Prisoners of Hate: The Cognitive Basis of Anger, Hostility, and Violence

by Aaron T. Beck

Book Overview

Prisoners of Hate offers a profound analysis of a most pressing human challenge: the causes--and prevention--of hatred. Of the many important books Aaron Beck has written, this may be his greatest... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060932007
• Release Date: August 2000
• Publisher: Harper Perennial
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.67 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.8" x 5.3"

Customer Reviews

A Solid Philosophical Underpinning for Anger Management

Court-mandated anger management courses for first-time offenders deferred from imprisonment for law-breaking aggression became a necessary safety valve for overloaded court and incarceration systems in the late 1990s. It's taken a decade to move from loose notions of what to do in such group work through various suspect methodologies towards empirically verified methods. If deferees are to move through denial to more than mere contemplation or identification and on to committment, behavioral change and relapse prevention, they will pretty likely have to confront the issues addressed herein. Any effective rage-reduction program will require psychodynamic, group dynamic, self-confrontation and emotion-recognition techniques, of course. But if, as Beck has asserted and researchers have agreed for a half century, man's beliefs, values, ideas, attitudes, evaluations, interpretations and appraisals are the drivers of emotion, a cognitive strategy for anger management is mandated. One of the other reviewers is correct to note that other books (including those by Beck himself) address the specific methods more directly, but having read a good 20 books on CBT, REBT, ST, CAT and other cognitive therapies, I'm forced to go this far: Any therapist who conducts anger management courses without reading this book at least twice is going to be well short of his or her potential. In fact, I'd say PoH should be mandated for certification in this specialty. Psychodynamically- and sociologically-oriented therapists will not be displeased. Beck invests plenty of time and effort in ego defenses and groupthink. He also addresses the concerns of the interpersonal school when it comes to reciprocal reactivity and parataxical integration, as well as who the triggerable select for intimate relationships and why. From passive aggression all the way to paranoid delusion, Beck misses darned little in a treatise that ranges from intrapsychic all the way to macro-cultural. This a -great- book for the psychotherapist, sociologist, business or government leader, diplomat, and sophisticated lay reader alike.

Amazing

This book has given me a new perspective on my life. Being a person who has often spells of intense anger. I have managed to refrain from physical violence for a long time now. This book helped me take the "edge off". It has also helped me with border line personality disorder and depression by highlighting, what I interpreted, as causes of both. I highly recommend this book to anyone who gets angry or would just like a good book to read.

The evil that we do: more understandable than ever

The simple idea that the way we think about something determines how we feel about it, and how we act on it. Widely considered the father of modern cognitive therapy, Dr. Beck didn't invent this idea, nor is he the only one promoting it. Yet his expression of it, especially in this fine book, is elegant and compelling. There are many powerful and immediately recognizable examples from daily life, showing how we turn hurt into anger into hatred. How our beliefs and thinking patterns gradually imprison us in cages of reactivity. This book helps make our capacity for both good and evil more understandable. Readers of this book who want a more complete understanding of the topics would probably also benefit from a number of the books talking about the evolutionary and physiological origins of violence. Yet, for the part of our dark nature that we have some ability to control, this book makes a powerful and promising statement, and is complete unto itself.

ideas of cognitive therapy/psychology in practice

Beck does a fine job of demonstrating and applying the basic ideas of his therapy to realistic situations that are much too prevalent in America, let alone the world (currently and as history). Beck explores hatred, the making of hatred -- sponsored by societies or governments, and the results of the hatred. The analysis is poignant and acute. Probably the theme of the book can be summed up as "humans find it easier to hate than to love". Some of the historical analysis was tedious, although historians may not find it so. Beck leaves us with a hopeful note, although looking at the state of the world, I am doubtful about optimism. This is an important book for anyone wishing to understand how the mind works in the respect that the mind influences the actions, which produce the tragedies or triumphs. It is important as well for any person in our society who finds themselves hating, whether it be towards a race, a gender, or an individual. Understanding one's hatred is a step towards freeing oneself to lead a happier existence. Looking at hatred in a global sense leads to understanding just how and why men and women can be made to create suffering. For more info, I recommend the Biology of Violence by Niehoff.

Excellent, loaded with info on cognitive therapy and emotion

Overflowing with information about cognitive therapy, the book also focuses on negative emotions and behavior. Psychologists don't often take their knowledge to the scale Beck does, integrating theory and practice into a view of the world as it is right now -- a world that isn't in very good shape. The path to learned hatred is explained, with numerous examples to help one assimilate the ideas. Anger, peer groups, etc., are handled in detail, and the only lack is a more biological perspective, but that can be found in such books like the Biology of Violence (Niehoff). A fine book, worth reading.