This book is about how “feeling optimistic is a reflection of our belief in and experience of our own capacity for the self-regulation of emotional states, especially painful, negative ones” and about how we can boost that capacity.

Dr. Vaughan, also the author of The Talking Cure: The Science Behind Psychotherapy, is a psychiatrist who believes optimism is more a learned trait than an inborn one. Whether a person tends to see the proverbial glass as half empty or half full is based on that person’s present emotional state, which is more akin to a habit than a fixed, biological or brain chemistry-induced outlook, she believes. This book explores the science and background that influence people’s emotional states and then the author offers specific tips and tricks to alter and control those states within themselves.

Dr. Vaughan argues that optimism is an illusion but that the ability to construct and sustain such an illusion is an important psychological tool. I found her thoughts about reality and her discussion of patients in therapy and their views and problems with reality most interesting.

If I had a criticism, it would be that the book seemed too short and the same ideas were repeated several different ways, even after I was “sold” on them. Thinking about it, the topic would make a good, long essay but maybe a 200-page book is too much. However, I believe I came to the book already understanding and agreeing with its arguments so that probably influences my perception.

I found the book to be an interesting, fun and easy read. The opening “story,” on which example the book is loosely based, was especially dramatic and exciting to me and positively altered my own beliefs about optimism and myself. I would recommend this book to anyone who feels negative or has been told they’re too negative or pessimistic by someone whose opinion they value.

Categories: SelfHelp, ClientReviews, Psychotherapy