Customer Reviews

The Power of Female Friendship: How Your Circle of Friends Shapes Your Life

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After reading this book, I had such a greater understanding of all of the female relationships in my life! I have worked to improve the type of friend I am to people, and also understood why my friends act in certain ways. Once again, Dr. Paul has encouraged me to take hold of a very important area of my life and make it the best that it can be! Thank you so much!

A brilliant, original take on how friendships in specific, and relationships in general, work! A wealth of practical information--complex theories explained in layman's terms--for women and men!
And btw, don't listen to the PW review (above). Whoever wrote that petty, sexist tripe is off they're rocker! According to that reviewer, female friendships is "a subject of which he [Dr. Paul] can have no firsthand knowledge". Does that mean that men can have no insight into women? Perhaps that reviewer doesn't think black people should write about white people, or that gay people should write about straight people. How ignorant! Why Amazon even allowed such a so-called professional review written like that is beyond me.

The lessons that Dr. Dobransky teaches in this book are priceless. He demonstrates a concise, scientific system which can be implemented by anybody, that will undoubtedly lead to a higher level of happiness and durable fulfillment in life. This book is a must read for serious students of the truth regarding the science of friendship.

Dr. Paul's book gives the keys to female friendship. At the core of his work is description of the evolution of the brain from the Triune Brain Theory.

Throughout his book he shows how the three brains play a significant role in friendship. The most ancient aspect of the brain is the brainstem, (the reptilian brain). This is the center of gender related instincts and is an area where men and women are profoundly different. The midbrain (the mamalian brain) is the center of our emotions, the core of friendship, and the cortex (the higher brain) is the center of our character. On this he cites, "Character is Destiny." You win when your character has victory in guiding your decisions.

Knowing this infomation gives us, as Dr. Paul says, a "Cool Eye." This is the observing eye that knows the optimal path for ourselves so we can make wise decisions.

Dr. Paul has created an "Operating System" to describe how the brain works in friendship to create higher levels of happiness and success. The book is fascinating. He integrates complex concepts in an easy to understand format and has many examples and stories to illustrate his points.

If you want powerful knowledge to to enhance your female friendships, this book is a must.

Even more interesting, is the position he has taken by writing the book. From an evolutionary perspective, my "Cool Eye" says he is a valueable player. Stop and think. It takes courage for a man to step forth and write a book on the power of female friendship. It creates a path for victories of consciousness in the bigger evolutionary game. Moreover, it is done so each of us can contribute-- one moment at a time, right where we are, in our own back yard. It happens with the significant people in our life. Here is is how I see it.

The reptilian brain - When it comes to stress, men and women have different reaction patterns. Men fight and flight, women tend and befriend. By stepping forth and writing the book he shows how the reptilian brain can be used to promote the next step. We as women need the
higher conscious male protection so as to have a safe place to bond as sisters. Otherwise, the lower conscious hurt men would stifle it. Remember, in the middle ages, millions of forward thinking women died in the inquisition. By stepping forward, he is also inspiring other men to
use their protective qualities to provide a safe haven for women to develop and express themselves. This is an equalitarian, partnership approach.

He recognizes the mammalian brain by giving us details on the critical importance of sustained, consistent positive emotion for building friendship. Positive emotion has a broadening and building effect. It allows us to bring forth more of our resources and work together creatively and cooperatively to win the bigger game.

Finally, in discussing the higher brain, he did not miss a beat. He focused on the importance of the higher brain in promoting character. One of the core principles of his book is that "character is destiny." It is through character that we unify while remaining unique. We are all in this together. This defininely a huge step forward towards creating global harmony and peace.

Kudos, Well done.
Alice Vlietstra, PhD
www.life-attractionsblog.com
www.lifetreesolutions.com

Once you pick this book up you won't want to put it down. I have read it once and I am just starting to go though it a second time. I can't wait for the next book. If you are wanting to learn more about yourself and other, do yourself a favor and read this one. The pictures really made the information more meaning full.

Women often spend hours puzzling over relationships with men. I have a feeling that many women will find all their relationships strengthened after reading this book about female friendship. It defines the effect of friendship in simple terms: positive emotion. It also discusses the range of negative emotions that afflict relationships and provides simple guidance for deciding how to handle those tricky emotions that often upend relationships, leaving us wondering what happened. I feel better equipped to handle all relationships after reading this book because it shows me how my supportive friendships with women provide a foundation and attitude for building trust with men, too.

Great book. Easy to read. Well written. Helps reconnect to our inner truth, when we have forgotten it due to being off balance with our lifestyle... and it is easy in this fast pace world.

I am a fan of Dr. Paul Dobransky. I have read/study/listen to anything and everything I can put my hands/ears on... he offers Weekly Teleseminar that are really very educative (but the kind you can apply to your life).

A big thanks to Dr. Paul: You have changed my life!

This book had some good points, but it would have been much better distilled to a magazine or journal article. It effectively analyzes what makes friendships work, but it's full of crazy tables and charts that are supposed to illustrate things like "`Thick Skin': Walls in the Boundary" and "The Three Brains of a Potential Friend." I just started laughing when I looked at them. The examples of people and their friendship problems all sound fictional, too (whether or not they are; there's just not enough detail; they're very two-dimensional).
I was lured by the big caption on the back cover: "A practical guide to finding friends for life" because it is more difficult to meet friends as an adult when you're not very involved in any sort of institutional structure (i.e. work, school. . .). There are no actual tips or fresh ideas for finding friends, just a whole lot of analysis.

I bought this because Dr. Paul's other book "The Secret Psychology of How We Fall in Love" was so valuable. This one starts out fine then he appears to get lost in overcomplicated diagrams and fails to end with how we can make friendships in a more strategic and empowering way. He simply attempts to deconstruct the friendships we have now.

But it's very endearing that men are so fascinated with, even envious of, female friendships - male friends at my house have picked up this book and asked to borrow it! (One friend still is mystified why women go to the bathroom together, and no answer will satisfy him. We tell him it's to borrow each other's hairbrush, or gossip about them men we're with. This male friend says "that can't be it" yes, it is. Not too complicated.)

In this book Dr. Paul repeats his use of the "Cool Eye" device, one which works quite well "your cool eye steps outside of yourself and coaches you as you are talking to men" a paraphrase of how he said it in "The Secret Psychology" book.

The other insight I gained from this book is the difference between male friendships and female friendships. Men rarely befriend others outside their social rank, whereas women befriend other women all up and down the socioeconomic ladder. (By the way, how can men be so black-and-white? A man may have a higher rank in the professional salary department but fall short in the athletic department.)

This information, about how men approach friendship and how it differs from the female approach, will be valuable for some of us who work in male-dominated fields, such as software and technology.

Those two points aside, it was puzzling to read this book and discern why exactly he was writing it, other than to satisfy his own desire to understand women better. He may have made a more cogent point had he teamed up with a female co-author again, so the two could bring the contrasts and similarities of male/female friendships into sharper relief.

In a brief passage toward the book's end, Dr. Paul describes his own philosophy of psychology -- a value-based approach that aims to get clients to a personal solution which benefits society overall. It's refreshing to hear a psychologist abandon the post-modern values-neutral tone that has plagued his profession for too long. I would like to see him expand on this further, perhaps in his next book.