The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth by M. Scott PeckMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Context & Why I read this book
"The Road Less Traveled" is a long-time bestseller in the area of psychology, self-help, and personal growth; topics I am interested in for nearly a decade now. It also includes several chapters on "discipline"; a topic I am currently exploring more deeply. So it was about time to finally tackle this work.
What is the book about as a whole?
Peck was a psychiatrist and author and he derived his "world view" mostly from his experience in his clinical work. In "The Road less Traveled" he tries to answer how to live a fulfilling life. For him, this meant to elaborate on the topics of Discipline, Love, and Spiritual Growth.
The book's structure
The book is divided into 4 parts:
I. Discipline which is about Problems, Pain, Delaying Gratification, Sins, Problem-Solving, Responsibility, Neuroses, Character Disorders, Freedom, Reality, Transference, Openness to Challenge, Truth, Balancing, Depression, Renunciation)
II. Love which approaches a definition of Love, Falling in "Love", Romantic Love, Ego Boundaries, Dependency, Cathexis, Self-Sacrifice, Feelings, Attention, Loss, Independence, Commitment, Confrontation, Separateness, Psychotherapy, Mystery)
III. Growth & Religion which is about Word Views, Religion, Several of his clinical cases, Scientific tunnel vision
IV. Grace which tackles the "miracles" of Health, the Unconscious, Serendipity, Grace, Evolution, Entropy, Evil, Consciousness, Power, Grace and Mental Illness
One lesson
There are two ways to confront a loved one when you feel to possess superior knowledge; you can do it either with arrogance or with humility. The truly loving person always chooses the latter by scrupulous self-doubting and self-examination in advance and even then always believing to be only "probably right".
Reading Recommendation / Who should read this?
While most of the book is very approachable, this is not a book for beginners. Especially the latter chapters that focus on spiritual growth require some previous contact with the topic in order to be digestible. Nonetheless, even if you only read the first two parts of the book it will benefit you greatly. So I give it an 8 out of 10 (⭑⭑⭑⭑) on my personal rating scale.
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