How to Be Your Own Best Friend
Newman, Mildred, Bernard Berkowitz, and Jean Owen. 1986. How to Be Your Own Best Friend. Ballantine Books.
Rating:
6
Review:
This is another self-help book that I received from my wife’s grandmother’s library when she passed away. The book is thin and fairly small, making it a short read (about 40 minutes total). It is set up as a dialogue between a psychotherapist and a patient or perhaps journalist. Before I go any further I should mention that I read the 1971 version rather than the 1990 version, so obviously things are going to be a bit different. With that in mind, the criticisms I have about the book may no longer apply.
First, the criticism…
This book was written during the time period in which the American Psychological Association still recognized homosexuality as a disorder. In this edition of the book it is seen as such and used as an example of people that can change if they really want to. I’m assuming that homosexuality isn’t seen as a disorder in the newer editions, but, you’ll just have to read it to find out I guess.
The second criticism was the format of the book. Though I recognize it as a tactical device to sell you on the philosophy of the book, the dialogue between the patient/journalist and the psychotherapist is a bit too contrived to be of any real use. The questions asked are very leading and leading in a direction that is always favorable to the answer the psychotherapist has. At the end of the book the questioner admits that they are ‘convinced’ of the correctness of the philosophy of the book. Please. That kind of stuff never happens in psychotherapy, but it is a good sales tactic – we convinced this person in the book, we should be able to convince you. To make it an even better sales tactic they should have the questioner in the book be a nameless business-world kingpin, or Larry King, or some other hard-nosed reporter, someone that the reader of the book can identify as being very astute and not easily persuaded (not that any of the examples I gave necessarily are). That would work even better.
Third criticism, some times the information is presented as though there is some state of happiness that can be attained. Now, call me cynical, but I don’t know that I buy into the ‘state of happiness’ theory anymore. I used to think that people could ‘arrive at’ a state of happiness, but I’m just not that sure anymore. However, this review isn’t supposed to be a place where I propose my own theories, so I’ll just have to write my own book on that topic I guess.
Last criticism. As psychotherapists the authors should know that they can’t solve people’s problems by having them read books. Psychotherapy involves a lot more than that (I’m not an expert, but a degree in psychology and a year working in a mental institution should be worth something).
Now that I have offered my criticisms, I must admit that the book is very insightful. It is traditional psychotherapy to the fullest extent. There is a lot of talk about exploring childhood problems and overcoming the damage that they did to you. The discussion is very persuasive at times and I found a lot of the advice to be very insightful. Like I said before, I read the 1971 edition so things may have changed quite a bit, but I’ll give you some of the quotes I really liked anyway…
Q. Accept the messiness and the mistakes? But I thought the point was to stop making them.
A. If you do, you’ll be the only one. (p. 83)
Q. But what if you can’t manage everything you’d like to do – few of us can – and you have to make choices? When does doing good things for yourself become pure self-indulgence?
A. Doing what makes you feel good about yourself is really the opposite of self-indulgence… It does mean being self-centered enough to care for yourself and to take care of yourself. If you don’t learn how to do that, you can never care properly for others. (p. 35)
Overall, there are a lot of great insights in this book. The reason I rate is as low as I do is because of a fundamental disagreement about happiness and also because of the manipulative format (I’m assuming their views on homosexuality have changed, if not, then it should get a zero). Perhaps things have changed in later editions. If so, great for the authors and I hope someone posts a response to this review letting me know that.