Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

What exactly is this book? Is it, as it purports to be, a manual of psychotherapy? Or is it, as Scientologists seem to believe, Holy Scripture? If the former, it should be updated periodically, in light of new research. If a doctor stood at my hospital bed perusing the 1858 edition of Gray's Anatomy, I would worry. Or is the original text of Dianetics inerrant, being the result of divine revelation? If so, they should say so, and drop the pretence of scientific rigor. What are we to make of a theory that states that psychological disorders can arise from the fetus - or even the fertilized egg, the zygote - overhearing and recording conversations from the outside world? An example given is of a husband beating his pregnant wife while shouting, "You've got to take it!" The poor child that results will grow up to be a kleptomaniac ('You've got to take it'. Geddit?). If dialogue can be so destructive to the unborn, perhaps we need a new movie rating of FU, for 'Fetus Unfriendly'. In fact, the theory goes even deeper into absurdity. We are told that "it is not true that emotion gets into the child through the umbilical cord...Emotion comes on another (more electrical than physical) type of wave...Therefore, anyone who is emotional around a pregnant woman is communicating that emotion straight into the child." 'Straight into' you notice, like some sort of radio transmission. Believe that and you'll believe anything. Here's another: "It may be that a patient is urgent in her insistence that her father raped her...Large numbers of insane patients claim this. And it is perfectly true. Father did rape her, but it happened she was only nine days beyond conception at the time. The pressure and upset of coitus is very uncomfortable to the child and normally can be expected to give the child an engram which will have as its content the sexual act and everything that was said." In other words, a man making love to his wife nine days after she becomes pregnant is effectively raping his daughter and condemning her to insanity. Such drivel fills the 700 or so pages of this book. Finally, what words can describe the author's writing style? 'Pompous', 'overblown', 'clumsy' and 'confused' come to mind, but I think I'll settle for 'ludicrous'. Neither scientific nor inspirational, this thick slab of nonsense will not cure anyone of any psychological disorder except insomnia. [PeterReeve]