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Title: New Peoplemaking by Virginia M. Satir ISBN: 0-8314-0070-6 Publisher: Science & Behavior Books Pub. Date: July, 1988 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Good Ideas Hidden in Corny Language
Comment: Many of satir's ideas about the family structure and how people work in general hit the nail right on the head but the way she presents them just make me laugh because they are so corny. Her language is quite relaxed which gives the book a very comfortable feeling, but sometimes it's so outdated it's hard to take seriously. A lot of her ideas about the different types of people and how we react to one another within the family are really helpful. She talks about common problems in troubled homes that one might not think of, and when you read the book you go "oo yea, that's why that happened!" But, all the little experiments and little pictures that are in the book are so laughable that it's hard to take her seriously. If you get passed that though the book achieved it's goal of being a book about how to improve your family if your willing to let you self feel a little silly it can really be a helpful tool to help the family grow together.
Rating: 2
Summary: OK at best
Comment: I'm not a fan of existential therapy. Satir's theme throughout this book is positioning your bodies to match a particular attitude, e.g. "placating" would look like begging on your knees. There are too many activities to do with your family that I find pretty ridiculous, including tying each other with rope to signify something or another. By the middle chapters, reading this book was a chore (I had to continue because it was assigned reading). I would not read this book again.
Rating: 3
Summary: Long-winded but decent advice.
Comment: My Comments:
I don't know that giving a summary of the book is feasible, so I'll just point out a few things that I liked and didn't like. First, the book is huge, 385 pages. Admittedly what Satir has to say is important and perhaps even very beneficial to some people, but I highly doubt anyone but the seriously interested in psychological self-help will wade their way through every page of this book - even though the type is big and there are gobs of pictures. Perhaps this will sound demeaning to Americans but we (I'm American too) seem to like answers that come in small packages; this is not a small package answer. I guess what I'm saying is that she could have covered all of the information in about half the space - cutting out a lot of unneeded stuff.
Now something positive: I think the content is pretty good. Satir has simplified her message to where the educated layperson can read it and omitted all of the psycho-babble. The advice she gives really reads like common sense, but that is the subtlety of the message - it sounds just like the way that things should be (for the most part) which, to me at least, means she is probably on the right track.
There are a couple of other things about the book that I didn't particularly like. First, near the end of the book Satir starts giving advice on how to attain world peace and how to solve the world's problems. Well, she's a family therapist and not a political scientist or a sociologist - she is out of her league here. What really drives the point home (pun is intended as you will see) is that she compares everything - national governments, international societies, etc. - to families. I guess when you only have a hammer (family therapy experience), everything begins to look like a nail (solving world hunger, ending the use of war to resolve conflicts, etc.) and can be solved the same way. Satir may know quite a bit about families, but I really didn't buy her advice on solving world problems.
Satir also discusses the notion of spirituality. Now, what makes this so interesting is that she seems to think that spirituality and understanding spirituality are very important for resolving mental health and family relations issues, as a matter of fact, I believe she calls it the most important thing that people can do to get healthy. But she only spends one chapter discussing spirituality. I'm guessing that she realizes that her book will absolutely not appeal to 'a'-spiritual people if she emphasizes spirituality too much so she cut the chapter short and left it at that. Well, maybe that was a good decision.
There are three more things I'll mention briefly and then I'm done. First, the concept of a healthy family is a relative one. She makes attempts to rationalize why her conception of a 'healthy' family is the right one, but they aren't particularly convincing. But, keep in mind, her conception is likely the societal norm; the point I am trying to make is that she doesn't do a good job of arguing her perspective. This leads to her biases. She doesn't reveal them until the end, but we end up finding out that she is a pacifist and feminist in either the last or second to last chapter. In my opinion, things like that should be revealed up front. Again, keep in mind that I don't disagree with those perspectives or opinions, I just think she should have revealed her biases at the beginning of the book instead of at the end.
Lastly, she has a tendency to make broad, sweeping statements about the way things are (how families were in the late 1800s for example) and fails to cite any references to back up her claims. Sure, this is a self-help book for the layperson, but this leaves the scholar wanting for evidence for her claims.
Overall, like I said above, I think the book has good advice. Whether or not it will make a difference for people pr families, I don't know. If you have to read the whole thing to change, then probably not; it's just too long. The exercises she suggest sound interesting, but I don't have any kids and most of them are designed around kids. Those that are for couples, well, I guess I could try them, but I think my relationship with my significant other is pretty good, so I'll pass for now and if there are problems, perhaps I'll pull it back out in the future. If you really think that you would be willing to use the exercises and you are committed to reading a very long book, perhaps this will help. If you are looking for a quick fix (which is not likely to help anyway), then don't waste your time or money because it isn't until you are willing to really work to make things better that something like a self-help book like The New Peoplemaking will make a difference.
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Title: Your Many Faces by Virginia M. Satir ISBN: 0890871205 Publisher: Celestial Arts Pub. Date: September, 1978 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
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Title: Self Esteem by Virginia M. Satir, Monica Dengo, Jo Ann Deck ISBN: 1587610949 Publisher: Celestial Arts Pub. Date: October, 2001 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Conjoint Family Therapy by Virginia Satri, Virginia M. Satir, Vieginia M. Satir ISBN: 0831400633 Publisher: Science & Behavior Books Pub. Date: May, 1983 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: A Resource Handbook for Satir Concepts by Johanna Schwab ISBN: 0831400730 Publisher: Science & Behavior Books Pub. Date: December, 1990 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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Title: Satir Step by Step: A Guide to Creating Change in Families by Michele Baldwin, Virginia M. Satir, Michelle Baldwin ISBN: 0831400684 Publisher: Science & Behavior Books Pub. Date: May, 1984 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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