Radical Honesty: How To Transform Your Life By Telling The Truth (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gestalt therapist Blanton believes that lying is the major cause of human stress and advocates strict truthfulness as the key to achieving intimacy and calm.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

At once shocking, entertaining, and profound--Radical Honesty is revolutionary book that takes a fresh look at how we live, love, and attempt to heal ourselves in modern society.

Radical Honesty is not a kinder, gentler self-help book. In it Dr. Brad Blanton, a psychotherapist and expert on stress management, explodes the myths, superstitions, and lies by which we live. He shows us how stress comes not from the environment, but from the self-built jail of the mind. What keeps us in our self-built jails is lying. "We all lie like hell," Dr. Blanton says. "It wears us out...it is the major source of all human stress. It kills us." Not telling our friends, lovers, spouses, or bosses about what we do, feel, or think keeps us locked in that jail. The way out is to get good at telling the truth. Dr. Blanton provides the tools we can use to escape the jail of the mind. This book is the cake with the file in it.

In Radical Honesty, Dr. Blanton coaches us on how to have lives that work, how to have relationships that are alive and passionate, and how to create intimacy where none exists. As we have been taught by the philosophical and spiritual sources of our culture for thousands of years, from Plato to Nietzsche, from the Bible to Emerson, the truth shall set you free.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dell; 7th Printing edition (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440507545
• ISBN-13: 978-0440507543
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (48 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #495,840 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

116 of 119 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars interesting, extreme philosophy , November 21, 2004

By	Timothy H. Mansfield (Long Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book is brash, confident, strong, results-oriented, opinionated, simple, and straightforward to the point of over-simplifying. It also has New Age-y sub-themes that will put off some, but that's another matter.

The book's basic point is sound -- honesty is the best policy. However, the implementation of that policy, as described in "Radical Honesty", is not very nuanced. It is a shock program most properly applied to people who are consciously or unconsciously living out self-destructive scripts that they internalized from somewhere or another, for people who are being deeply, fundamentally dishonest with themselves and with others. It is for people who could use a real shaking up, to break free from the false security and real stress of a false persona.

That's fine as far as it goes. However, if you were to apply the principles of radical honesty indiscriminately in your daily life, you would be a jerk, basically, and you wouldn't be able to get anything done in society. It's best considered for bringing health to broken intimate relationships among adults.

On this point, a quote from Khalil Gibran comes to mind:
"If indeed you must be candid, be candid beautifully."

The stark candidness prescribed in "Radical Honesty" is not beautiful, it is raw and ultimately self-centered. It's for emergency use, like approaching the task of redecorating by burning your house down and starting over.

That said, personally I found the author's brash style to be refreshing and likeable. As always, the reader should just extract the personally valuable stuff out of his collection of techniques and his overall message, and simply ignore the rest.

For a much less strident romp around the topic of how to have healthy adult relationships, check out "Life and How to Survive It" by John Cleese and Robin Skynner. It's a very thoughtful and engaging read. Don't be thrown off by afterimages of Cleese's Monty Python silliness -- he has a wonderfully incisive mind and does a fine job as co-author of this work on the practical psychology of healthy living.

82 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Radical honesty for those who believe in "Grow Up", February 11, 2002

By	MotherLodeBeth "MotherLodeBeth" (Sierras of California) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Whenever I pick this book up off the bookshelf I am reminded of the Jack Nicholsons character in A Few Good Men where he says "The Truth? You cant handle the truth!". This is an in your face book that will make some people terribly uncomfortable. People who are afraid of honesty. I believe that while many people will say they want the truth that when they hear it they are livid. Truth hurts. And I admit that I have a double standard with myself when it comes to truth. Most of the time I speak my mind and say what I believe. But I also admit that I also deflect questions from some people whom experience has shown me cannot handle the truth, simply because I don't need the nonsense in my life.

And I admit that I winced when I first saw the books title and then became intrigued when I heard him speak on a variety of radio and television shows. So I bought the book and am glad. And yes it is heavily politically incorrect in an era where pushing and enabling the whole woe is me victim mode is so popular.

One of my favorite parts of this book and advise that I believe more people need to take is where the author writes on page 179" Many of the people who go to therapists or physicians seeking relief are tired. They are tired from having worked out their lives in such a way that they get worn out instead of recharged by living. When someone like this takes responsibility for exercise, nutrition, and rest, a number of their "psychological" problems disappear. The human body has a wonderful capacity to restore itself it is given a break from abuse and a chance to rest. Wellness is a natural state of being for people who have learned how to get out of their own way. "

On page 185 the author notes wisely that "What happens when therapy works and keeps on working is that people want to learn about how to stay well. They become interested in living in the world by constantly renewing their leases on life rather than by being lost in their minds. They can do that best within the context of a sustaining community of other people in the same boat--people who have created wellness and are committed to maintaining wellness."

On page 187 he shares that most people don't take care of themselves out of knowing they should. That there was a man who was told by his physician to lose 15 lbs but didn't and in fact gained 10 more pounds and was told at his next doctors visit by the doctor "If you aren't willing to take care of yourself, why in the hell should I?". That it took having a heart attack that could have been prevented for the man to change. Dr Blanton then wisely notes that "learning to take care of ourselves creatively rather than resentfully is a big step in growing up".

On page 212 Dr Blanton notes "Responsibility means that whatever you are doing, you are willing to experience yourself as the cause. You are the source of your troubles as well as your successes." "As long as you are blaming, explaining, apologizing, trying, resolving to be good, hoping or feeling guilty, you are not being responsible." On page 215 "To get back in touch with who you are when you have been lost in your mind is to get back to your source. This is hard to do. You have to die to live."

58 of 64 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome - changed my life!, August 14, 1999

By	Lara Johnstone "[e-mail]" (Oakland, CA USA) - See all my reviews

I used to think I was honest, until I read this book and realized that I had been nothing but a moralizing self-righteous bull*%$# artist and I was the cause of my anger, loneliness and seperation from others. It was not so much that I lied to those I loved, but that I had been lying to myself, I was hating everyone for not being who I thought they 'should' be... Well, what an experience it has been starting to listen to my body, share my anger, resentments and appreciations, to notice my victimization neurosis, and learning to share my feelings in the moment... Since I read the book and started practicing Radical Honesty, I have learnt how to live a life of laughter, loving, and joy... Pain, jeolousy, anger, etc. are no longer to be avoided, but to be 'experienced' as opportunities for growth, to work through them, to 'experience' them and move on.... Not only have I come to love myself, I love those around me for 'who' they are, and not for 'whom I want them to be'! Do yourself a favor and buy this book now, and then practice it! You'll never be the same.. ;-) I have not only bought it for my friends, but also my old enemies, some of whom have now become people I admire and appreciate.