Battling the Inner Dummy

by David L. Weiner, Gilbert M. Hefter M.D. (Contributor)

From the sexcapades of Bill Clinton to the unbelievable story of Hugh Grant and the prostitute; from the 15-year-old who weighs only 82 pounds but believes she's obese, to the professor who screams profanities at other drivers in snarled traffic--we wonder out loud, "What are they thinking?!" What drives so many apparently normal, intelligent people to act irrationally, harming themselves and others?According to Sigmund Freud, such behavior may be caused by the "id," our built-in mental invitation to everything from dangerous fun to horrendous acts of irrationality. For popular psychology writer David Weiner, "id" stands for "Inner Dummy," the part of the brain that we must come to understand if we are ever to know why we do foolish, irrational, and compulsive things. Drawing on the groundbreaking theories of evolutionary psychology, Battling the Inner Dummy localizes the source of our irrationality in the limbic id-the most primitive part of our brain that endlessly thirsts for status, sex, territory, nurturance, and survival. "We become captured by these drives," Weiner says. "By understanding our Inner Dummy, we can avoid disasters in our own lives."Along with sound advice from clinical psychiatrist Dr. Gilbert Hefter on how to handle our own Inner Dummies with built-in rewards and punishments, Weiner brilliantly interweaves delightful, imagined conversations with Freud and staffers at a mythical advertising agency, who have been given the assignment of communicating the nature of the id's irrationalities to the general public (e.g., t-shirts that say, "Would someone please fix my Inner Dummy before I fall in love with another idiot?" and a bathroom scale that allows you to weigh eight pounds less each time you use it).This inviting, humorous romp with Inner Dummies who have made the news illustrates how we can apply "ID prevention" in our daily lives and includes all the major strategies science and medicine have developed over the years to counter Inner Dummies that threaten our well-being. See how well you're handling your own inner dummy by taking the quizzes at www.innerdummy.com.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction

468 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1999

Reviews

[aPriL does feral sometimes · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has the most annoying writing style of any book I have read in two years. I am SO frustrated because the subject matter is truly interesting.

The author appears to be unable to write a descriptive paragraph without the words 'limbic' or 'id' in every other sentence. He also decided to alternate chapters with imaginary conversations with the ghost of Dr. Freud which are supposed to be cute, but instead are asinine and fart-joke juvenile. Most frustrating of all, when he finally gets to the central points of the book, he illustrates the various drives and instincts behind human craziness, i.e. status, lust, rage, attachment, territorial, survival, nurturance, purpose, with supposedly verbatim talks with friends and acquaintances which read like teenage school-lunchroom conversations.

The real-world examples he sprinkles around in straightforward descriptions are the truly interesting and fascinating stories I wanted to read, but I couldn't take the annoying and irritating manner of 'humorous' (not) imaginary dialogues which comprise most of the book.

[Andrea · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is baffling to me why anyone would write a psuedo-serious book exploring psychology and the choices people make and then have every other chapter as a pretend conversation between leading researchers and Freud.

This book was nearly unreadable and what little did make sense was boring and the same old pop psychology nonsense.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

makes you laugh and then say....Hey! so THAT's what happened

[Jaime · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a great read, about how your basic functions, make up some of the crazy tendencies we all have.