Pop Psychology

Psychology and Self Improvement
1

I have not read any popular psychology books for at least a couple of decades!

When I was young, “Transactional Analysis” was the pop-psychology buzzword. Two popular books were: Im OK – You’re OK and Games People Play.

The authors take various types of irrational behaviours and categorize them. The “Games ..” book related a set of typical irrational situations “games” in which people find themselves.

The underlying message of the books appeared to be that neurosis was a universal trait; we’re all a little neurotic. I rejected that.

Later, in a college 101 course on psychology, I was taught by a Freudian who had a different set of models, and spoke of repression and projection, and so on. Again, his underlying message was that we are all at least a little neurotic.

Now, much water under the bridge, I think that I threw out the baby with the bath water. Since human beings have a certain nature, even human irrationalities can fall into certain patterns that can be studied. Knowing some of the common ones can be helpful in avoiding those behaviours. Doing so does not imply that we are all irrational. It merely recognizes that we can be (i.e. we are volitional beings).

Has anybody here read the books I mentioned and have any thoughts on them?

What are the current trends in pop-psychology? Is there a tiny “baby” somewhere in that bath water?

2

I’ve read a few of Berne’s books, although I wouldnt refer to them as ‘pop-psychology’. There’s a difference between deliberately shunning technical jargon, and dumbing things down for the mass-market. I thought that Games People Play was a masterpiece of social observation, and also one of the funniest books I’ve ever read. “What Do You do After You Say Hello” is also excellent, and had a fairly strong effect on my intellectual development. I disagree with his overarching idea of ‘scripts’ (the idea that every person has one ‘script’ which organises and influences their life) and I think he places far too much influence on parenting rather than on the numerous social factors which influence people in childhood (in other words, I think he’s too Freudian), but some of his ‘smaller’ theories and observations are spot-on. In particular, his trading stamps metaphor is one that I’ve found fairly easy to apply when assessing various aspects of my behavior.