Once again Martin Seligman provides a feast of empirical data showing how certain mental habits foster or inhibit to happiness and fulfilling relationships.

Chapter 11: Love
page 193: “Secure adults remember their parents as available, as warm, and as affectionate. Avoidant adults remember their mothers as cold, rejecting, and unavailable, and anxious adults remember their fathers as unfair.”

See the Wikipedia article on Attachment Theory.

I made it about halfway through this book before I had to return it to the library. I loved Seligman’s overall tone and his focus on prevention. The resources on the authentic happiness website are great as well. Overall though, I think I just don’t buy into cognitive behavioral therapy. It just isn’t my experience that my thinking is so condition-able – and I’m actually a bit frightened about what might result from focusing exclusively on my thinking – as opposed to say, just altering my behavior to do things I enjoy more. Anyway, big picture, I think this is a fine book and interesting, but struck me as slightly anti-humanistic and reductive. Is that unfair? Sorry – because I did enjoy reading what I did, and could even see buying a copy to have on hand. I’m also interested in reading Seligman’s book on raising optimistic kids. Is that inhumane of me? I’m willing to practice cognitive behaviorism on my dependents but not on myself.