Customer Reviews

Why Good People Do Bad Things: Understanding Our Darker Selves, First Edition

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The title might lead a casual reader to dismiss this as just one more lightweight self-help book -- but that's not the case, not in the least! As with Hollis' earlier books, it's a psychologically & philosophically rich examination of the human soul, offering no easy answers, no magic solutions, no simplistic aphorisms in place of real insight. If you truly want to understand your life & its choices, then you have to be willing to do some difficult & often painful emotional work. And that's something few of us are eager to do.

Which leads us to the question: do you want to grow, to become more fully conscious, to strive towards wholeness? If so, you'll have to discard protective illusions, stop expecting someone else to solve everything for you, and apply an almost ruthless honesty to yourself. You won't like a lot of what you see in that dark mirror, and you'll try to fend it off, explain it away ... but that's our mistake. If we can acknowledge the part we unconsciously play in our own suffering, we may well learn how to alleviate some of it & live with what remains.

Mind you, Hollis never promises an end to suffering, a wondrous makeover that does away with every ugly scar & thought! He has too much respect for the tragic view of human life to hold up an illusion of perfect happiness, no matter how golden & comforting. He's very clear on this: what we need isn't happiness, but meaning. And to find it, we have to be willing to grapple with the Shadow, all that we fear & despise about ourselves, all that we reject & often project onto others.

I feel that this is one of Hollis' finest books, in that it possesses an extra depth & richness of insight. It made me look at my own life more deeply than I have in the past, and encouraged me to confront many of its uncomfortable & frightening aspects. At the very least, it will make you think long & hard about yourself. At the most, it may set you forth upon a fascinating & revealing journey. Most highly recommended!

This is one of the most powerful and life-altering books I have ever read. There are insights on practically every page and the depth of understanding of the human mind that Dr. Hollis brings is extraordinary.
During a period of difficulty in my life which I am still working through, I stumbled upon this book. The title caught my eye but I was anticipating a Dr. Phil-ish over-simplification of human behavior full of soft answers and plenty of upbeat self-affirmations. I was stunned to find how wrong I was. Dr. Hollis examines not only the individual but how the individual creates the society that begets the evils mankind has brought upon himself over the millennia. I found myself stopping and re-reading passages constantly and because of the profundity on nearly every page, it took me quite a while to finish. Reading a chapter was an exhausting endeavor that challenged me with hours of thought-provoking reflection time just to try and wrap my head around the myriad observations that Hollis provides. In my cynicism, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop - the point at which the author wraps up all of these conundrums with one universal solution, naturally his solution that you have to buy the book to discover. Thankfully, there was no such moment. As anyone knows who has taken the time to really look deep into the darkness within, there are no easy answers in life and no slate cleaning cure-alls that make life better and wipe away the misery. Life is hard. Knowing who you are and why you do what you do just might allow you to avoid the mistakes we all seem determined to re-visit. Still, it remains in our hands to decide and throughout each day we are faced with choices. That is the struggle of our life. This book helped me to understand myself, to see why I was making poor choices, to face the ugliness within myself, and to carefully examine the choices I had been making. I am still taking small steps towards a better future for myself but at least now I am doing so without the blinders of denial, the ignorance of reality avoidance, or the false security of self-destructive behaviors.
If you are truly ready for the voyage to the heart of who you are, I can not encourage you enough to pick up this book and read it. It has been a life saver for me. Thanks, Dr. Hollis.

I cannot write that this is the finest book of Dr. Hollis, because having read all but two of his books during the last year, I can only write that every single word, which I have read so far from this man, is fine.
I feel blessed and very grateful for having discovered his writings.
His words are like a balm on many of my wounds.
Through the reading of Dr. Hollis' books, I have learned to go beyond mere acceptance of difficult situations in life to a place of forgiveness, which I had not known before.
This and all the other books of Dr. Hollis can help people to transform and to become more gentle-hearted, because they offer explanations for many questions. Not solutions, though. But - at least for me - explanations were what I had been looking for for many years.

Hollis always tackles the hard stuff. He offers you the opportunity of awareness without easy standard "self-help" answers. All of his books are worth reading. This one is outstanding.

Well Hollis does it again...intrepidly going where no human dares to go and shedding light on much material that most of us would rather not examine.
(Don't mind the previous reviewer's dissatisfaction with the God's Shadow chapter. After all, what does the author of a book about increasing impulse buying in supermarkets know about his own shadow, other than the fact that it's already running his life!!)

This is a fascinating book from James Hollis. Hollis is a Jungian Psychologist that provides a truly insightful and thought-provoking look at how our subconscious impacts our lives in unexpected and often unwanted ways. This book has helped me gain a lot insights about human beings in general, and my self in particular. It focuses on how the complexes that exist in our subconscious effect our behaviors and how we can bring these complexes to the surface so that we can live more fulfilling lives.

In all honesty, it took me a little while to adapt to his writing style. That said, it was well worth the effort. If you are having the same struggle don't give up the ideas here are powerful and potentially life changing. This is not a self-help book with simple recipes for improving your life. The ideas contained here, if put into practice, are meant to challenge you and help you grow into a more "whole" individual.

This is a very thought provoking book. I learned a lot of interesting opinions that I had never heard or read before. I liked the writing style, but the book is really written by a scholar for other scholars. The choice of vocabulary was excessive. I thought the author could have reached a larger audience had he written in more plain terms. I would recommend the book, however, as written.

I just finished this book and have a lot to think about. I have heard and read these ideas before but the subject bears going over again and again. I definitely feel Hollis has an excellent understanding of the subject matter. He isn't a very good writer, though, actually. Each chapter seems like all his thoughts on that section just written down in any order and sometimes repeated for no good reason I can see. Thoughts often don't follow from each other. Fortunately, the thoughts are worthwhile and can stand alone. I found myself stopping many times to mull over what he has said.

In his book, Dr. Hollis shows us ourselves in this powerful book for unless we find the beam in our own eye we will project it onto another. This insightful book, Why Good People Do Bad Things, teaches us many things. I particularly appreciated his line that says, "...feeling is not a choice. Feeling arises from the soul, autonomously; ours is the choice to acknowledge and honor that feeling, or not, without literalizing its meaning." It validated something inside of me.

The author of this book explains the gut searching work that the conscious seeking person must do, therefore, I highly recommend this book for those seeking to become conscious.

Mary Jane Hurley Brant, Author When Every Day Matters
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I love this book and its author. I read the whole thing back to back a couple of years ago. I passed on the book to a friend. Now another friend is ready to look at the reasons of why we have a dark side as people, as countries, and as a planet. This author is a Jungian psychologist and quite astute in his views and elucidations.

My friend started reading the book and is appreciating it. Unfortunately he is a busy guy and would probably be able to read as he travels on planes. I couldn't stop when I started this book. It was a reading that I looked forward to.

By reading this book, you will understand why we have bloodshed, wars and weird people and also why we may have unexplained, possibly strange and unintegrated parts of ourselves.

I recommend it highly to anyone who does inner work.