People in Quandaries: The Semantics of Personal Adjustment

Rating:
Summary: Dangerous Expectations
Review: In "People in Quandaries," the speech pathologist Wendell Johnson describes the causes and effects of the IFD cycle. In this series of reactions, I, unrealistic expectations and ideals, lead to F, frustrations, which discourage us, and may delude us with even less realistic expectations or ideal; the IFD can quickly become viciously circular.

Probably the IFD cycle affects almost everyone to some degree: who doesn't have some ultimately frustrating expectations? But instead of letting our frustrations discourage or delude us, we can and should learn from them; some mistakes may prove worth making for the sake of the discoveries they lead to.

"People in Quandaries" includes some semantic exercises with which we can learn how to learn; by recognizing the limitations of our expectations and language, we can learn to see beyond them.

Rating:
Summary: Accessable General Semantics
Review: In People in Quandaries, Wendell Johnson presents Korzybski's system of general semantics in an engaging and easily followed way. He takes a step by step approach to explaining the formulations so that someone with no prior knowledge of the system can understand it. Johnson concentrates on applying the system to solving personal problems, and has produced one of the best 'self help' books ever written.