SALE ON THAMES & HUDSON SHOW ME MORE
Daniel M. Wegner, PhD, until his death in 2013, was the John Lindsley Professor of Psychology in Memory of William James at Harvard University. Prior to joining the Harvard faculty in 2000, Dr. Wegner was the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Psychology at the University of Virginia. His research was funded by the National Science Foundation and by the National Institute of Mental Health. A 1996-1997 Fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Dr. Wegner was also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a recipient of the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science, the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, the Distinguished Scientist Award from the Society of Experimental Social Psychology, and the Donald T. Campbell Award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.
A not especially enlightening investigation into why it is so difficult to control frightening, embarrassing, or repellent thoughts and emotions, and how they affect mind and body. Wegner (Psychology/Trinity Univ.) starts out with an experiment in which he asked test subjects, who had been told not to think about a white bear, to talk about everything that came to mind and to ring a bell every time a white bear intruded on their consciousness. The bell rang an average of six times in five minutes. Wegner goes on to review past and present theories - amplified by his own experience - on suppression of and self-distraction from unwanted thoughts and emotions. We learn that William James and other early psychologists were all wet in contending that will power can control mind and emotions. Later research showed that self-distraction works only slightly better than suppression (virtually useless) and only when it involves activities or mental work that are inherently engrossing. Confronting unwanted memories, especially traumatic ones following a bereavement or accident, has proven the most effective coping method. Without such replay, obsessions, depression, and phobias may develop with concomitant physical symptoms: accelerated heartbeat, sleep difficulties, compulsive behavior, etc. Although Wegner writes engagingly, and assiduously mines the literature on his subject, the sum content of useful information here is scanty, predictable, and disappointing. (Kirkus Reviews)
