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Learned Optimism, 2nd Edition
By Martin E.P. Seligman. New York: Pocket Books, 1998, 292 pages, $14.00.
In Learned Optimism, Martin Seligman discusses the importance of optimism as a part of our daily lives. He suggests that being optimistic, rather than simply not being pessimistic, can be an important element to our successes. From the research he has conducted throughout his career as a psychologist, Dr. Seligman concludes that optimism can lead to successes in our careers, health, school, sports, and other elements of our lives. He adds that an optimistic explanatory style can help to prevent depression. According to Dr. Seligman, optimism can be learned for a more rewarding, successful, happy life. His cognitive theory involves disputing pessimistic thoughts and changing thought patterns in order to become a more optimistic individual.
The book is divided into three sections with chapters within each of these sections. The first two sections discuss Dr. Seligman's clinical and professional experiences focusing on learned helplessness, pessimism, and optimism. In section one, Dr. Seligman presents his research findings that suggest helplessness can be learned and that this learned helplessness is a possible contributing factor to depression. Section one also contains a test to measure optimism and depression. The author explains his theory that pessimism and depression are interrelated and affect one another. Section two focuses on the impact of optimism on successes in life. Dr. Seligman discusses the research he has conducted on the many aspects of life where optimism may have a positive effect. In section three readers learn how to develop their own optimistic explanatory style to use in their everyday lives.
Seligman implies that this book is intended for any adult who is looking to become more optimistic and improve their life. However, this is most appropriate for college-educated adults due to the advanced nature of the book. The author presents a great deal of information about the research he has conducted and this may be confusing to those with little education.
The author mentions many times that those with depression may find this book to be especially helpful. He bases this on the idea that many pessimists are depressed and many individuals who are depressed have a pessimistic explanatory style. Therefore, learning to be more optimistic may be helpful in dealing with depression.
This book is also intended for the parent of a depressed or pessimistic child who is interested in helping the child. Dr. Seligman tells the reader how he or she can help their child to become more optimistic. The intended reader is the parent of the child rather than the child himself.
This book would be most useful to a patient who is in cognitive psychotherapy as opposed to patients in other types of psychotherapy because the fundamental components are cognitive in nature. It could be a useful tool to help make patients aware of the basic elements of cognitive theory. The author points out that his research can only be generalized to Americans and that the importance of optimism probably varies across different cultures. Therefore, this book may only be appropriate for those from the predominant American culture.
Learned Optimism may be useful as part of cognitive psychotherapy. It can be used as a tool to reiterate the basic assumptions of cognitive theory to the patient. Martin Seligman bases the entire book on the basic premise that changing the way people think about things can help to bring about positive change. He incorporates elements of cognitive theory such as disputing irrational beliefs into his theory. This book could help to further teach patients methods that can be used to change their faulty thought patterns. The author uses many examples to help make his ideas clear to the reader. Using this book as part of cognitive psychotherapy could help the patient to understand cognitive methods more clearly and enhance the patients experience in psychotherapy.
Another benefit of using this book as part of cognitive psychotherapy is that it helps to incorporate treatment into the everyday lives of patients. It might help to encourage the patient to use cognitive methods outside of treatment. Reading the book could make the patient consider his or her own explanatory style and thought patterns more than they might with psychotherapy alone. It might promote more active participation on the part of the patient outside of treatment.
There are also weaknesses to using this book for bibliotherapy. One major weakness is that the book doesn't begin to teach the reader to develop a more optimistic explanatory style until the last section of the book. While it is encouraging to see that Dr. Seligman's theory is supported by research, it may be more useful in bibliotherapy if a larger majority of the book consisted of how the reader can become more optimistic. The repetitive nature of the first two sections may cause the patient to discontinue reading it before they even get to the last section.
Another weakness is that patients who are found to be pessimists may feel that they are being blamed for their pessimism. Dr. Seligman makes clear that pessimism can lead to failures at work, school, sports, health, and other aspects of their lives. Although he later teaches the reader to become more optimistic, the patient might internalize the negative stigma being associated with pessimists. This may promote self-blame and self-directed anger when the patient considers his or her own past failures. This may be especially true with depressed patients and may contribute to further depressive feelings. The clinician can help to control for this by encouraging the patient to openly discuss her thoughts and reactions to the book and teaching her to dispute the maladaptive thoughts that she has.
This book has the potential to be a useful tool as part of a patient's ongoing therapy. The clinician might integrate this as part of psychotherapy by assigning both the optimism and depression scales as homework. Because of the multi-dimensional type of scoring, these can be helpful in allowing the clinician and patient to uncover maladaptive thought patterns. The book also contains many exercises that allow the reader to work on identifying automatic thoughts and dispute those that are maladaptive. These can also be assigned for homework and discussed in psychotherapy. This can promote discussion between the clinician and patient. It may help facilitate a better understanding of the therapeutic goals and how they can be accomplished.
The cognitive psychotherapist might be able to use this book as part of therapy in order to incorporate elements of treatment into the patient's everyday life. It encourages the client to work towards change outside of the clinician's office. Because Dr. Seligman's theory is cognitive in nature, his detailed explanations and numerous examples may help the patient to better understand the elements of cognitive theory. However, the clinician needs to assess how the patient might react to a high pessimism score, his or her level of education, and whether or not the patient will benefit from this bibliotherapy.