Written with the compassion, verve, and style that are the author's trademark, this book offers an invaluable overview on...
The 1993 publication of Kramer’s Listening to Prozac set off a controversy about the use of mind-altering drugs in the treatment of mental illness that has still to be resolved, a situation the author finds deplorable.
Now, almost a quarter century later, Kramer (Brown Medical School; Freud: Inventor of the Modern Mind, 2006, etc.) explains that he had not intended to debunk the value of antidepressants in the treatment of depression. His book not only became a bestseller, turning him into a minor celebrity, but its catchy title was used in broadsided attacks on antidepressants with which he did not agree—e.g., a 1998 article called “Listening to Prozac but Hearing Placebo.” The author’s concern had been the possibility that the drugs’ mind-altering side effects might be used “to tweak” personality—though he admits to having enjoyed the celebrity status that came with the book’s publication. In his own psychiatric practice, Kramer finds that psychotherapy and antidepressants both have important roles to play in combating depression. The interplay between them is the subject of an ongoing discussion between himself and his patients as they jointly evaluate the success of treatment. “This book is about two influences on medical practice,” he writes, “rigorous trials and clinical encounters.” Kramer worries that overemphasis on rigorous trials and statistical analysis of outcomes is eroding the doctor-patient relationship, not allowing for a more flexible, case-by-case approach to treatment. “A tiny fraction of what doctors do finds direct representation in research,” he writes. While the efficacy of antidepressants combined with psychotherapy is well-established, how long to maintain their use following recovery is still under debate. It is a question of achieving a balance between preventing the recurrence of depression and side effects such as the occurrence of cataracts and lowered calcium absorption.
Written with the compassion, verve, and style that are the author's trademark, this book offers an invaluable overview on the state of treatment and the options available.Pub Date: June 7, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-374-28067-3
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: March 27, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2016
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.
A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.
“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.
These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.Pub Date: May 27, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1
Page Count: 288
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.
A follow-on to the author’s garbled but popular 48 Laws of Power, promising that readers will learn how to win friends and influence people, to say nothing of outfoxing all those “toxic types” out in the world.
Greene (Mastery, 2012, etc.) begins with a big sell, averring that his book “is designed to immerse you in all aspects of human behavior and illuminate its root causes.” To gauge by this fat compendium, human behavior is mostly rotten, a presumption that fits with the author’s neo-Machiavellian program of self-validation and eventual strategic supremacy. The author works to formula: First, state a “law,” such as “confront your dark side” or “know your limits,” the latter of which seems pale compared to the Delphic oracle’s “nothing in excess.” Next, elaborate on that law with what might seem to be as plain as day: “Losing contact with reality, we make irrational decisions. That is why our success often does not last.” One imagines there might be other reasons for the evanescence of glory, but there you go. Finally, spin out a long tutelary yarn, seemingly the longer the better, to shore up the truism—in this case, the cometary rise and fall of one-time Disney CEO Michael Eisner, with the warning, “his fate could easily be yours, albeit most likely on a smaller scale,” which ranks right up there with the fortuneteller’s “I sense that someone you know has died" in orders of probability. It’s enough to inspire a new law: Beware of those who spend too much time telling you what you already know, even when it’s dressed up in fresh-sounding terms. “Continually mix the visceral with the analytic” is the language of a consultant’s report, more important-sounding than “go with your gut but use your head, too.”
The Stoics did much better with the much shorter Enchiridion.Pub Date: Oct. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-525-42814-5
Page Count: 580
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: July 30, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2018
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