Illusion of Control - by Wolfgang Linden (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The Illusion of Control makes the case that people waste an inordinate amount of energy trying to control events and people that they have little or no control over.

Review Quotes

Dr. Linden integrates psychological research and practice related to the fundamental question of "just how much control do we really have over important aspects of our lives"? This book provides a thoughtful, well documented and honest review of this topic. Linden offers many successful strategies he has found useful over years of work but also uncovers realistic challenges and how to deal with them. Linden provides easy to understand and useful control strategies in many areas we experience daily. These include stress at home, relationships with kids and spouse, unhealthy habits, challenges with people at work and others we run into in our daily lives. This book provides insight and tips drawn from several decades of Dr. Linden's research, practice and critical thinking on the topic of control.

Is being in control just a frustrating mirage? According to TheIllusion Of Control, the answer is far too often yes. Combining evidence-based science with a career's worth of psychotherapist wisdom, however, the author shows us how we can still navigate our lives towards greater love and happiness even when control eludes us.

Mental health care advocate Linden posits that many people believe they have more control over the other people in their lives than they actually do. Therefore, some become frustrated when they're unable to influence or persuade others to do as they wish. His book indicates that people also tend to neglect or ignore the substantial amount of control they have over what they themselves do. He asserts that one way for people to become less stressed is to stop expecting to have control over others and to instead turn their energies toward controlling their own behavioral patterns. Linden offers readers several practical strategies that will help them rewire their thoughts to create new behavioral patterns. This book also addresses the benefits that come from changing one's own behavior, using case studies involving married couples, parents and their children, friends, and colleagues to demonstrate how one's actions can impact interpersonal communication. Recommended for readers interested in gaining tools to improve their behavior and the tendency to want control of everything and everyone.

Wolfgang Linden has woven experiences from his illustrious career as a researcher and teacher into a compelling and highly readable account of the challenges associated with control, specifically focusing on how little control we actually have over ourselves and others. This sounds like a depressing and hopeless tale--but it isn't. Linden carefully guides the reader through a series of chapters laden with practical advice that offers hope in our eternal quest to understand and respond to those things we can control and those things that we can't. This is an insightful book from a distinguished clinical psychologist and I recommend it highly.

About the Author

Wolfgang Linden is a Professor Emeritus in Clinical and Health Psychology at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver/Canada. He is a Scientist Practitioner with expertise in the reduction of health risk behaviors, stress management, eating disorders, treatment of hypertension, psychosocial cardiac rehabilitation, and psychological factors in cancer care. Dr. Linden has written over 170 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and six books, three of which were also published in German, Turkish, Chinese, and Korean. For the last four decades he has worked as an advocate for improved mental health care, and has recently focused on trying to minimize the long-term consequences of adverse childhoods.