therapist! This book was compiled by the leading investigator of depression in the United States. You will like him and this book very much. Each treatment for psychiatric disorders gets a certain number of points for effectiveness and for side effects. This book is the best that science has to offer in relation to depression, anxiety, alcohol abuse, dieting, sexual problems, and on and on. I do believe that you would be a fool if you did not buy it. Why? Because it's the best that science has to offer. And this means "outcome studies". An outcome study (a good one) is having 5,000 take a placebo for depression and 5,000 people taking thiamine. Both without knowing whether the pill is a placebo or thiamine. If 4,200 lose their depression with the thiamine and only 1,700 with the placebo, other surveys are needed for further investigations. YO! What happens if the thiamine has a temporary effect and then leaves this control group worse off than it was in 1 year? What happens if the thiamine has a "feel good" effect but then decreases your concentration? The standard treatment for severe depression is mainly antidepressants like Prozac. A woman just lost her spouse of 40 years 6 months ago. This would qualify her as having a "major depressive disorder". As her therapist, you give her Prozac and sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Which is supposed to back up the Prozac. What about trying to persuade her to get out with other people? To start a new career. THESE LAST TWO SUGGESTIONS CAN'T BE USED BY SCIENCE BECAUSE THE DATA CAN'T BE QUANTIFIED! It can't be isolated. If she meets rough people, maybe her depression will worsen. If she meets people with similar interests, her depression may dissapear. BUT BUY THE BOOK. Let's not dismiss science. Science gives us something to consult so that we don't fly back to the dark ages. Let's just put it into it's proper place. Good luck.

As a navel-gazing self-help junkie, I was surprised and a little annoyed when I discovered this book -- after all, I thought to myself, who can tell me what I can or cannot do? Never mind that I was overwhelmed with boatloads of conflicting information -- I didn't think ANYONE had the answers, and that it was necessary to try everything once. Well, thank God for Dr. Seligman. The book is a brilliantly simple yet deep exploration of the research available on treatments for various conditions -- and it turns out that there ARE answers available regarding what works and what doesn't. (And what you shouldn't even bother trying.) This book is a valuable resource for anyone trying to make sense of the self-help and treatment industries.

Dr. Seligman's book is helpful because it is balanced, covering both biological psychiatry and cognitive therapy. I like this book a lot. Anxiety, worry, depression, and unhappiness are big problems in the USA today. His suggestion that it is possible to achieve a moderate amount of progress toward happiness and better living is realistic. The only newer book in cognitive research and therapy that adds significantly to Dr. Seligman's classic overview is Dr. Norem's The Positive Power of Negative Thinking. A realistic approach to individual differences has improved my life, so I recommemd this approach to other readers.

This is a book that everyone should own. In this book, Dr. Seligman wades through the swamp of self-help, psycho-babble,new-age gurus, common-sense ideas that "everyone" knows , medical thought, etc, etc in order to discover- WHAT REALLY WORKS. Not what we wish would work, not what seems like it should work, not what common wisdom believes works but what in clinical trials of real people has been demonstrated to work. What percentage has been helped, what are the side-effects and has this help been long-term or transitory. It is extremely readable, instructive and down to earth. He addresses the current state of treatment for: Anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, obsessions, depression, anger, post-traumatic stress, sex, dieting, alcohol. For most of these topics I learned more in his one chapter than in the several books which I have read on them. If you are on a diet, about to begin a diet, or considering professional help in one of the areas above - please read the chapter in this book first. You will save yourself an incredible amount of time, money and heartbreak in the long run. It will also give you the best chance of actually solving the problem since you will be directed towards the most effective treatment right from the beginning of treatment rather than (hopefully) eventually finding it by trial and error. I only hope that Dr Seligman writes an updated version of this book sometime in the near future in order to keep up with new research findings.

I work with "at risk youth", kids in the foster care system, socially disadvantaged and many who have suffered abuse. I have often wondered how to help kids who suffer from depression, anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress, etc. This book is very helpful because it describes the world view that will give kids resiliency skills, and help them overcome the emotional difficulties they have. It also describes what can't be changed, and how to deal with those aspects of emotional disturbance, clinically. This book offers validity to what I have observed professionally. Mostly, it offers a practical means of knowing how to address the problems I encounter with the kids I work with, and how to teach the kids how to help themselves. Seligman offers a perspective that is based on science and Biological Psychiatry. It's about time psychology moved in this direction.

This is one of the most illuminating books I've read about how we came to be who we are and what our real prospects are for healing and change. Read it slowly, pausing to reflect on how each section might apply to you and those you know.

It should be noted that this book is almost 10 years old and should be read in light of subsequent developments in therapy and pharmacology. Since it was written, for example, newer drugs have become available, and EMDR has come into wide acceptance as a potent treatment for PTSD. Nevertheless, the postulates that the self-help industry continues to recite seem to have changed very little, and I don't know of anything new that would invalidate Seligman's basic findings.

I don't even remember how I came by this book, I've had it so long. As a former self-help junkie, I can say this book did more to get my head out of my you-know-where than all the others put together. Seligman shows that human beings have a wide range of "normal" in terms of our emotions. He shows how to acknowledge who we are and why we feel the way we do, and then learn how that emotional range helps us. So reasonable, and incredibly reassuring and helpful. This guy is no flash-in-the pan busy preening for the Oprah show. He is a realist. I wish I'd had this book when I was 21. Life would have been so much easier.

The author holds to scientific research data "somewhat" contradicting the prevailing notions of the self excellence literature. So you can't change too much after all.

Mr Seligman is a sort of contrarian in his writings. He likes voicing a separate standpoint. This makes for a good reading. His book on fighting depression with blaming every mishappening on outside world was a mixed blessing though. Effective but dangerous recipee - cures depression but then makes you self-indulgent and you stop your growth.