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Summary: wonderful book...filled with practical enlightenment
Review: Found Dr Seligman's research and explanations to be thorough and fascinating (a rare combination). After reading this book and taking the profile, I "changed" the way i think and I have passed this on to thousands of people in workshops and they "get it". Good strategies for thinkers of all ages....thanks, Dr Seligman...well-done!
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Summary: PRACTICAL ADVICE IS HARD TO FIND
Review: Learned Optismism is a different kind of book. In the past 10 years I've read at least 10 or 12 books that deal directly or indirectly with optimism. All of those books that I read about optimism frustrated me. Their advice dealt with "what to do", but not with "how to do it". Over and over again I heard: "be optimistic, because it will improve your life". None of them told how to be optimistic. "Learned Optimism" is different. It explains what makes people optimistic or pessimistic. It backs up that explaination with scientific experiments and statistics. It gives you a test to take to measure your level of optimism. And it provides methods to improve your level of optimism. I've read "Learned Optimism" three times, memorized and applied the techniques, given it to friends and tried to apply it to business. If you don't read this book, you are overlooking one of the best sources of wisdom available today.
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Summary: A book worth my time
Review: Many readers complain about length and too many merticulous details of the book. In fact, this book is written, in my view, not just for laypersons. It's also a scholastic book well known and cited by professional scientists. Some chapters can be read and understood by a person knowing nothing about psychological science. But it is not an simple book. The concepts in the book may seem simple and obvious to some readers. This is the nature of psychology --- seemingly "simple" and "obvious", like something known to everyone. but it is not so if a reader have a little bit education in the discipline. Seligman is not a fool to write a lengthy book about a trivia. The technical details in the book were presented in a simpliest form from professinal point of view. But the author probably like readers to know (and learn) how to think about the issues discussed in the book instead of just giving a few conclusions. Perssimists are suspicious people. A simple book without solid evidence may not have enough power to persuade them to give up their depressing thoughts.
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Summary: learned optimism
Review: I found the book to be difficult to read and comprehend (and I am fairly intelligent person). There is all kind of unnecessary detail about various psychology philosophies, stories about other psychologists nothing to do with the subject at hand, lots of anecdotes which again have nothing to do with the subject. There are self testing questionaires for "pessimism" which are useful. There is too much info described too bluntly for "self diagnosis" of severe depression and other personality traits which would, in my opinion, put an already depressed person into deeper depression rather than inspire him to seek help (I am not a psychologist but I am an MD). The section that actually deals with changing pessimism to optimism is only about 50 pages out of more than 300 page book. The gist of the book can perhaps be summarised in less than 10 pages. I did not find the book to be even readable (but I still read it).
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Summary: This Stuff Works
Review: I am a commercial real estate broker. Some years back, when I was involved in apartment rentals, and shortly after the first edition of the book was published, I decided, in an effort to enhance my production, to try the "Adversity-Belief-Consequences-Disputation-Energization" technique the author described. I was nothing short of amazed at the results. My production shot up! I had the two best months ever in the business. Perhaps luck was involved, but I have repeated the process numerous times over the years, particularly when I am suffering from an emotional lull, and invariably, something positive happens to me, in either my business or personal life. There is something almost eerie about this, and frankly if I didn't experience this myself, I doubt I would believe someone else recounting the same experience. I can only assume that by requiring you to LOGICALLY come up with reasons for thinking positively (rather than the b.s. along the lines of "I'm getting better and better every day")this manifests itself in small, subtle but detectible changes in your behavior. I highly recommend this book as a "thinking man's" self-help book, for people who are too well-educated to respond to meaningless self-talk.
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Summary: Seligman's principles are solid and effective.
Review: There's a reason this book is selling so well. Seligman has been able to whittle down the tremendous amount known about the subject into three fundamental principles. There is a test in the book so you can find out in what area you are weak. I did it, and so did my wife, and we both were able to pinpoint a specific change in our way of describing negative events to ourselves that really made a difference to both of us. The fact that Seligman narrows it down to a few very effective principles makes the material much easier to understand and apply. He doesn't try to tell you everything. He focuses on just what will make a difference. I'm the author of the book, Self-Help Stuff That Works, and I'm an expert on optimism, and this book is the one I recommend more often than any other. Seligman is a careful, conscientious scientist and his conclusions are rock-solid.
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Summary: Still a pessimist...
Review: I'm not dismissing this book altogether - it has some points of interest, but I fail to see how the findings of Dr. Seligman and others are as original or groundbreaking as he suggests. Too much of the book is devoted to descriptions of research methodology, various anecdotes and praise for colleagues. The few chapters on actually learning optimism amount to some rather generic techniques for keeping the right perspective and avoiding the negative. The fact of the matter is that we often lose sight of a few simple truths in life. It's more helpful to have them articulated to us in a way that resonates than to read about experimental design, who deserves credit for what and the science behind the obvious.
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Summary: Surprising and Convincing
Review: The thing that consistently surprised me about this book was the way that the author was able to provide extensive scientific verification for his claims. Most "self-help" books have anecdotal evidence at best to support their hypotheses. This book solidly supports its conclusions by means of numerous formal studies. Moreover, some of the material is very counter-intuitive. Attitudes one would have assumed were optimistic turn out to be pessimistic, and vice-versa. Seligman shows repeatedly where actual, testable predictions have been made based on his notions of optimism/pessimism, and the predictions have turned out to be well-founded. This requires careful, systematic definitions of terms, which he provides. Equally interesting was Seligman's analysis of the consequenses of optimism and pessimism, and his demonstration that optimism can be learned, with beneficial results that extend well beyond "feeling good." I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: you definitely will get something from this book
Review: this book is presented clearly and convincingly. and all the stories of the endeavors of some psychologists are very interesting as well. i like the author's questioning of the necessity of being pessimistic in human's evolution. the last few chapters, which focus on the actions to eliminate negative thoughts and pessimism, are useful but too brief. i'm looking forward for more elaboration from Dr. seligman's next work. in general, this is a solid book with a lot of insight and sincerity.
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Summary: The book inspirs to fight for yours and your kids' optimism
Review: The reading of this book itself alleviates one of the most difficult ailments to fight: depression. Until you know what it is from your own experience, it's hard to understand what depressed people feel. Dr.Seligman explains the nature and consequences of it from non-traditional (in my view)angle. He gives a hope to us and explains the ways we can help ourselves and our kids (which is even more important) to live a happier lives.
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