Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life Paperback – January 3, 2006

I've read a lot of bad psychology and self-help books over the years, and I can confidently say that this isn't one of them. It's an extremely intelligent, well thought out, well written history of the origins of positive psychology that everyone can understand. As a scientist, I found the research discussed to be particularly fascinating. I bought the book to learn how to overcome learned helplessness and was pleasantly surprised to know that I've already learned the techniques from reading Dr. David Burns' book "Feeling Good". Learned Optimism, however, is a much simpler version without the cognitive distortions to sort through, which is a really great place to start if you're new to the practice of thought stopping and replacement, but also a really great refresher from a new point of view if you're a seasoned pro. Honestly, even if you've already learned the technique and don't want to try it his way, the biography Dr. Seligman takes you through in the first 2 sections are well worth the read. A fascinating story about the origins of positive psychology and all the obstacles it had to overcome along the way. And if you're a parent who wants to learn how to help your child learn optimism, or you want to learn optimism in regards to your job and career, he's got that covered, too. There really isn't a reason not to read this book.

Learned Optimism is a - sometimes uneasy - mix of the theoretical and the practical. Seligman is clearly captivated by his subject, which he has made his life's work. Not surprisingly then, he sees the value of an optimistic outlook in every aspect of life. It's not just that optimists do better than pessimists at school, work and sports, but they even live longer. Seligman makes the case that "the arrow points both ways": that pessimism is not a consequence but also a contributing cause of depression and that an optimistic "explanatory style" for the misfortunes of life, large and small, can actually prevent a descent into morbid depression. He even says he can predict the outcome of elections by analyzing the explanatory styles of the competing candidates - because in a head-to-head contest the most optimistic candidate will prevail.In Part 1 of the book he lays out the theoretical case for optimism and the techniques by which it can be measured. In Part 2 he describes how the optimist's advantage is played out in the different "realms of life", such as work, sports, politics, etc. In Part 3, he explains self-help techniques for moving from pessimism to optimism.I found Part 1 the most interesting - not least because I got to fill out a couple of tests to help me discern my explanatory style and determine if I was currently depressed (and how deeply). It turns out I am moderately optimistic about bad events and moderately pessimistic about good ones. But I am not at all depressed, so I guess I must have learned to live with the contradiction.Part 3 gets us into the land of the light bulb joke (where to change, the light bulb must truly desire change). I am convinced from my own experience that optimism is like a muscle that can be worked and strengthened. I also recognized in Seligman's techniques ones that I had stumbled onto myself.In the final analysis, whether the reader will find reading Learned Optimism helpful will depend on the reader. Judging by the Amazon reviews, the experience for some will be life-changing; for others not so. Perhaps underlying explanatory style may have something to do with that. Perhaps also a self-help book is not the best therapy for the truly, deeply depressed (as the book suggests, you can improve your outlook but you have to be motivated to start a mental workout routine and stick with it to see the positive results). However there is much to learn here and I would not hesitate to recommend the book to anyone interested in understanding more about the origin and effect of individual explanatory styles - including one's own - and what can be done to change them.

This book is beautifully written, reads like a thriller, and packs plenty of wisdom in each page. The author not only understands the field as an expert but writes well, and conveys the core ideas in a useful way. This book showed me how much of a pessimist I was in certain areas. Many of us "realists" unfortunately are pessimists too - I realized, and limit ourselves unnecessarily in areas where such self-imposed limits are not warranted.This book has a toolkit for us to evaluate the "narrative" that we have within ourselves, and it also allows us to evaluate the narratives that others have based on statements they make. I have not seen this toolkit presented in this manner anywhere else. The author requires us to behave as a scientist or detective, exploring the inner-dialogs and how it shapes our views and feelings - not just in ourselves but in others too. This ties in to ideas of mindfulness or awareness, because, without mindfulness or deeper awareness, it is difficult to engage in the "watching" of the inner narrative. I was hoping the author provide more details on the CAVE technique that he speaks about, but the specifics of that were not disclosed in this book.I have added plenty of highlights and notes, and plan to revisit them periodically, also try to practice the techniques that the author shared (ABCDE, PPP etc). I think the techniques in this book will not only lead to better or more accurate cognition of events, and situations, but also, an overall improved, hopeful and optimistic outlook in general.