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Psycho-Synergy™:
System for
Developing, Improving, and Using
Synergistic Life Skills
This book covers concepts, principles, and methods for developing or improving eight of the most important life (coping) skills. What’s so exceptional, unique, and special about it? It integrates all the concepts, models, methods, and practices into a step-by-step, building block system that (a) promotes and enables mutual, synergistic complementarity and reinforcement among self-awareness, personal motivation, thinking (i.e., problem solving and decision making), learning, interpersonal relations, communication, behavior modification, and time management), and (b) presents one basic but adaptable methodology for all of them (instead of having to learn and use a different methodology for each--as happens now).
Chapter
1:
Personal Development and Your Future
Chapter
2:
The Individual: A System of
Characteristics
(a
Self-Awareness manual, including a
These are the basics for
better managing one’s
own life.)
(Includes
addenda on
The Socialization of Children and
Interpersonal Styles)
Appendix
B:
Brain Structures, Functions, and Processes
Appendix
C:
The Process of Mental Development:
How Your Brain Becomes Your Mind
Pages:
365 total 2-column,
8½”x11”
pages (339 printed); manual/workbook in a 3-ring binder
Illustrations:
95 (54 figures, 35
tables, and 6 exhibits)
Personal
Traits Inventory (to fill in)
Personal
Goal Setting and Planning Worksheets (to fill in)
Chapter 1 (a) describes the book's contents, (b) explains underlying concepts, and (c) in discussing implications for the future, anticipates and describes a “mind-technology spiral.”
This updated version, which is easily three times as good as the original, has been rewritten largely for students, who would take a course with (a) at least one parent, who studies the manual with the child so that he or she is able to reinforce the child’s learning at home, or (b) an instructor/professor. Students each get a book. Parents get their own copy or copies. And the teacher/instructor has a copy. Even teachers and students in university education programs might use this reference.
Several important points:
This book (manual) is so important because young people aren’t learning how to: (a) understand themselves in beneficial detail (in terms of many specific traits and their cause-effect interrelationships); (b) do the personal motivation (goal setting and planning) that enables them to begin planning and managing their own lives to a greater extent; (c) structure their own learning, thinking, and communication situations; (d) better understand and interact more effectively with others; (e) better manage their time and effort; and (f) use all of the associated knowledge and skills in a far more integrated, synergistic manner than any other book has ever described. The book is also written for (a) self-improvers, and (b) the many people who have never been exposed to anything like this synergistic system, and, therefore, are not coping very well with life’s trials and tribulations—or even opportunities.
This serious and in-depth work can be
called a “manual” because it not only presents the textbook concepts and
principles (the “what” and “why”) of developing various knowledge and skills,
but it also goes on to outline “how
to” continuously acquire and reinforce knowledge, acquire and further
develop skills, and modify certain traits. It does all the above using
100 figures,
tables, and exhibits!
In
addition to describing needs/drives, knowledge factors, skills, personality
traits, and interests,
Chapter 2
(The
Individual: A System of Characteristics) covers three frames of
reference concerning values—including the six values covered in the Allport,
Vernon, Lindzey
Study
of
Values.”
(At one time the
SOV was
the third largest-selling psychological measurement instrument.) Those six
values appear later in
Chapter 6
(Interpersonal
Relations), which describes our interpersonal styles model,
The Interpersonal
Target™.
R.D.Cecil's name is now on the
SOV’s
copyright, because he helped to rewrite much of it. Because of that fact, our computerized version of the test
may someday be included on a CD-ROM
accompanying the book). With that test’s results, the user could fill in the
computerized version of
The Interpersonal
Target™,
which is self-calculating and could also be on the CD-ROM, to see the
implications for his or her tendency to use a particular interpersonal (and
managerial or leadership) style.
Importance of the Manual's Concepts, Methods, Practices, and Tools
The
contents of
Psycho-Synergy™:
System for
Developing, Improving,
and Using
Synergistic Life Skills
can help bring about many necessary, even momentous changes in the world,
perhaps even more dramatically than money alone can do. Certainly causes
involving the reduction of human suffering are important, but
improving Americans’
minds has enormous potential to ripple across and improve all facets of
life in the U.S.—and throughout the world.
Rewritten primarily
for students, this book covers concepts, principles, and methods for
developing and improving the
eight most important life (coping) skills—the very skills
that
most
teenagers
(and others) are not
learning. While it is true that kids these days
are being taught various study habits and basic phases of the analytic
approach to problem solving,
Psycho-Synergy goes much
further. For example, teens are not now learning the what, why, and “how to” of
doing the following anywhere near as effectively as the manual can teach them to
do:
A. Understand themselves (and other people)
in beneficial detail—i.e., in terms of many specific (rather than vague or
general) traits and their cause-effect interrelationships.
B. Do the personal motivation (goal setting
and planning) that enables them to begin (a) increasing their motivation, and
(b) planning and managing their own lives both more effectively and to a greater
extent.
C. Vastly increase the
effectiveness and
efficiency of their mental processes—especially during important
learning and
thinking situations—by....
1. Becoming more active and effective participants in the development of their
knowledge and skills in these key areas:
self-awareness,
personal motivation, learning, thinking, interpersonal relations, communication,
behavior (traits) modification, and time (and effort) management.
2. Structuring mental processes—by
(1)
increasing
the likelihood that they will actually stop to think what they are doing and how
to do it better, and then (2) applying the advanced steps, principles, methods,
tools, and practices for mentally dealing with the situation.
3.
Compensating for major mental limitations,
such as the human mind’s inability to handle more than four or five bits of
information at a time on its own,
by using diagrams to visually (1) analyze hundreds (or more) possibly
causal variables and the mountain of associated bits of qualitative and
quantitative information associated with those variables, and then (2)
formulate, analyze, test, and select among various (sets of) possible solutions.
4. Learning the principles, methods, tools, and skills for more effective mental process while young, so that less than effective bad habits are not constantly learned and reinforced well into adulthood, when they are extremely difficult to unlearn and replace with far better habits.
5. Replacing any existing bad habits with good ones.
For example, instead of simple-mindedly saying, “The problem is,” and then
coming up with a single solution for just one cause, think in terms of
multi-causality and formulate an actual system of
solutions to deal with a system of causal or influential factors—and
thereby reduce the need to fight the innumerable, recurring fires attributable
to previously poorly solved, smoldering, festering, continuing problems.
D. Use all of the associated knowledge
and skills in a far more integrated, synergistic manner than has ever previously
been described.
A
forty-year management consultant and trainer, a retired Naval officer, and the
author of 32 books (including three college texts), I know whereof I speak. I
have witnessed countless business and military situations where underdeveloped
skills and the development and reinforcement of poor learning and thinking
habits have so often resulted in disastrous mistakes and problems. For example:
In both
organizational and social settings, it nearly always happens that someone says,
“The problem is....and this is what we ought to do about it.” Invariably,
someone else will say, “No, I think this is the problem.... and what should be
done.” However, there is no such thing as “the problem.” There is a problem
situation brought about by some system of causal and/or influential factors.
So each of the above people was probably right when identifying a causal
factor (“the problem”); but each was also wrong when citing only one cause. As a
result, they end up arguing over who’s right rather than what’s right.
While egos are obviously involved, the individuals did not approach the
problerm-solving situation methodically—that is, by performing each phase of
the analytic approach
in its turn.
However, they jumped right from a simplistic analysis to formulating a single
solution. Instead, they should have first thoroughly
analyzed the situation (by identifying the possible factors
involved), then
formulated solutions
(including plans for implementation) that dealt with each cause/influence
identified, and finally
made a decision
(by analyzing the pros and cons of each proposed solution, testing scenarios
involving what might occur as a result of each solution’s implementation, and
then selecting a system of compatible alternatives to implement). Again,
systems of causes require systems of solutions.
Thinking
takes (a) knowledge and proper execution of the methodology, (b)
self-discipline, and (c) mental effort. But as Henry Ford once said, “Thinking
is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it.”
In fact, article after article has bemoaned the fact that ours has become “the
mindless society” or “the mentally lazy society”—as well as “the permissive
society.” Just imagine the looming, potentially terrible implications for global
warming, passage of broadly beneficial legislation, national security, and the
futures of all Americans—even all humanity.
The rather obvious
point: As Alvin Toffler said in his
1960s best-selling book,
Future Shock, we must
learn how to learn
better, think better, and relate better—or existing problems will become insurmountable, making the
future bleak. The self-perpetuating cycle of underdeveloping skills and
developing and reinforcing bad habits must be broken. And that cycle can
only be broken successfully by starting with today’s young. So,
from
childhood on, people must learn, practice, and reinforce more insightful
self-awareness and better personal motivation, learning, thinking,
interpersonal, and communication skills, methods, practices, and habits.
Period.
What’s so unique and
special about this book? It integrates all the basic and even
advanced concepts, models, methods, and practices into a step-by-step, building
block
system
that (a) promotes and enables mutual, synergistic complementarity
and reinforcement among self-awareness, personal motivation, thinking (i.e.,
problem solving and decision making), learning, interpersonal relations,
communication, behavior modification, and time management, (b) presents
one
basic but adaptable methodology for all of them—instead of having to learn a
different methodology for each (as occurs now), and (c) enables teens and
adults to better
structure their own motivation, learning, thinking, interpersonal,
communication, and behavior modification processes. Furthermore,
Chapter 1
anticipates and describes a “mind-technology
spiral” and explains why
the mind is the
ultimate weapon for war, instrument for peace, and instrument for..... everything that needs solving or doing far better in this complex,
problem-riddled world. Consider for a moment how impactful this book could
be—e.g., how many complex, knotty problems could be solved by people who can (a)
learn more and learn it better, and (b) analyze situations, plan, make
decisions, and solve problems more effectively. The ripple effect and
overall impact could (can) be absolutely phenomenal—by accelerating interactive
technological advances and reducing ignorance, hunger, poverty, bigotry, global
warming, and even international hostilities!
Again, the manual is
largely for students, who would take an instructed
course—perhaps with at least one parent, who learns the principles, methods, and
tools so that he or she can (a) help teach the student, (b) set a good example
for the student to follow, and (c) reinforce the student's
learning at home. It is also written for self-improvers and the many people who
are not coping very well with life’s trials and tribulations—or even
opportunities.
To make the book
easier for young people to study, and realizing that many if not most will simply skim
it rather than reading it carefully, I purposefully underlined major points so
that students would at least focus on and absorb them. In addition, there are
100 figures, tables,
and exhibits that visually communicate major concepts,
methods, and practices so that they will better “sink in.”
Copyright © 2023 by R.D. Cecil and Company Last updated: 9/01/2023