Thank you -journal writing, done conscientiously, with periodic look-backs after enough time has passed to gain perspective on events, does work. I will admit to being shocked that the immediate CISD trauma feedback sessions seem to be shown by research to be (overwhelmingly) ineffective, yet it makes alot of sense that waiting until enough time has passed that the initial shock has worn off, so that a bit of perspective can start to develop, before writing about the experience would be helpful.

Also changing attitudes by 'accidentally' or sort of slipping in, showing information that shows that what one thought was the case, was not actually the case, makes sense, just not so easy maybe.

Also the importance of seeing the person who is standing in front of you, not what you assume about that person, based on his or her assumed/apparent group membership: thank you. But this all means that we human beings must begin to diffferentiate our fast thoughts from our slower critical process thoughts and to use them in the right circumstances. ( )

Thank you -journal writing, done conscientiously, with periodic look-backs after enough time has passed to gain perspective on events, does work. I will admit to being shocked that the immediate CISD trauma feedback sessions seem to be shown by research to be (overwhelmingly) ineffective, yet it makes alot of sense that waiting until enough time has passed that the initial shock has worn off, so that a bit of perspective can start to develop, before writing about the experience would be helpful.

Also changing attitudes by 'accidentally' or sort of slipping in, showing information that shows that what one thought was the case, was not actually the case, makes sense, just not so easy maybe.

Also the importance of seeing the person who is standing in front of you, not what you assume about that person, based on his or her assumed/apparent group membership: thank you. But this all means that we human beings must begin to diffferentiate our fast thoughts from our slower critical process thoughts and to use them in the right circumstances. ( )

This is definitely one of my favorites; it is not, however, a self-help book (if you peruse Amazon reviews, many readers’ expectations were defied and disappointed by that fact – most likely due to a misinterpretation of the sub-title). Rather, Redirect presents the practice of story-editing to effect successful interventions in personal and social issues. The first chapter describes story-editing and how it can help turn negative thinking patterns into healthier ones (there are clear parallels to cognitive-behavioral therapy). This act of redirecting or, in some cases, making sense of a situation, can be accomplished through three different methods: “the writing exercise, in which people reinterpret a problem by writing about it; story prompting, in which people are directed down a particular narrative path with the hope that it will bump them out of a self-defeating thinking pattern”; and the “do good, be good approach, which involves changing people’s behavior first… In other words, people’s behavior shapes the personal narratives they develop” (17). Don’t be fooled, though; this book is not positive thinking, touchy-feely fluff; it investigates numerous scientific studies and also points out the lack of a scientific framework and analysis for many popular interventions (for example, the D.A.R.E. program).



Quite notable to me in the first chapter was the author’s look at CISD (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing), commonly used for a time with first-responders. The author points out that controlled studies have repeatedly found that CISD worsens the stress and outcomes in an individual who was peripherally or directly involved in a traumatic event. “In short, one reason CISD fails is that it makes it harder for people to take that step back and gain some perspective on what happened. Forcing people to talk about the traumatic event right after it happened can even solidify memories of it, which makes it harder for people to reinterpret the event as time goes by” (13-14; emphasis mine).



Each successive chapter focuses on one specific issue – parenting, teen violence, academic improvement, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, etc. – and investigates current, popular interventions and their non- or even ill-effect, contrasting them with simple story-editing interventions. The author repeatedly points out the importance of scientific, validly constructed intervention strategies that incorporate control populations to produce accurate evaluations of efficacy. The story-editing interventions are designed and implemented along such guidelines, producing results that are extremely valuable and encouraging. One of my favorites was an extremely simple intervention with struggling college freshman who sat through a one-time, thirty-minute “session in which students learned that lots of people struggle academically at first but then improve their grades. [There was] no attempt to delve into participants’ academic history, inquire about their study habits, or counsel them on how to manage stress. In fact, participants didn’t even know that the purpose of the study was to help them improve their academic performance” (16). The results -- compared not only to the no-intervention control group, but also a control group enrolled in the standard, intensive study-skills program that many colleges employ for such students -- were astounding: very small measurable difference between the control group and the study skills group, but the story-editing-intervention students experienced huge academic improvement over the course of their college careers. “…These results are particularly dramatic considering how small and seemingly inconsequential the intervention was – the students took part in a thirty-minute psychology experiment in which they were shown some statistics and saw brief videotapes about other people’s grades” (17).



Other passages I found particularly interesting:

“…If I were to give one piece of advice for how to be happier, it would be to carve out more time to spend with friends and loved ones, because, as we’ve seen, the best predictor of happiness is the quality of our social relationships” (51).

“The next time you think about an upsetting event from your past, remember to take a step back and analyze it from a distance, and to think dispassionately about why it occurred. In short, don’t recount the event, take a step back and reconstrue and explain it” (59).

“If you want at-risk teens to act out and become even more deviant, it turns out that one of the best things you can do is to arrange for them to hang out together on a regular basis” (142; see also Dishion, T.J., McCord, J., & Poulin, F. (1999). When interventions harm: Peer groups and problem behavior. American Psychologist, 54, 755-764).

“…when teens hang out with other teens who are engaged in risky behaviors, they tend to imitate those risky behaviors” (165; see also Sussman, S., Dent, C., & Stacy, A. (2002). Project Towards No Drug Abuse: A review of the findings and future directions. American Journal of Health Behavior, 26, 354-364; see also Valente, T., Ritt-Olson, A., Stacy, A., Unger, J., Okamoto, J., & Sussman, S. (2007). Peer acceleration: Effects of a social network tailored substance abuse prevention program among high-risk adolescents. Addiction, 102, 1804-1815). http://0-search.ebscohost.com.www.infosoup.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph...

“But there is another set of issues associated with poverty and social class that is more controversial, namely, differences in child-rearing practices between lower-class and middle-class parents…” (210; see also Nisbett, T.E. (2009). Intelligence and how to get it. New York: W.W. Norton). http://www.infosoup.org:2082/record=b1709520~S77

I’ll leave it to you to read the book if you want to know the author’s stated findings on that last bullet point. ( )

Enjoyable read --- not a whole lot of new information, but there were a few surprises. It made sense that CISD (Critical Incident Stress Debriefing) was not effective; reliving stressful events often just brings up uncontrollable emotions whereas time helps one bring perspective to the narrative. There are some useful exercises in the "Shaping Our Narratives" chapter that seem reasonable. There was also confirmation of the current parenting advice of praising the effort, not the innate abilities of the child, and a restatement of what most parents know -- your kid's friends matter! The author reveals that many popular social programs are ineffective, including those dealing with stress, teen crime, teen pregnancy, and drug use. The newest, and most interesting information was about stereotype threat and how to deal with it. I certainly agree with the author that programs should be more rigorously tested before implemented on a wide scale and hope that this is the future of social psychology. ( )

De Amerikaanse psycholoog Timothy Wilson, deskundige op het gebied van zelfkennis en geluk, beweert in dit boek dat we ons zelfbeeld kunnen verbeteren door zelf ons levensverhaal vorm te geven. De sleutel tot ons geluk ligt verscholen in de manier waarop we het verhaal van ons leven weten bij te sturen, de mogelijkheid om ons eigen verhaal te herschrijven. ( )