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Book Review: by Lang Reid
They F*** You Up
 The
title of this book is enough to take your attention. One can understand
“F***” easily enough, but who are “They”? It turns out, that according to
author Oliver James, a clinical psychologist, “They” are our parents! In
fact, the Daily Mail review of this book claims that the book “explains how
our childhood experiences dramatically shape our lives.”
They F*** You Up (ISBN 978-07475-8478-0, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007) is a
serious and learned look at who we are, and even more importantly “how” we
are. His contentions run contra to some of the main-stream pop psychology,
so one is promised something different from the outset.
Author James firmly grasps the nettle at the beginning of the book, raising
the ‘nature versus nurture’ concepts in the formation of a person’s psyche.
He looks at the supposed similarities between twins, separated at birth, on
whose collectively twinned shoulders, the genetic (nature) theory of
behavior is supported. James does not, and in fact comes down categorically
on the ‘nurture’ side. In his second appendix, he states, “In the case of
twin studies, they have a chequered past. The psychologist Cyril Burt was
demonstrated to have simply invented results of phantom studies of identical
twins in his zeal to prove the role of genes.”
The book has all kinds of (self) revelations, and explanations on the
psychological plane. For example, “Both parents are more likely to claim
that the newborn resembles the father than the mother, a fact that has been
attributed to anxieties about paternity; this is no small matter it would
seem, because at least ten percent of children are not genetically related
to the person they believe to be their biological father.” And does your’s
look like you?
To show examples of people we know, whose psychological profile is fairly
self-evident, James brings forward folk such as Mia Farrow and Michael
Jackson. They may have made fame and fortunes, but you would not pick either
family to be raised in, if you had the chance.
“Intelligence” is discussed and James claims that doing well as a child
prodigy comes from “hot-housing” by the parents. However “genius” comes from
childhood adversity, such a losing a parent. (I am not prepared to leap off
the office balcony to give my children such an opportunity!)
Again using well known persons as his examples, such as George W Bush, James
explains the well documented spoken gaffes as, “Perhaps these verbal faux
pas are a barely conscious way of winding up his bullying mother and waving
two fingers at his father’s cultured sensibility.”
Some chapters of the book are devoted to assisting the reader in
self-analysis, with the hope that by this way you can stop yourself
influencing your children adversely. Perhaps?
There are numerous appendices and a very detailed index, and is almost a
text book, but written in a more reader friendly style. At B. 495 it is a
cheap read for new parents, which they should do before it is too late. By
the age of three years, your children’s psyche may be cast in stone, if you
believe James’ premise.
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