Book Review: Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges 2nd Edition by Steven Southwick and Dennis Charney

Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges 2nd Edition by Steven Southwick and Dennis Charney

By now most of our readers are well aware that we have read and reviewed many books on psychology.  Perhaps one could say we are amateur psychologists.

We were sent an advanced reading copy of Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges 2nd Edition by Steven Southwick and Dennis Charney (Available 3 May 2018) to review and we have to say we found it to be very interesting.

This book is a fairly easy read like many pop psych books, but it is loaded with information like a psychology textbook.  It is kind of the best of both worlds.

Resilience is very well-referenced. The book references scores of peer-reviewed articles, as well as books and interviews. We give it all five stars.

If you are interested in why some people break during or after a traumatic event and others don’t, you may find Resilience to be insightful.  We think this would make a great resource for psychology classes that deal in PTSD and other conditions.

We were sent a complimentary Advanced Reading Copy of this book.  We are under no obligation to write any review, positive or negative.

We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Notice: This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, we may financially benefit from your transaction, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.

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Book Review: Mentalligence: A New Psychology of Thinking–Learn What It Takes to be More Agile, Mindful, and Connected in Today’s World by Kristen Lee

Mentalligence: A New Psychology of Thinking–Learn What It Takes to be More Agile, Mindful, and Connected in Today’s World by Kristen Lee

If Mentalligence had stopped at page 150, it would have rated all five stars. Up to that point, we were thinking that the book expressed all that is wrong with the world of psychology and all the other sciences that deal with how we act and interact with others around us.

However, when the author takes us into Part 3, we are hit with a completely different feeling.  It is almost as if there were two different authors writing the book.

In part 3, the author begins to speak with a different tone and seems to have a very liberal agenda. We understand that the author questions the religion she was brought up on, most academics do.  However, she seems bent to speak out on all religions and most philosophies that don’t fit into the mold she has set in her studies of Mentalligence.

After a while, she does seem to climb down off her anti-religion soap box and get back to science.  However, she does revisit this from time-to-time, just in case we readers missed it.

Overall, we give Mentalligence three stars.  The book would have done great without the philosophical attack on just about every belief system out there.  The author is entitled to her opinion. However, like many college professors out there, she doesn’t seem to be satisfied with simply stating her disregard of religion.  The feel is that the author speaks tolerance of every mindset out there provided it doesn’t involve religion, straight, or pro-life thought. The reader is left to ask, “Is there really something wrong with me because I believe in a supernatural Being, am attracted to the opposite sex, and/or am pro-life?

The world we live in now seems to preach tolerance for everything and everyone provided they think as we do and act as we do.  The author has a problem with that when it was preached to her as a youth, but does not seem to realize she is doing the same thing, only in the opposite direction.

We were sent a complimentary copy of this book.  We are under no obligation to write any review, positive or negative.

We are disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

Notice: This post contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, we may financially benefit from your transaction, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support.