Control is a word that always stirs up passionate feelings, for it touches on life-long concerns with power and helplessness, with freedom and limitations, with whether we get what we want or just take what we get. Now, in Imperfect Control, beloved author Judith Viorst uses the same wisdom and acute psychological insight that made Necessary Losses a huge national hardcover and paperback bestseller to show how our sense of who we are and the ways we relate to others are colored by our concerns about control -- about having and losing it, loving and fearing it, and knowing when the time has come to surrender it.
Drawing on the work of biological and social scientists, psychoanalysts and philosophers, fiction and poetry, and personal stories, including some of her own, Viorst provides -- as she did with loss -- a whole new way of thinking about control. She points out how concerns with control explain why we must (or cannot) be the person in charge, why we're always (or never) prepared to admit we were wrong, and why we find it easy (or impossible) to delegate, depend on, trust, let go. With her trademark intelligence, wit, and humor, Viorst demonstrates how issues of control shape the very fabric of our existence.
