Word: dyers
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Choose to do the things that make you feel good about yourself," advise Psychoanalysts Mildred Newman and Bernard Berkowitz in How to Be Your Own Best Friend. Don't fume about the tax laws, because you can't do anything about them anyway, says Psychotherapist Wayne W. Dyer, author of the top-selling Your Erroneous Zones...
Therapist Dyer sets up the advice as a syllogism - a risky step in a genre usually devoted to deploring rationality. His logic: I can control my thoughts; my feelings come from my thoughts; therefore I can control my feelings. To Dyer, who wrote his book in just 13 days, it is all very simple: "Mental health is not complex, involved or hard work. It ought to be just common sense...
This brand of positive thinking, plus a catchy title and heavy promotion, is making Dyer wealthy. Your Erroneous Zones has sold 150,000 copies in six months and is now No. 2 on TIME'S bestseller list. A balding, hitherto little-known professor at St. John's University in New York, Dyer, 36, says he practices what he preaches about emotional control. When he underwent oral surgery without an anesthetic, he felt no pain. He chose to feel pleasure by fantasizing erotic images and recalling positive things in his life...
...Some of Dyer's advice: Don't look for social approval. "No matter what you do, half the people you know will disagree with it anyway." Try not to deny yourself anything in life. "Outlaw self-denial unless it is absolutely necessary - and it rarely is." Don't fret that you are doing nothing important in life. "Nothing is more important than anything else. The child collecting seashells is not doing something more right or wrong than the president of General Motors making a corporate decision...
Like most other self-help writers, Dyer suggests forgetting about the past and future - always live in the present and live each moment fully. "Prisoners of war," he says, "survived in the most terrible circumstances. Their secret was learning to appreciate the small things that made up their daily existence - a tiny crust of bread, sunrise from a cell window." In sum, the most salable self-help philosophy for the disillusioned '70s seems to be: Minimize pain, concentrate on self, and try to find joy even in horrible circumstances...