John Gray (2) (1951–)

This book comes as a bit of a disappointment, in the context of the author's earlier works on the differences between male and female thinking and psychology (Women Are From Venus, Men Are From Mars), that seemed to diagfnose inter-personal matters so realistically. The present volume, on the other hand, has a much more 'mushy' or 'soft-headed' approacvh to personal happiness and fulfilment. From what I can remember, the author identifies some dozen sentimental 'buckets' or 'love tanks' left partially or substantially empty from the past, that need to be 'filled' if happiness is to be attained in the present. The author recommends going back mentsally to each on of these old situations and writing letters to the people who affected us badly (maybe indifferent friends, unsupportive parent figures, bullies, sadists...), and then writing to ourselves the type of 'I am sorry' letter you would have liked to get from them. This is supposed to confront, 'process', and finally achieve liberty from, these old ghosts of negative feelings and disappointments. Seeing that there are some twelve such buckets or 'love tanks', that's a lot of processing. Personally, I do not see what good it will do to dwell on the past in such an intense way, and I may be excused a fairly sceptical reaction, especially as the author assures us that unless this is done for each and every one of the unfilled 'love tanks', there is no hope for us. However, the author claims that his approach and counselling has helped many thousands of troubled people, so you may take your chance with it.… (more)