Oliver JamesAnmeldelser

Tõlge on ikka väga kohmakas :(
Raamat ise ... Sissejuhatus päris huvitav, nn ematüüpide lahtikirjtamine kipub venma ja läheb juba hirmsaks nämmutamiseks ja kordamiseks. Jätkan.

I picked this up thinking it would be useful next time I teach family communication - and it will be. James argues that personality and character are determined much more by environment than by genes, and cites seemingly valid research to back it up. He also points out that environmental variations can be subtle - for instance, it's not possible for first-born and later-born children to have the same experience of family life.

They F*** You Up may also be helpful in the gender & communication class, since students are always telling me that they and their siblings were treated exactly alike in their families, regardless of gender.

This is a pretty good book and I bought it cuz it wasn't too expensive but it's not quite what you might want in a Bowie biography there might be some other choices I would suggest.

Author feature 25 Bird of Berkeley - detailed, erudite and enlightening with lovely drawings.

The title was obviously peddling self-help bait and I got this feeling throughout that the author seemed to be using Bowie as a prop to explain psychological disorders (and it's also one-sided), which didn't sit well with me. But, still, you know - BOWIE.

I can sum up my emotions about this book in one word. Bilge!

James promises to provide evidence for all he writes and yet mistakes anecdotes for proof, and correlation for causation. I already believe in what he set out to say but he somehow manages to make such a mess of it I wanted to throw the book across the room. His basic premise is that we need to get away from constantly desiring new things, ie greed Capitalism. This is great, I wholeheartedly agree with him on this. However, he underpins his evidence of this by claiming that rich people are unhappy, and poor people are happy. This is a ridiculous generalisation for anyone to make, let alone a clinical psychologist. His evidence is endless, repetitive, anecdotal interviews with people that are clearly chosen because they back his viewpoint. I'm sure, given a few hours I could find rich people who are happy and poor people who are unhappy, yet magically he couldn't find any.

At the end of the book there is a section titled 'The Unselfish Capitalist Manifesto' where the book really takes a turn for the bizarre. It ends up being a 37 page tirade against specific Labour MP's and the party as a whole. I'm no fan of politicians in general but none of this ire is aimed at a Conservative MP. He stops just shy of telling people to vote for the Conservatives at the next election but only by the thinnest of margins. It felt as though he decided to use the space at the end of the book as a political campaign, justifying it by the most tenuous links possible to the premise of the book. From time to time I like to seek out books that oppose my viewpoints and they generally provide a few thinking moments or alter my thoughts about something. I think this is a good thing to do. Mental or physical debate to challenge your beliefs is ever more important in an age where we can surround ourselves in an echo chamber. However, this book almost made me go against something I strongly believe in because I hated it so much, and that is a first.

Fantastic, absolute classic and a must-read for anyone struggling with their past.

Having written about money and families in the past he now turns his attentions to the office, and the inter-personal relationships within an office,

For the first part of the book he identifies the three types of particularly nasty individual that you will encounter, the psychopath, the Machiavelli and the narcissists. He details how they will behave, and how to deal with them. The next part of the book looks at case studies of individuals and ties it in with how you can improve the way that you deal with these type of people.

He conclude with measure that you can take to improve your own skills in dealing with the people and pressures of a modern business world.

All of the books that I have read by Oliver James have been really interesting, cover all the aspects of the subject that he is writing about, and offer solutions for you. And this is no different.

Found this a confirmation of what I (and probably most people) had long suspected. Progression at work is less dependent on intelligence and diligence but more to do with fostering an impression or reputation through basically acting. The book is divided into two parts. The first deals with the types of people who you really need to avoid, what he calls 'triadic'. That is they exhibit a combination of the personality traits of the psychopath, the narcissist and the Machiavel. These are the ones that will happily trample on you to further themselves and not care one jot. And they can be pretty clever with it and difficult to spot, particularly if you are a non-Machieval sort yourself. The second part is a more general explanation of how office politics works in general and what you can do to make sure you are not a victim of it. A key part of this is being astute which appears to mean being able to read between the lines and determining what the intentions and motivations of others really are. You can be astute via two psychological processes one automatic and the other more deliberate. The first is fundamental and learned at an early age. The second is more complex and relies on you making a sequence of inferences to know what's what. Other skills include ingratiation, virtuosity and even 'dirty tricks'. The latter he gives as more a way of warning that it could happen to you rather than recommendation. These dirty tricks include blackmail, defamation, sabotage and deception. Much of the book explains the various methods of politicking via examples / case studies. In summary the book provides a good overview of office politics. It is not a simple thing to engage it as there are dangers with doing so, not least to your own mental health. Also, the author is quick to point out that there are many nuances to be aware of to be successful at it. This is not so much a 'how to' guide but more a 'how to survive and not be left behind' guide and it does this rather well.

I have such a catalogue of complaints about this book that it's hard to know where to start. It's not a great book to read as an expectant parent, as it's main gist, and the point that it labours to prove time and again, is that the first three years of a child's life are absolutely crucial to their development. They set the blueprint for almost everything that is to come, and hardwire in place patterns of behaviour that are incredibly hard to change in later life, however much one may want to. This is fairly consistent with what a lot of other recent research on child development seems to suggest, although many other researchers would perhaps not take this argument as far as James does. He argues that things long since thought to have a large genetic component, such as Schizophrenia, can be traced back to childhood treatment. He also, rather controversially, dares to suggest that other things that are widely regarded have a strong component of "nature" are actually more about "nurture" - like homosexuality and autism. I'm not sure that I agree with that, but that's not my main problem with the book.
On the one hand, as I say, he makes I strong case for the vital importance of the first three years, and has lots of case studies to draw on of people that have subsequently gone on to have very dysfunctional lives, after some early childhood bad parenting. But for those of us that would be good parents, there is very little description for what this bad parenting looks like. Just vague phrases about "uninvolved" styles, or "unempathetic". Also, words like that are usually followed by the word "mothering" rather than "parenting", after he explains early on that it is still the mothers that do the majority of early childcare. That may be so, but constantly using the word "mother" when firmly laying the blame at someone's doorstep is hardly helpful - it smacks of demonising a group of people that are embattled enough as it is. So, this book is useless if you are reading it in the hope of avoiding some of the pitfalls of bad parenting. It certainly doesn't offer any alternative models of what good parenting looks like either. And it is equally unhelpful when it comes to advising anyone whose first three years were less than optimal how to deal with that in later life. There is some advice about not blaming the parents and some wishy washy stuff about how to let go of anger and move on, but it feels ill thought out and unconvincing.
The real agenda of this book seems to be disproving the "nature" lobby that would put the blame of a lot of bad behaviour on the part of certain people down to "bad genes" rather than parenting, or social deprivation or societal norms or whatever. I thought that was a rather outdated mood of thought, but towards the end of the book he presents some rather chilling circumstantial evidence of how right wing thinkers in America and the UK use this line of thought to justify social inequality. However, if this book is meant as a answer to them, it feels muddled, as much of it is presented more like a self-help book (although, as I said, not a very helpful one). Having said that, it does have some interesting things to say about how parental behaviour differs towards siblings, and why that explains differences in sibling behaviour more than any genetic explanation (he seems to have a particular bee in his bonnet about those famous twin studies that look at similarities between identical twins, especially those separated at birth), and also, rather worryingly, how trauma can be passed on to children from parents unintentionally - so for example a traumatic event in a parent's life like the death of a close family member, can be transmitted to a young child. So there you are - even events entirely beyond your control can turn you into a bad mother. But what can you do about it, that's my question???½

Some was good: explanation of underlying theories.
More was bad. The rest was nothing new except the 'hugger' and the 'organiser', and while this viewpoint can help us understand common traits in ourselves as parents, Oliver is trying to get square pegs into round holes - you simply cannot class all activities as a parent into these two poles, or put them on a continuum between. So the concept comes across as a little confused sometimes.
This book is also rather smug and preachy, particularly when wrong.
As a pre-baby book, probably quite good if you are similar to one of the two 'types' described, but if you've read other books, you might see this in a similar light to me.

James gropes towards an interesting thesis but ends up losing it in a sludge of boring anecdotal research (some of which is so obviously unrepresentative as to be pointless - how many psychotic criminal billionaires do you meet every day?) and off colour colloquialisms. Instead he finds truisms. Materialism is bad for you. Unrestrained capitalism breeds materialism. If he had truly examined the link (if there is one) between capitalism and societal neurosis, and thought deeply about just how we have got ourselves into this state, he might have had something new to say.

Instead this book is just a vehicle for his 60s style psychoanalytical homilies and nurture-over-nature polemics, all served up with some warmed over pieties about how the first three years of life lay the basis for everything that comes afterwards. With some frankly embarrassing political prescriptions for dessert.

By Salma Tantawi from http://www.Cairo360.com

Finally a straightforward book tells parents the blunt truth about why their naughty kids behave the way they do: it’s the parents’ fault! Known for his strong opinions on parenting and child psychology, author Oliver James follows his last book They F*** You Up with a new release that is bound to incite similar controversy.

How Not to F*** Them Up presents a new take on how to deal with the constantly demanding psychosocial drama that is modern parenting. The author has first-hand experience in the topic; and his personal anecdotes make for an insightful read compared to the average parenting book that is heavy on studies and advice. The author recounts his messed-up childhood, how he would be left crying on the street for hours unattended, and how his mother blamed him for her inability to return to work.

This brings the author to the main point of the book; James believes that mothers of toddlers less than three years old should not work outside their homes, nor should they hire help to take care of their kids. Not only do the mother’s choices affect her child; but every mother has a maternal persona that unavoidably controls how she treats her baby. The book narrows them down to three types that are thoroughly discussed.

Interestingly, the author attempts to explain his opinion from a child’s perspective, and describes what children see and expect their parents to do, and how the parents will have no problem meeting those demands if they alter their methods. That being said, the author makes a point of stressing that all families are different, so the same methods may not work for everyone.

How Not to F*** Them Up raises some valid points about the effect of a parent’s behaviour on a child’s development, while providing solutions to make parenting an easier job. However, as with other similar self-help books, one can’t help but wonder if such books have all the magical solutions that they promise, wouldn’t raising a child be an easy process by now?

This book has some really wholesome ideas that we all need to hear now and again. It reminds us that we aren't defined by the brand of our shoes, the cost of our watch and the postcode we live in, it reminds us to be grateful for our abundant lives. However, somewhere around 2/3 of the way through James starts on a diatribe about day care and I start to understand his assumption is that we all work for money, that people using day care must only be doing it because they want more possessions - what about the satisfaction of working hard at work that fulfills you, and at the end of the day sharing some moments of that with your children, hoping that they too will grow up and find such satisfaction. I had to stop reading at this point. He has a series of interviews that become increasingly disturbing as he categorises people and sums up their menial existance from his higher plane of knowledge. I wouldn't profess to know a person so well that I can judge them that way, at least I try to remember not to, James should too.

dreadful

You could sum up most that is of any value in this book with that bon mot from Life's Little Instruction Book: "no-one said, on their deathbed, 'I wish I'd spent more time at the office'."

The first problem, of many, I have with Oliver James' Affluenza is that, for all the weight of scientific research he claims to have done, none of it is advanced in support of the existence of this thing called Affluenza in the first place. James states it as a bare fact - in fact, rather less than that: he includes a questionnaire designed to determine whether you have Affluenza, and then launches into an idiosyncratic monologue of anecdotes which he seems to regard as having the effect of revealing eternal verities.

The questionnaire doesn't give you much chance of not having the disease: answering in the affirmative to any one of the 16 statements he poses (grammarians and lawyers note: it's a disjunctive test) consigns you to infection. Given the statements include such outrages to public decency as "I would like to be admired by many people" and "my life would be better if I owned certain things I don't have now" it is difficult to see who, other than a misanthropic Trappist monk, wouldn't be "infected".

Other than Chet, a diabetic, malnourished, disenfranchised, frequently-mugged, misleadingly youthful-looking, church-going, taxi-driving New York immigrant, whom James has credulously (or, more likely, apocryphally) interviewed in the course of his travels.

Chet (who would never cheat on his wife, James confidently assures us) sounds almost too good to be true, as indeed do his "negative" New York examples, multi-millionaire broker Sam (who sounds like he stepped straight out of Wall Street) and Consuela, whom James admits reminds him of the "affluent young Manhattan women described in Jay McInerney's sharply observed novel "Story of My Life". You can't help the feeling James has been swept away by the literature a little.

Affluenza thereafter quickly settles down into a hair-shirt-adulating moan.

In part 3, after some 400 pages of injudiciously edited anecdotes, James takes the gloves off and, he warns the reader, gets "personal". It is quite tempting for a reviewer to do the same - this is, after all, a solution to the modern world's woes from the pen of an obviously angry, Eton-educated psychology graduate whose own aspirations for attention, fame and success seem transparent. In any case this is a book of politics and not pop psychology as it purports to be. James' target is "Selfish Capitalism" and prescriptions such as "reject much of the status quo" have more than a hint of the socialist workers' party leafleteer about them. What riles James, I suspect, is that, given a choice between "spiritually happy" impecunious violent disenfranchisement (the Chet model) and "spiritually barren" materialistic, godless life of sterile consumerism (Sam and Consuela), most people would squarely opt for the latter. And who could blame them: a small sprinkling of philosophical self-reflection leavens naked materialism in a way it tends not to compensate for the effects of violence and lack of access to health, education and justice. In fairness, James doesn't think so: he says, rather presumptuously drawing his readers' conclusions for them, "if you met them both I would be very surprised if you preferred to be Sam rather than Chet")

On the other hand, by the same assertion, James acknowledges that most people (being his readership) already do have this sense of self-reflection. If it is true that they would not like or relate to the cardboard figure of Sam precisely as James has cut him out (and as mentioned, I can't help thinking Sam's outline has been exaggerated) then Sam isn't a symptom of modern life, but an anomaly in it. As it happens, I've worked in the investment banking industry for a decade, and the only character I've come across who even vaguely resembles Sam is Gordon Gekko, and he was a figment of Oliver Stone's imagination.

When it comes down to it, what we have here is a fabulous hook: the name "Affluenza" is an inspired bit of marketing, and the initial premise - that over the last two or three decades our asset-rich/time-poor lives have got themselves out of perspective does resonate (I've hacked this review out on a blackberry on the tube on my way to work - you have to be very disciplined!). I dare say many of us would happily re-trade that equation if we could figure out how, but all the same, our lives are still richly fulfilled in other (non materialistic) perspectives. When you get down to the execution: James' love of anecdote, his badly disguised fifth-form socialist agenda and his laboured prose, the tendency to flip pages becomes hard to resist.½

I picked up Affluenza on a whim on a visit to my local Waterstones, yes I do still visit bricks and mortar bookshops, and although I had heard of Oliver James before, I knew very little about him or what to expect.

First off - I finished the book. This is not true of every book I start reading, especially trendy sociological stuff like this. However this is an easy read with plenty of interesting insights.

The book explores the effects of the consumer society on various aspects of our lives and in a variety of societies around the world. At the end of each chapter there are suggested vaccines to protect ourselves against the Affluenza virus.

Many of the examples given throughout the book ring true both from my own experiences and from watching those around me at home and at work. Some of the science and statistics offered to back up the arguments in the book required a bit of taking at face value, but I did find myself agreeing with most most of the main points made.

There's a chapter at the end where he warns that he is going to get unrestrained in his suggestions for longer term political solutions to Affluenza and much of this seemed naive and out of touch to me but your mileage may vary.

You probably going to pick up a book like this because you are already pre-disposed to agree with the arguments it is likely to make and this was certainly true in my case. If on the other hand you hold very different views of why the world is the way it is, as I know some of my friends do, then you will probably find this book really annoying!

Rating: 4 out of 10

I've been meaning to read this for a while, and now that I have I'm really impressed. Perhaps the fact that I don't think I suffer too badly from Affluenza helps! Affluenza, James suggests, is an epidemic sweeping the English speaking world. It consists of an obsession with 'keeping-up-with-the-Joneses', excessive consumerism (buying stuff because you 'want' it instead of because you 'need' it), the need for increased wealth (beyond what you need), property fever - all leading to depression, anxiety and addictions.

Traveling the world's affluent cities (London, New York, Singapore etc) James interviews people who do and don't suffer from Affluenza, and tries to discover what makes some people more or less prone to the virus. He then goes on to suggest remedies, such as paying parents to look after their children (instead of forcing them back to work), teaching that it is not necessary to be rich and beautiful to be happy and how being playful, vivacious and authentic helps.

As someone he interview suggests, society is becoming populated by Tin Men from the Wizard of Oz - hollow inside.

I would have liked to have seen more interviews with normal citizens, instead of the stream of millionaires that he visited; and I'm not sure the very vicious attack on the Blairite government was completely necessary - I'd imagine that most governments (of all flavours and in all times) would have mucked it up just as they did (and do).

A fascinating read, certainly made me think about materiality, and asking myself do I 'need' or 'want' that?

I recently heard a term I found interesting: nuffism, the philosophy of getting by with enough and no more. In a way, this fits with my own beliefs, though I also believe in living comfortably and in widening horizons, both of which can cost a lot of money. Nonetheless, I, like many of my generation, am stifled by the desperation of mass consumerism and one-upmanship, and often seek ways to make escaping that possible in my everyday life.

That's why I picked up this book. I was looking for a discussion on the issues tied in with our consumerist society, as well as some pointers to perhaps avoid said issues. I was not disappointed. Between the covers are some fascinating studies into the prevalance of depression and anxiety across the world, and how these appear to be connected to the communal lifestyle and mindset of individual nations. From the US to Japan to Denmark (which is a place in which I'd now very much like to live!), the reader can see what works, what doesn't, and why we are so messed up.

This is certainly an interesting read. The style is, of course, very academic, but the information is worth absorbing if you can bring yourself to do so.½

Very interesting concept, but I couldn't get far into this book as I found the large narrative paragraphs just too dry and formal for my reading. Lots of examples of people who are depressed because of the way our modern society lives - quite depressive reading the first couple of chapters.

shelved in HT Green Library - by Reception - Monograph Library (R)

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Acknowledgments
Contents
Preface
Introduction
1. Our Genes
2. Scripting Our Family Drama
3. Scripting Our Conscience, Aged Three to Six
4. Scripting Our Relationship Patterns In Our First Three Years
5. Scripting Our Sense of Self In Our First Six Months
6. Be Your Own Scriptwriter
Conclusion
Appendix 1: The Dubiousness of the Minnesota Twins Reared-Apart Study
Appendix 2: Twin Studies – A Warning
Appendix 3: Estimates of the Environality of Human Psychology from Twin Studies
Notes and References
Index

CURRENTLY READING. Will come later...