This book opens a new door to your life. It shows us how interpersonal interaction can be very simple if you grasp a few basic things. This book has made my relationships simple and easy. If you are having trouble with relationships, read this book! And when you are ready for one more step, read "Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence" by Toru Sato. This book will take you one step further in your development!

This book is one of the best on human interaction. It shows us why we fall into certain patterns and end up trapped in our own interaction cycles. If you are looking for insight about what is really going on in relationships, this is a great book. It is slightly technical but the majority is understandable to most people without much expertise in communication or psychology. A book that is even more understandable and insightful is Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence by Toru Sato. Both authors are excellent and are forerunners in the field of relationships right now. I'd recommend both very much!

This book has had a profound influence on my life. Not a day goes by that I do not use the knowledge of interactional patterns that I gleaned from Watzlawick et al. I have used these concepts in my therapy practice, in everyday life, in fights with my wife, and in understanding both historical and current world events. The writing is clear and understandable. The concepts are elegant. This is a must read for any student of human behavior.

This book is such a joy to read! It is one of the funniest books I have read and yet we learn so much about ourselves with it! It shows us how we create much of the unhappiness that we experience and in an indirect way, how we can step out of it. If you want to learn more about consciousness and how it relates to our happiness, read "Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence" by Toru Sato. It is not as funny but it tells us more about how consciousness works in a simple way. I think you will like it.

A review by the marqueeofburano: A wonderful, witty, exposé of our endeavors to live a more miserable life by Watzlawick, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stanford University. The treatment of the subject will surely make you laugh at yourself and thus, perhaps, contribute to make you a better person.
W. deals with the fundamental, painful, necessity of the human being to be unhappy (in order to be quiet). And in fact, he contends that the best chapters of universal literature dwell with disaster, tragedy, guilt, madness, etc.
Dante's Inferno-W. writes- is very superior to his Paradise; same case as Milton's Paradise Lost compared with his Paradise Regained; Faust I's greatness is proportionally inverse to the tediousness of Faust II. So the author embarks hilariously in a methodic introduction to the best and more verifiable mechanisms to achieve unhappiness. Samples:
Always be truthful to yourself. A principle, from Polonius in Hamlet,of the outmost necessity for us ( its application is what gets the guy killed by Hamlet like a rat). So then, we must resist any temptation to yield to any other criteria or opinion, apart from ours. Never compromise or accept someone else's advice. The author then addresses the issue of the old saying: "time cures all wounds"..... According to W. four sound mechanisms exist if you want to avoid time's healing effects and transform the past into a present source of suffering. In the exaltation of the past we find those that only remember the good things about their youth and not the years of insecurity and anxiety. In so doing, they have a consistent reserve of sadness about their miserable present...... Also, this fidelity to the past, impairs our ability to enjoy the present and fully dedicate our efforts to the endeavors of the moment. Another mechanism is to consistently dwell with the guilt complex that past errors create, finding excuses or scapegoats (our parents, God, chromosomes, teachers etc.) while doing nothing to avoid committing the same mistakes again.
The author drives his point with practical examples. For instance the story of the hammer. A man wants to hang a painting. He has the nail, but not the hammer. Therefore it occurs to him to go over to the neighbor and ask him to lend him his hammer. But at this point, doubt sets in. What if he doesn't want to lend me the hammer? Yesterday he barely spoke to me. Maybe he was in a hurry. Or, perhaps, he holds something against me. But why? I didn't do anything to him. If he would ask me to lend him something, I would, at once. How can he refuse to lend me his hammer? People like him make other people's life miserable. Worst, he thinks that I need him because he has a hammer. This is got to stop ! And suddenly the guy runs to the neighbor's door, rings, and before letting him say anything, he screams: "You can keep your hammer, you b......"
Watzlawick not only discussess techniques to create false problems, but also the ones that make it actually possible to avoid solving problems and conver them into eternal torments. Here we get the example of the man that claps his hands every ten seconds. Asked why he does that, he answers: "to drive away the elephants..." -"But why, there are no elephants here"- The guy says: "Precisely".
This is a very funny book. It deals, with a fresh and delightful approach, with many of our karmas and mind bothering mosquitoes.......

Brilliant. When I wasn't laughing out loud, I was pierced by his trenchant obervations. Shows us how we choose unhappiness without even thinking about it. He is no Pangloss, the world is a tough place, but Watzlawick shows us how we make it worse than it has to be for ourselves. Highly, highly recommended for anyone with a sense of humor who wants to know more about him/herself.

I use this text as a warm-up to communication theory, and most students enjoy it thoroughly. Watzlawick cleverly intertwines interesting anecdotes with basic tenets of human communication in such a way that the reader can't put the book down. When he or she is finished, the reader walks away with a better sense of how people perceive "reality" and thus explains the basics of how communication works between individuals. I re-read the book at least once a year and always find something novel to take with me, as well. I highly recommend it to anyone, but especially those interested in pursuing a career where communication is involved--and these days that means just about every career you can imagine.

Confusions are a must in our society today, such as he said that she thinks that I think etc, etc, but only the gifted and the well read human beings are allowed to toy with ideas in terms of manipulation and power. This is a must read book for anyone who thinks they have all the answers. QUESTION EVERYTHING!

this is a great book for a novice or anyone who wants to better understand the world around them. it is funny,entertaining,educational,and easy to understand! i thoughly enjoyed it and ordered several other books by the same author!

Don't be discouraged if it's a little hard to read at the beginning. After you get past those first chapters, it will get better. For me, it got so interesting I could barely put it down! It sheds lights on several things for me and the most hopeful things is the examples of how therapy doesn't have to take a long time! The examples of how language of change can quickly yield results will blow your mind away! Highly recommended!---For OCD, I also recommend Brain Lock!.

Dr. Paul Watzlawick's book of change and communication, largely based on the work of Milton H. Erickson, dives right into the theories of the left and right hemispheric patterns in humans. Then discusses the language patterns of schizophrenics. These two major themes when studied and practiced yields a result of change. Watzlawick understands both that: all people have a set of language patterns; and secondly all people are using their brain when they speak. Knowing this will able the reader to speak effectively to a schizophrenic, or just about anyone in a theraputic sense which will allow change in individuals. This book is easy to read with a lot of information with a wonderful conclusion. Highly reccomended for those working in clinical psychology or just looking to change your self.

Without doubt, this book contains a lot of painful truth. It should not only be read by non-Americans but by a lot of Americans too!

Finding honest philosophical work is as probable as finding an unsigned Picasso at a garage sale. It happens, but so seldom that its occurance is cause for a grand celebration. The difficulty lies not only in the relative scarcity of the unclaimed art, but in our powers of perception as well. I don't have a good enough eye to distinguish a cubist-period Picasso from a Braque or Duchamp, or even, perhaps, a Picasso from a cheap knockoff, but I do know honest philosophy when I read it, and Watzlawick's book is a gallery of rare masterpieces. With the same keen observation that he demonstrates in "How Real Is Real," he collates and develops essays by pioneers in biology, psychology and philosophy, whose work all points to a challenging hypothesis: that our biological makeup, in tandem with our linguistic codes, give rise to the very world we come to know. Far from representing a world with fixed categories of things, we construct our world through our unique perception (and expression) of it. We humans, he argues, travel a path between the intuited world of idealism and the logical one of traditional realism. He is not alone in this assertion, and in his own essays uncovers the philosophical history of this trail (now known as constructivism) as well as sketching out promising avenues yet to be taken. The author has spent over thirty years as a clinical psychotherapist, well over a dozen at the famous Mental Research Institute at Palo Alto, and has worked or collaborated with some of the (other) legends in the field, including Gregory Bateson, R.D. Lang and Alan Watts. And like them, Watzlawick has come to appreciate the intricasies of human and animal communication. If you are looking for a book that helps fill in the philosophical underpinnings of the double-bind, game theory, and disinformation, acquire this book. If you simply want to read a collection of essays by various legendary iconoclasts, including the now world-famous Francisco Varela, get a hold of this rare collection. In intellectual currency, it has the value of a garage full of Picassos.

Over the last 15 years I have been involved with organizations undergoing major change. For all of those years I have tried to discover why change, that appears so essential to these companies, fails most of the time. I have searched for years for a logical answer.

I happend to notice the title of this book at a donated book sale at our local library.... I picked it and others up and proceeded to add it to the pile of books I would some day scan. On a long business flight I started to read this book.

I could not stop. As the authors laid out their ideas I covered the pages with notes.

Finaly a logical explanation of why change, even obviously necessary change, fails. Even more the begining of a method on how to make it work.

Knowing the difference between first-order change, and second-order change can change your life! See if you can figure this out: "It obviously makes as difference whether we consider ourselves as pawns in a game whose rules we call reality or as players of the game who know that rules are 'real' only to the extent that we have created or accepted them, and that we can change them." This is pretty much what this book is about. And this, "When a person enters therapy, he is fully entrenched in a dilemma: what he wishes to attain has become all the more important and urgent ... and because of this urgency it is all the more important that no risk of falure be involved in the eventual action." Complex stuff. I read it once, and now I'm back to read it again. It's hard to absorb it all the first time even though you know you're reading some pretty radical stuff that you probably ought to be acting upon!

This is a great book on the mind. It shows us that we don't really need to know the mechanisms of things to make it work. Just like we don't have to know how a car works in order to drive it. The mind is the same way. Never mind the mechanisms it involves but if you do this and this, a person will do this and this. And surprisingly, although most of the suggestions are counterintuitive, most of the things discussed in the book actually work when we try it out on others. Try it and you will see! If you want to know why these things work, I'd suggest you read "Rhythm, Relationships, and Transcendence" by Toru Sato. It is a very insightful book about relationships and consciousness. If you get the message, you will know why the things suggested in Watzlawick's books actually work. Happy reading!

This books reads like a first year english paper. The author is more interested in exploring his nascent writing skills, that he forgets that someone will actually have to read it.

If only the author actually got to the point and described what he calls "Ultra Solutions" in a manner that wasn't so annoying, this would be an ok book. The content is potentially interesting, but is wrapped in so much fluff that I found it impossible to finish the book.

I AM NOT SURPRISED TO SEE THAT THE CANADIAN CUSTOMER REVIEW WAS ONE OF IRRITATION; WHILE THE GERMAN CUSTOMER REVIEW WAS FULL OF PRAISE.

THIS IS NOT A BOOK FOR YOU, IF YOU ARE A N.AMERICAN COLLEGE GRAD WHO BLENDS IN PASSIONATE MEDIA-SPUN OPINIONS WITH LARGE DOLLOPS OF PERSONAL IGNORANCE; AND WHOSE READING RANGE STOPPED SOMEWHERE SHORT OF YOUR PRESCRIBED TEXTBOOKS PLUS 'WHO MOVED MY CHEESE'!

THE GERMAN REVIEWER ALSO PUTS HIS FINGER ON THE PROBLEM THAT THIS IS A TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN INTO 'AMERRYENGLISH'. PERHAPS SOMETHING HAS BEEN LOST IN THE PROCESS, BUT NOT MUCH FROM WHAT I CAN SEE.

IT HELPS IF YOU ARE FAMILIAR WITH KARL POPPER'S WORK, EVEN MORE SO IF YOU BELIEVE THAT POPPER WAS THE MOST IMPORTANT EPISTEMOLOGIST OF THE 20TH CENTURY.

WATZLAWICK IS A POPPER POPULARISER WHO DOESN'T PATRONISE.

DON'T TOUCH THIS BOOK, IF YOUR IDEA OF A GREAT TREATISE ON MANAGEMENT IS 'THE ONE MINUTE MANAGER', OR IF YOU IMAGINE THAT PETER DRUCKER IS MUCH MORE THAN A WSJ COLUMNIST.

BUT, IF YOU TAKE DECISION-MAKING SERIOUSLY, BELIEVE THE 'PETER PRINCIPLE' STILL APPLIES, EVEN MORE SO TODAY THAN WHEN IT WAS WRITTEN (BY A CANADIAN, IF I'M NOT MISTAKEN), THEN THIS AMUSING LITTLE GEM WILL DELIGHT YOU.

WARNING: WRITTEN IN 1988, IT PREFIGURES THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WITH UNCANNY ACCURACY. THE TITLE SAYS IT ALL. IN A NUTSHELL, HIS EXPOSITION, AS I READ IT, PREDICTS THAT A VERY NASTY SHOCK IS NOW LOOMING FOR AMERICA, WHICH WILL ONLY ADD INSULT TO THE TERRIBLE WTC INJURY ALREADY INFLICTED.

WHAT A TRAGEDY THAT 'ULTRA-SOLUTIONS' ISN'T ON GEO'S NIGHTSTAND, AT A TIME WHEN AMERICA NEEDS BRAINS INSTEAD OF BOMBS.

A very good humorous book about antipatterns of life. In opposite to the other books of P.W. it is written for the non-scientist. Unfortunately the translation might be not the best, thus if possible, read the German original