By M. Scott Peck, M.D
Summary by Mounir
Aswad,
A book referred by several other books
finally had its own turn to be reviewed.
The book didn’t disappoint. It is rich in
insights, wisdom and free thoughts.
Re my Summary:
Regarding the File Format: this summary is written using
Microsoft Word 365 and utilizes Heading Categorization, however, on the
internet it losses this great functionality. If you are reading this on the web
and would like to get the original file, email me: maswad@gmail.com. In MS Word, to navigate, click view and
check Navigation Pane. Categories can be collapsed or expanded in both the
navigation and the main window.
Neurosis Vs Character Disorder
These two conditions are a disorder of responsibilities, they are opposite sides of relating to the
world and its problem. Neurotics assumes too much responsibility while Character
Disorder assumes not enough.
Transference
Occurs when a set of ways perceiving and responding to the
world developed in childhood and usually appropriate to the childhood
environment, is inappropriately transferred into the adult environment. The way
this transfer manifest itself is always destructive.
Rules to follow when dedicated to the truth
1.
Never speak falsehood.
2.
The act of holding the
truth is always potentially a lie. Whenever a Truth
is withheld, a moral decision is
required.
3.
The decision to withhold
the truth should never be based on personal needs such as the need of
power, need to be liked.
4.
The decision to withhold
the truth must always be based on the
need of the person or people the Truth is
being withheld.
5.
The assessment of another need is an act so complex that it can be executed only
wisely when someone operates with a genuine love for the other.
6.
The primary assessment of one's needs is an assessment of someone capacity to utilize the truth for his/her own spiritual growth.
7.
In assessing someone’s
capacity to utilize the truth for personal growth, it should be bear in mind
that our tendency in general, is to underestimate this capacity.
Conditions, desires, and attitude must be given up in the course of a wholly successful evolving lifetime:
·
State of infancy; no
external demand needs to be responded to.
·
The fantasy of omnipotent (having unlimited power).
·
The desire for total possession of someone’s’ parents.
·
The dependency of
childhood.
·
The distorted image of one's
parent
·
The Omni potentiality of adolescent
·
The freedom of
un-committeemen.
·
The agility of youth.
·
The sexual attractiveness
of youth.
·
The fantasy of immortality.
·
Authority over one’s
children.
·
Various forms of power.
·
The independence of
physical health.
·
The self and life itself.
Bracketing
·
The act of balancing the
need for stability and assertion of self
for the need for new knowledge and greater understanding. This is
accomplished by temporarily giving up, temporarily,
one's self to make room for new material
into the self.
·
In process of balancing, for
someone to give up something must have it first. You must forge yourself an identity before you give it up, develop an ego
before you can lose it. There is no easy
shortcut to sainthood.
·
For the growth spurt to
occurs, a proportional amount of the old
self must be given up. growth-given-up process often begins before the patient start to seek professional help
Discipline
·
The system of techniques of dealing constructively of problem-solving in such a way that all of
life’s challenges can be solved.
· Techniques:
o
Delaying gratifications.
o
The assumption of responsibility.
o
Dedication to truth or
reality.
o
Balancing
Love, Grace, and laziness
·
The will to extend ones’
self to nurture one’s own or another’s
spiritual growth.
·
The more loving one is, the
humbler one is. The more one is humble, the more one is awed by the potential for arrogance
for exercising power (by what authority do I have to decide what is best for my
child, spouse, country or the human race.
Who am I to play God?)
·
Whenever we exercise power,
we play God.
·
There are many whose spirit
is locked in behind impenetrable armor. To attempt to love someone who can not
respond with spiritual growth is to waste energy and should be focused productively
through self-discipline.
·
A genuine lover always encourages the unique individuality of the
beloved. Failure to respect this
separateness is the cause of much suffering. In its extreme form, this is called narcissism. Narcissist lack empathy, the capacity to feel
what others are feeling.
·
The second law of
thermodynamics state that energy flows from a state
of greater organization to a state of a lesser
organization. The universe is winding down,
ultimately it is winding down to undifferentiated blob called “entropy”. The flow of evolution is against the flow of entropy as an organism flow from lower to higher states of organization. Evolution is thus a miracle. Spiritual evolution is similar to biological evolution,
it is effortful and difficult, inducted against a natural inclination to keep
things as they were. The force that pushes us to grow against our natural
lethargy is Love. Love here is defined as
the will to extend one’s own or another growth. Love is an extension of the self, evolution in progress.
·
Where love comes from? Where Grace comes from? If we consider the idea of God
breathing this force into us, the question is why God wants us to grow. The
answer becomes “God wants us to be Gods, we are growing toward Godhood”
·
The essence of love is
work, the opposite of love is laziness.
·
Laziness is the reason why
people don’t respond to the “Grace” call within.
·
The paradox of us being chosen and our choice is the essence of Serendipity
(the act of developing a happy/beneficial event in an unpredicted way).
·
Serendipity can be defined
not as a gift but as a learned capacity
to learn how to use the gift of Grace.
With this capacity, our journey of
spiritual growth is guided by the
unimaginable wisdom of God. So Guided
that it becomes so much faster. But don’t ask proof that every step of the way
is safe. Spiritual travelers must carve out, with efforts and anxiety, their own path toward God.
The conscious and unconscious mind
·
The unconscious possesses knowledge we didn’t learn unless there is a God as part of us.
o
If you like to look for
Grace look within yourself.
o
If you desire wisdom find it inside you.
·
On bringing the conscious mind into synchrony with the unconscious mind.
o
The interface between man
and God is like the interface between the conscious and unconscious mind.
Feelings
·
We should treat our feelings with respect while setting limits and
control.
·
If we don’t set limits to
our feelings and provide them with direction, they, like slaves, will move into
the liquor cabinet and wreak havoc. Soon we will be the slave of our slaves.
Cathexis
·
When we extend our limit
through love, we reach out to the beloved whose growth we wish to nurture.
Before doing this we must be committed to
an object beyond the self. When that happens, we incorporate that object into
ourselves.
·
The price of Cathexis is Pain.
·
The Person who is not willing to risk pain must live without children,
marriage, sex, ambitious, relationships, all that
makes life alive and meaningful.
·
Grow in any dimension and Pain, as well as reward, will be your outcome.
·
The attempt to avoid
legitimate suffering lies in the root of all emotional illness.
·
If we live with death, then
death becomes our ally. Fearsome but a source
of wise counsel. With the awareness that we have a limit to live,
we live life to its fullest.
Oneness
Impossible to see the unity of the
universe, as long as one sees one’s self
as an object separate from the universe.
The outcome of children grown with lack of parents’ love and attention
·
Children growing up without
or less love and care, enter adulthood with the feeling
of I don’t have enough, the sense that the world is unpredictable and
ungiving, as well as doubt that they are lovable and valuable.
·
They cling to “love” in a
way that leads them to manipulate
behavior, destroying the very relationship they seek to preserve.
·
Since love and displace go
hand in hand. Unloving parents lack discipline and fail to provide their
children with self-discipline.
·
Passive-dependent people, therefore, lack self-discipline. They are
unwilling to delay gratification for their hunger to attention.
·
In their desperation to form and preserver attachment, they throw honesty to the wind. They
cling to outworn relationships when they should give them up.
·
Most important, they lack a
sense of responsibility for themselves.
·
They look to others,
including their children for happiness and fulfillment. And when they are not
happy or fulfilled, they feel that others are responsible, often consequently
become angry as they feel down by others
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