Overview

Do you see the past through a rosy filter that makes it seem like Paradise Lost? Are you convinced that traffic lights always turn red for you? Do you have to win (so as not to lose)? After extricating yourself from a bad relationship, do you find another partner just like the previous one? If so, congratulations! You have the makings of an unhappiness expert. With the techniques in this book, you can raise yourself to the genius level. A word of warning, however. Along the way you may begin to ask yourself, ""How did I manage to turn myself into my own worst enemy?"" Fortunately, this tongue-in-cheek (but serious) volume takes a look at that question too. Special attention is given to such topics as ""Four Games with the Past,"" ""Self-fulfilling Prophecies,"" and ""Why Would Anybody Love Me?"" Those who believe that the search for happiness will eventually lead to happiness will find much to ponder in the section ""Beware of Arriving."" All readers will be both amused and startled to find themselves in these pages, but there is a special delight and enlightenment for therapists and counselors. Although the author does not officially admit it, the book is one complex ""symptom prescription,"" a therapeutic double bind as described and practiced by him and his colleagues.

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9780393310214

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Reviews

A therapist/sage's ironies re the mechanisms for the pursuit of unhappiness - situated somewhere between Dan Greenburg's parodies (most recently, How to Avoid Love and Marriage, p. 929) and R.D. Laing's airy dialogues. The true genius of negation, writes Watzlawick, (How Real Is Real? etc.), rejects not only what other people recommend, but even what he himself considers the best decision. Such persons find, in the past, more of the same (hence neurosis - and lengthy psychoanalysis). They not only create problems, they avoid problems for the purpose of their perpetuation (pickpockets, exhaust fumes, incandescent fragments of American or Soviet space satellites ). They are prey to self-fulfilling prophecies ( others are whispering behind our backs ) - and expert at not arriving. ( Not even revenge is sweet. ) That brings us to the baroque hell of human relationships : the communication on two levels ( Would you like to take me to the airport this morning? ); the demand for spontaneous behavior (parents' demand for a smiling countenance, anyone's equation of sadness with depression); the why would anybody love me? syndrome; the suspicion of one's own unselfish behavior. In sum: the zero-sum game. Why is it so difficult for us to realize that life is a non-zero-sum game? That we can both win so long as we are not obsessed with the need to defeat the partner so as not to be defeated by him? That we can just as well construct our own happiness out of such qualities as fairness, tolerance, and trust. The situational dynamics are often as Watzlawick portrays them - and no one would disparage such qualities. But without the humor that induces rueful self-recognition, or the philosophical elegance that commands respect, this is a heavy-handed, satirical approach to a positive outlook. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

Paul Watzlawick was an associate at the Mental Research Institute, Palo Alto, and clinical professor in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, Stanford University Medical Center. An internationally known psychologist, Watzlawick died in 2007.

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