The Road Less Travelled by M. Scott Peck

This episode is a discussion of M. Scott Peck's bestseller, The Road Less Traveled. Here is a summary from Wikipedia:

The Road Less Traveled, published in 1978, is Peck's best-known work. It is a description of the attributes that make for a fulfilled human being, based on his experiences as a psychiatrist and a person.  In the first section of the book Peck talks about discipline, which he considers essential for emotional, spiritual and psychological health, and which he describes as "the means of spiritual evolution". The elements of discipline that make for such health include the ability to delay gratification, accepting responsibility for oneself and one's actions, a dedication to truth and balancing. In the second section, Peck considers the nature of love, which he considers the driving force behind spiritual growth. The section mainly attacks a number of misconceptions about love: that romantic love exists (he considers it a very destructive myth), that it is about dependency, that true love is not "falling in love".', it is a feeling. Instead "true" love is about the extending of one's ego boundaries to include another, and about the spiritual nurturing of another. The final section describes Grace, his concept of a force originating outside human consciousness that nurtures spiritual growth in human beings. 

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Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Myers

In this episode, we discuss Gifts Differing by Isabel Briggs Myers & Peter B. Myers. Here is a summary of the book from Amazon:

Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type is a well-known book, written by Isabel Briggs Myers with Peter B. Myers, which describes the insights into the psychological type model originally developed by C.G. Jung as adapted and embodied in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test. The book explains the many practical applications of this typological model using four categories of psychological type differences - Extraversion / Introversion; Sensing / Intuition; Thinking / Feeling; Judging / Perceiving. The book also suggests how different combinations of these characteristics tend to influence the ways people perceive the world and how they both respond to and interact with it. Type tables show how type preferences tend to correlate with occupational interests. Profiles of the sixteen types also suggest how people of each type tend to act and relate to people with other type dynamics. Every year over 2.5 million people take the MBTI assessment and it has become the most widely used personality questionnaire in history. Over 150,000 copies of Gifts Differing have been sold. 



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Authentic Happiness by Martin Seligman

In this episode, we're discussing Martin Seligman's influential positive psychology book, Authentic Happiness. Here is the book's summary from Amazon.com:

A national bestseller, Authentic Happiness launched the revolutionary new science of Positive Psychology—and sparked a coast-to-coast debate on the nature of real happiness.

According to esteemed psychologist and bestselling author Martin Seligman, happiness is not the result of good genes or luck. Real, lasting happiness comes from focusing on one’s personal strengths rather than weaknesses—and working with them to improve all aspects of one’s life. Using practical exercises, brief tests, and a dynamic website program, Seligman shows readers how to identify their highest virtues and use them in ways they haven’t yet considered. Accessible and proven, Authentic Happiness is the most powerful work of popular psychology in years. 

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On Becoming A Person by Carl Rogers

Psychology enthusiasts from around the world meet on Skype to talk about Carl Rogers' great book On Becoming A Person. Here is the book's description from Amazon.com:

In this book one of America's most distinguished psychologists describes his experiences in helping people to discover the path to personal growth through an understanding of their own limitations and potential. What is personal growth? Under what conditions is it possible? How can one person help another? What is creativity, and how can it be fostered? These are some of the issues raised, which challenge many concepts of traditional psychology.

Contemporary psychology derives largely from the experimental laboratory, or from Freudian theory. It is preoccupied with minute aspects of animal and human behaviour, or with the mentally ill. But there are rebels, of whom the author counts himself as one, along with Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May, who feel that psychology and psychiatry should be aiming higher, and be more concerned with growth and potentiality in man. The interest of such a psychology is in the production of harmoniously mature individuals, given that we all have qualities and possibilities infinitely capable of development. Successful development makes us more flexible in relationships, more creative, and less open to suggestion and control.

This book, philosophical and provocative, summarizes Dr Rogers' experience.Non-technical in its language, it is not only for psychologists and psychiatrists, but for teachers and counsellors, religious and social workers, labour-management specialists and anyone interested in 'becoming'. 

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An Introduction to the Psychology Book Club

This short episode is a discussion we had during our first Skype conversation. Psychology enthusiasts from around the world talk about the aims of the book club and what some of the main participants would like to get from their involvement. It gives an overview of what this podcast is all about. Hope you enjoy it!

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