Healthy Living Books Books

Rating: - Very Interesting but not that well written
This is a great book. If you're interested in human behaviour and psychology this is a great book for you to read. The downside to the book is that he trys to use words used in psychology in the book to make it sound better. But it actually does the opposite - makes it sound worse. If you think you can get past all the words that he uses then buy it, if you don't think you can then don't.
But to round up the book is very interesting and has great concepts. I highly recommend it if you think you can get past all the words.

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Rating: - Excellent concepts, poorly written
The concepts behind this book are excellent, and easy to relate to, however the book is written very poorly. It uses too many technical terms and unless you've studied psychology, it's very hard to follow.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, IF you can get past the complex sentences and the extensive usage of technical terminology, otherwise NO if you want an easy to understand bedtime read!

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Rating: - Enlightening easy read, on the beginning of a complex subject.
Enlightening easy read, on the beginning of a complex subject. Shines a light on all those social niceties and pointless interactions. The roles played by each person in their daily script. Combines the psychological insights with the added bonus of incidental humor.

Whilst reading through this on the train, I could identify what games were going on around me, most amusing.

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Rating: - A practical guide to self and others
Watch out! You'll see your relatives in this book - or perhaps it's just mine. I'll leave myself out of it. It's a bit like 'The Dog Whisperer' except for people - we see behaviour in a new light. It's not science, exactly, but an intelligent and coherent interpretation of human motivations.

This is a guide to human behaviour which is accessible to the non-specialist and can be used to improve oneself and one's understanding of others. The games we play (Dawkins would classify these as a type of meme, I think) are potentially destructive of human relationships and happiness. Seeing the games in others, and hopefully in oneself, it should be possible to avoid at least some of the pitfalls of human relationships. I'd introduce it as a subject at secondary school and in parenting classes.

Later writers following in Berne's footsteps have gone on to dicuss the idea of 'life scripts' which emerges from Berne's approach.

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Rating: - Ahead of its time? Too self-assured...
Eric Berne, post-Freudian psychoanalyst and creator of "Transactional Analysis".

It's fair to say that his theories on social interactions (rituals, pastimes and games as he referred to them) were both interesting and fairly applicable to real world situations, however like Freud, Berne is so self-assured in his own writing tha his book becomes less of a theoretical perspective on social psychology, but a dogmatic text. I also interpreted some latent sexism, but that could just be my reading of the text.