White Bears and Other Unwanted Thoughts

by Daniel M. Wegner

Book Overview

In a series of experiments, Daniel M. Wegner told subjects not to think about white bears. Of course, they found it impossible to avoid thinking of the bears\m-\just as it often seems impossible to stop thinking about forbidden foods, a social blunder, or a lost love. Drawing on theories of William James, Freud, and Dewey, as well as on studies in mood control, cognitive therapy, and artificial intelligence, this enlightening book explores the reasons...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140115994
• ISBN13: 9780140115994
• Release Date: June 1990
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.0" x 7.6"

Customer Reviews

Forget the White Bear

Not your typical psychobabble. This is a book sprinkled with research, experience, and humor. And definitely not a book on "mind control" but "mental control." Do you have complete control over how you think? Can you suppress unwanted thoughts? Maybe... Maybe not. (Don't forget the white bear...) Wegner takes you on a journey through many types of "minds." Especially interesting were his thoughts on depression and obsessing thoughts - those tapes that keep running through your head over and over and over again. A short book, long on insight, this book has the potential to change your life. In the least, it will help you understand the process of mental thinking and what really controls it. Oh, and stop thinking about that white bear...

Before Scheduling an Appointement With a Psych. - Read This!

Simply put, this book changed my life... I was going through a long period (over a year in duration) where I had trouble getting rid of "unwanted thoughts"; basically thoughts that I knew would reduce the level of pleasure I was getting out of any given activity. For example, if I dwelt on X while I was undergoing some otherwise-pleasurable activity - where X is an unwanted thought - my level of enjoyment i.e. my appreciation of that activity would decrease. While I was going through these cycles of unwanted thoughts, the quality of my life was drastically reduced. I'm sure "unwanted thoughts" differ for each person, both in their individual characteristics and implications. According to this book, one should not consciously try to suppress unwanted thoughts, as thereby the thoughts will systematically persist in reemerging. Instead, just "let it be" as it were, and inevitably the unwanted thoughts will start to dissipate. Don't be dissuaded by the above editorial review, as though it is true this is not "light reading" per se, it is very well written and in an easy-to-read format with the layman in mind; and it does not contain a lot of jargon. It reads just like a novel and is quite humorous in parts. I'm not a student of psychology but had no problem with my reading and comprehnsion of this book and gleaned a lot of new information out of it, such as how meta-cognition or "thinking about thinking" works. I hate to say anything negative about this book since I found it a self-help book in the truest sense, but its only feature I didn't fully appreciate was the few charts and graphs it contained, even though they were relevant to the information at hand and supplemented the statistics well. If I were the author of the book I'd have put them in the back. That's trivial, though. In summary, next time someone says "just stop thinking about it" in replying to how you should get rid of an unwanted thought, ignore their advice - then enlighten them.

A Great Read

A wonderfully engaging, cleverly written book about a serious subject. A real delight.

A refreshing change from traditional mind control rethoric

Since graduating high school and moving on to college, I've had significant difficulties concentrating due mostly to what could be described as unwanted thoughts - at least unwanted and the time. This book is the first one I've read that offered scientific evidence supporting the authors points. It didn't solve all my problems, but it has been a great place to start finding solutions.

Easy to read, enlightening, offers different perspective

An excellent read for serious students of psychology AND for everybody else. The upshot of this book is that (according to Wegner's research, which is described in sufficient detail for the reader to make his or her own judgments) the best way to get rid of an obsession is to stop trying to. Wegner's research has found that trying hard to squelch a thought is likely to make it stick harder.Wegner spends some time discussing how this specifically might tie in to depression, in which a person gets stuck in a rut of negative mood and thought and then is preoccupied with wishing that negative mood weren't there.You can also come up with areas in your own life in which you've wanted to get rid of some thought and couldn't. Wegner explains what to do when that happens."Mental control" in the title refers to how we control our own thoughts -- using our thoughts. It's a bit of a puzzle and Wegner makes some good points about it.This book will give you a new perspective on this issue. It's a slim little book, not hard to read, but it is entirely serious and substantive. No empty-headed pop psych here. This is the real thing.