Positive Thinking

If you're going through a hard time or you have set high goals for yourself, Vera Peiffer's book, Positive Thinking, can be your companion. When I was a doctoral student at UCLA, I spent two years conducting research and writing my dissertation. It was a lonely time, and a time when I needed gentle encouragement. My backpack was filled with library books, but it also contained Peiffer's book. I started every day with a short prayer, and then leafed through Peiffer's book to read the affirmation scripts she has provided. I have read Norman Vincent Peale and I have taken his advice to repeat affirmations silently to oneself. My favorite is, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." Peiffer takes this idea one step further, and analyzes the effectiveness of affirmation scripts from the perspective of a behaviorial psychologist. It turns out that the simple repetitiveness of these scripts helps to make the "will" stronger than the "imagination," which is capable of conjuring the most terrible worst-case scenarios. As far as I can tell, Peiffer's book does not rely on affirmation scripts from religious literature. Hers are more direct and economically written. An example being: "I understand that other people cannot read my mind and that it is up to me to inform them about my wishes," etc. This book has helped me in immeasurable ways. I hope that it will help many others!

Compared to many self-help books this is refreshingly basic and straightforward. There is minimal theorizing and a large number of day to day examples of how to deal positively with potentially difficult and stressful situations e.g. passing your driving test, arguments, insomnia, self-assertiveness, loneliness, and so on. Much of it we may know already but Vera Peiffer leaves you inspired by spelling out the positive thinking solutions and strategies so clearly.Peiffer suggests that the quality of your thoughts determines the quality of your life and that whatever you send out to others comes back like a boomerang. With this in mind, long and short versions of affirmations are scattered throughout the book and every so often there are underlined notes such as "never give up", "things are meant to go right", "a person who is interested is interesting" and "whatever you spend a lot of time thinking about will become bigger". After reading the last quote you suddenly get a lot more careful about what you are thinking about!An excellent book full of useful reminders.

This book, Positive Thinking: Everything You Have Always Known About Positive Thinking but Were Afraid to Put into Practice by Vera Peiffer, has been popular in England for some time, which is how I first came across it. The book presents a clear and helpful approach, focusing on how to translate your learning and insights about more effective thinking into actual practice -- really becoming a more effective thinker. An excellent focus for a thinking book. In my opinion, Peiffer ranks up there with Glickman, Norem, and Seligman as a writer of popular psychology books about effective thinking for general readers. So I am also looking forward to Peiffer's new Happiness book that is coming out this summer.

For 28 years I struggled with my always stressing colleague. I found this book by accident and gained insight in her problems. It helped me very much to deal with it.