Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life Kindle Edition

I cannot say enough positive things about this book. In my opinion, most books in the mental health or "self-help" genre all follow the same outline and are filled with puffy catch phrases and overly simplistic (and I would argue- ineffective) ways to change your mental health positively. However, Dr. Seligman approaches how to change your outlook from pessimistic to optimistic from a scientific, tested, and clinical perspective. I know that doesn't sound appealing but hear me out.Most self-help books just tell you to smile more and give you a bunch of fluff and demand money for it- but Dr. Seligman and his decades of research can prove clinically how his methods work and how his methods for gaining an optimistic mindset can actually improve your quality of life and physical health. His countless experiments, research, teaching fellowships, and partnerships with some of the biggest names in Psychology have resulted in tangible and measurable proof for his theories and methods. No unmeasurable mysticisms or magic- actual evidence.I have read other books on mental health, but his book actually helped me and isn't just a money grab.Full Disclosure: Dr. Seligman began his research in the 70's. What scientists were allowed to do for experiments back then is obviously different then today and Dr. Seligman's Pavlovian experiments on dogs and rats would not necessarily be allowed today. I find such experiments deplorable, but don't let that dissuade you from reading this book and from benefiting from the knowledge gained. What's done is done and the information gained has been gained.

I had a very divided reaction to this book.The Pros:First of all, ‘learned helplessness’ is quite arguably one of the most important and revolutionary concepts in psychology today. It’s made a wonderful contribution to Aaron Becks’s Cognitive Therapy; cognitive behavioral therapy having an unmatched track record for its treatment of depression – an epidemic in our society today. As a result of his research, Seligman offers real, learnable, and proven effective techniques for learning to be more optimistic. It is certainly one of my favorite concepts in psychology.Furthermore, I love that he challenges the notion of the exponential rise in depression today as being a largely genetic phenomenon. I found this to be some very refreshing common sense. The unprecedented level of depression in this society today cannot be attributed to biology (or solely to biology) – something else is at work here. I don’t mean to say that there is no biological basis for depression – there most certainly is. However, it only makes sense that something in our society is going on, perhaps at times triggering particular genes on a wide scale, to create such an unprecedented level of depression. I found the last chapter to be very insightful where he examines radical individualism (he calls it the ‘Maximal Self’) as the source of depression from a more sociological position – an often overlooked source for depression in contemporary society.The three major hypotheses of explanatory style were also quite enlightening: 1) Mother’s Explanatory Style; 2) Adult Criticism: Teachers and Parents; and 3) Children’s Life Crisis. In addition to these hypotheses of explanatory style are the three essential aspects of explanatory style: permanence, pervasiveness and personalization.The Cons:While I did obtain some solid information/advice in this book, it has some problems and I believe Seligman has some holes in his argument.The main problem for me was that Seligman seemed to create too much of a mutually exclusive relationship between optimism and realism. One quote I found rather disturbing to illustrate my point: “The pessimist seems to be at mercy with reality, whereas the optimist has a massive defense against reality that maintains good cheer in the face of a relentless indifferent universe” (p. 111) – Sorry, Dr. Seligman, I may be misreading you, but you lost me here. While this was somewhat remedied toward the end of the book, it felt a little too inconsistent with the rest of the book’s tone.Tying into this, not only does Seligman not take nearly enough of a look at ‘false’ or ‘misguided’ optimism, he seems to – at times – endorse it. This is a serious problem that has not been examined adequately (I suspect that he generated a lot of empirical data, and was a little too eager to tailor his theory to fit in with this). Having spent some time in corporate America, I believe this false optimism is creating record levels of denial in our country, which seem to be extending at an alarming rate – all in the name of being more optimistic. Only towards the end of the book does he seem to write more about the perils of optimism with a brief section in the middle regarding depressives having a more accurate memory and owning up much more readily to both their failures and their successes rather than the optimists who tend to look upon the past through rose-colored glasses.In all fairness, he does write a little bit about the problem of a lack of personal responsibility today and how he has no interest in personally endorsing this kind of psychology. Again, I just didn’t feel like he spent enough time here.Lastly, on a minor note, I believe he is too overconfident in his beliefs why women suffer depression at a rate twice that of men. While this is an established statistic, there is much debate over what this statistic means exactly. Are women somehow biochemically or hormonally predisposed to depression? Perhaps. Or do they report it more readily than men? Do men hide their depression through substance abuse or other non-constructive outlets? – I believe Seligman is too simplistic here in his offered explanation.

The first several chapters discuss the history of positive psychology. I found this mostly irrelevant—yes, you want to have enough data to prove the author isn’t a quack, but in-depth, chapter-long discussion of Freud’s theories (and others’) isn’t necessary for that. Neither is a lengthy, detailed description of “learned helplessness” experiments performed on dogs, which follows. While I do realize that science conducts animal experiments, I prefer not to read about them—nor do I need to. I skipped over these parts. I really didn’t expect a self-help book to include something that upsetting, didn’t expect a positive psychology book to include something so depressing. If the book you bought for stress relief is causing you more stress, it’s undermining itself. Almost as if the author realizes that, he provides a short break on page 33 in the form of a quiz to see how pessimistic/optimistic you are. He asks you to score the quiz later and then moves on to another chapter about history. The quiz itself, when you do score it and read the results, is eye-opening and interesting. The author moves on to the topic of depression. After a questionnaire to determine how depressed the reader is and presenting some interesting info about a study on depression’s relatively recent and epidemic-level prevalence, the author discusses another animal experiment in learned helplessness and compares its results to depressed humans. The description of the experiment is brief; I just include the warning here for those (like me) who would prefer to skim (or skip) over this info. And then we’re back to history, and then a huge and very detailed narrative of a case study involving Met Life, the insurance company. Next, interesting findings… we’re on page 112 of this tiny-font book now, folks. Next come chapters about how children become optimists/pessimists, and how to assess their levels of optimism/pessimism and find out if they’re depressed, etc. Following that are stories about sports teams through the years, and how their levels of optimism/pessimism affected whether they won/lost. Same thing with various political candidates. We are now on page 208. And remember, the font is tiny, so those are a LONG 208 pages. The author now begins to talk about how to change from a pessimistic mindset to an optimistic one. The tools are great and I can honestly say they have helped my chronic pessimism and stress level. Next, the author waxes philosophical in presenting his views about how individualism has adversely affected the number of depression cases. His views on this, to me, are correct. Unless people can connect to something larger than themselves, they are bound to be depressed. Fortunately, he sees hope ahead. I believe that in one review a psychology professor stated he used this book as a textbook. I can see how it would be excellent for that, with its case studies and history lessons. How will you like this book? It depends on what you want to use it for. If you’re interested in the history of positive psychology and the research and case studies supporting its validity, there’s a ton of great info about that here. If you want a book that instantly gives you tools for self-help, you may want to look elsewhere, or just catch it on sale and skip to page 208—and be aware that the book isn’t entirely a self-help toolkit.

This is an excellent book written by world class authority on the psychology of depression and how to relieve its debilitating effects by adopting an optimistic attitude to life.At the beginning of the book he describes the experiments with dogs he undertook to prove that helplessness is a learned behaviour that can be unlearned which at the time was contrary to the prevailing view that depression was caused,in large part,due to defective genes or body chemistry or mysterious and deeply buried conflicts within the human psyche which would require years of Freudian psychoanalysis to uncover.Contrary to this Seligman demonstrates someone suffering depression has the power himself to unlearn his pessimism by adopting simple techniques that challenge his negative and painful views on life.By learning an optimistic view of life a pessimist will enjoy greater physical health,will be more successful and fulfilled and happier as a result.As someone who has suffered from depression for many years I highly recommend you read and study this book again and again.

I'm not sure how much I can add much that hasn't already been said.The Dr has spent his entire working life work in psychology, seemingly in the area of optimism. He has padded out most of the book with memoirs, almost, of how he reached his conclusions - the co-workers, the tests, the experiments (including using electric shocks on various lab animals, or not, in order to train them to be helpless, or not) - it covers 3 decades of his career.Large portions of it read like a history of science book, and it's often quite dry. The book could have been a quarter of the length really.But when he does offer something practical for someone looking to improve some aspect of themselves it gets good, in my opinion. The first really useful part (ch3?) is a fairly long questionnaire to determine your levels of optimism - a proper one with dozens of questions that you can't manipulate the outcome of. I turned out to be moderately pessimistic, which I could have guessed, but I feel it was properly determined.About five chapters discussing how he conducted his research follow, yawn. But it does all prove the book is based on real science - experiments, measurements, observation, and therefore credible evidence. Not BS with an expectation that you will just believe what he says.He suggests people who are pessimistic tend to assume that they have little control over all events in their lives, and look for evidence to support their view - i.e. they worry. Optimistic people tend to assume a degree of control, and don't place blame somewhere and leave it at that. i.e pessimistic people have learned, through experience, to be the way they are. Further more he suggests optimism can be learned through interpreting day to day events differently.Then begins with what I actually bought the book to find out. And what he describes seems to be reframing, as found in NLP. Properly tested by science however. He gives a five step method of using it to rework day to day issues and interactions, though it is equally applicable to old problems, bad memories and maybe whole life strategies.He suggests you practice using use this method with pen and paper five times over two days to get it fixed in your mind - after which it starts to become second nature. I find myself applying it in my head to get the best out of many situations daily.Time will tell whether this book changes my life, but two months after reading it I'm still working with it. I see that there is always more than one aspect to any event or human interaction than the obvious negative one, which gives me more leeway.

This book is very autobiographical in manner , really just a brain dump of the author's substantial ego, which I guess is why it's so long.

This is an enlightening book about the origin and pervasiveness of learned helplessness in modern Western society. It also provides a clear rationale and set of techniques for decreasing helplessness and improving ones optimism.Seligman advises that depression rates climb due to psychological and cultural factors: the overemphasised individual, the reduction of the commons. It doesn't take a Marxist to see this.More could be said on the evolutionary psychology of the topic - the discussion here is a bit sparse. This is a book which wants to create doers out of ruminators. Concepts are neatly wrapped in useful examples, not lengthy argumentation.Some of you may be considering this book in lieu of treatment for serious mental illness. It is not for that, as excellent as it is. This is a book of essential recipes: treatment and therapy provide the ingredients.

Seligman bridges the gap between scientific study and accessible self help, but don't misunderstand me, this is not yet another lightweight self help book. The methods and ideas in this book are backed up with evidence and research. So much of what we read about depression these days is based on anecdote and subjective experience with little regard for individual efficacy.The much argued cause(s) of depression seem to be falling into very separate camps, of which never the twain shall agree. The biochemists, the sociologist, the behaviouralists and spiritualists. Each is convinced it knows the causes of this pervasive affliction.In our recent past it was found that diseases like small pox, cholera and plague were not in fact punishments from God but caused by external pathogens. Since then appropriate treatments have been developed and luckily most of those diseases have now been all but iradicated in the western world. So then, Is it possible that Seligman has discovered the cause-all explanation for our depression epidemic in the guise of 'learned helplessness'? It's certainly an exciting prospect and personal experience would definitely supports it even if the research didn't.My only criticism would be that the techniques used to cure the pessimistic thoughts that lead to helplessness and depression are more or less standard CBT fare. Not to say they are ineffective but there are more comprehensive books out there on the subject.The chapters on individualism and meaninglessness are also highly resonant and my guess will be for many other readers too. The current approach for non chemical treatment of depression seems largely a band aid one. Exercise, sunlight, positive thinking etc. But it's very difficult to experience lasting happiness in this life without ascribing it to a deeper transcendent meaning. I'm glad Seligman brought this up.In all a good book for therapist and anyone interested in the subject of mental well being.