Your Own Worst Enemy: Understanding the Paradox of Self-Defeating Behavior
From Publishers Weekly
While many of us may practice self-defeating behavior, most of us --contrary to conventional wisdom--don't really harbor a secret death wish, avers psychotherapist Berglas (The Success Syndrome ) and research psychologist Baumeister. Observing that self-defeating acts can take myriad and devious forms, they compile numerous examples of how people create their own obstacles. Berglas and Baumeister buttress their list of self-sabotaging mechanisms with references to such memorable self-defeaters as Greta Garbo and Gary Hart. More descriptive than prescriptive, their approach may seem inadequate to readers who are looking for a blueprint for change. Nevertheless, the authors clearly demonstrate the insidious ways that people defeat themselves, and drive home the point that people's failure to achieve long-term goals often results from their choosing short-term pleasures instead.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Most understandable to those who have done upper-level or graduate work in psychology and/or counseling, this book seeks to explain how and why people act in ways antithetical to their well-being. Berglas (clinical psychology, Harvard Medical Sch.) and Baumeister (psychology, Case Western Reserve) postulate that self-defeating behavior may be a form of coping mechanism to avoid the responsibilities that success affords. Both authorities in the field--Berglas wrote Self-Handicapping (Plenum, 1990), and Baumeister, Masochism and the Self (Erlbaum, 1989)--they point out that self-defeat may take many forms, i.e., procrastination, drug abuse or overdose, interpersonal abuse, or failure to follow directions. A more sophisticated adjunct to Judith Sills's Excess Baggage: Getting Out of Your Own Way ( LJ 12/92), this is recommended for academic and comprehensive public collections.
- Scott Johnson, Meridian Community Coll. Lib., Miss.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Description
Most people would agree that a basic human goal is to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. Yet people constantly seem to sabotage that very goal. This is a probing look at what lies beneath our surprising inclination to seize defeat from the jaws of victory.
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