Author ARCHIBALD D. HART
Publisher THOMAS NELSON
ISBN 0849918529
Dr Hart is clinical psychologist and has written a number of books on themes related to behavioral psychology. He is a Christian although not writing (at least in this particular book) especially to Christians. The subtitle is “how the endless pursuit of pleasure is leaving us numb” and it focuses on what is known in the psychiatric profession as anhedonia. There is a pleasure center in the brain and overmuch stimulation interferes with its proper function and the result is a loss of a true sense of pleasure and the increasing need for excessive stimulation to activate it. I got the impression from reading these pages that it might have been written in a hurry with the result that it does not have a marks of a more polished presentation of the subject. It is evidently written primarily for the layman, and although there are many quotations concerning recent research conducted in many quarters on the functions of the brain there are virtually no footnotes to lead an interested reader into further examination of what is being presented. Having noted these negative points, there remains plenty to make the reader think and much will register as being true and serve as a warning to us all. The book includes a seven-step program to use in order to begin to correct the slow spiral into depression and to lift the soul out of the drift into anhedonic states. It may be, that those attempting to follow the program would need to first of all become thoroughly convinced about the disease and its causes otherwise the disciplines of the program would be avoided. In this regard there is plenty of information drawn from recent findings in brain research that, if only partly true, will serve to awaken the reader. To aid this most chapters have a section in which the reader can test themselves against certain statement and questions. Some readers would probably take the tone of this book as somewhat sensationalist and even alarmist. Others will be convinced that this author is helpfully highlighting a serious matter that demands the attention of parents and young people all the more so Christian parents and young people if they are not to be continually drinking in the spirit of the world around about them. I found the book to be thought provoking and its findings appeared to fall into line with what is revealed in scripture and is observable in the lives of many in these busy times when there is far too much fast paced stimulation attacking the soul.
