Do you sometimes behave irrationally or impulsively? Do you face some situations with fear and trepidation? Do feelings of self-doubt consume everyday activities?
Leading Consultant Psychiatrist, Dr Steve Peters, knows more than anyone how impulsive behaviour or nagging self-doubt can impact negatively on our professional and personal lives.
In this, his first book, Steve shares his phenomenally successful mind management programme that has been used to help elite athletes and senior managers alike to conquer their fears and operate with greater control, focus and confidence.
Seemingly complex concepts are made simple with the use of memorable analogies — such as the ‘chimp’, that seemingly irrational and impulsive being that inhabits our minds — and real-life case studies. Never before will you have had such a deep and clear understanding of your own behaviour and natural responses to certain people or situations.
This knowledge, combined with simple techniques that can be easily incorporated into daily life, will help you to control your emotional impulses and reach your full potential, leading to success at work and a happier, harmonious home life.
Also available as an audiobook from Audible and iTunes
6 Comments
As a practicing psychotherapist this is one of the best books I’ve reaf for helping clients to understand how their mind works. It’s highly useful for any practical approach to helping clients with all the major therapy modalities. Excellent.
Hello,
I would like to buy the audiobook, but unfortunately it’s available only in UK. When it will be available and for US residents?
Thank you)
an amazing book. Wish we were on commission! Our whole team have been liberated by this book and at least 20 friends have now joined the chimp party! Thank you
Dear Dr Peters, Your model works so incredibly well for me that it was like a powerful light going on in my head when I read the book. I’d read about CBT, NLP and positive psychology and knew they made sense, but felt unable to make them work for me completely. None of them helped me understand how my mind worked in a way I could make practical and lasting changes that met my needs. The Chimp/Human/Computer concept with Autopilots and Gremlins does it perfectly. I now laugh so much at things which previously would have upset me, and can see the chimp at work in others such that it helps me to interact with them more effectively. I have already bought more copies of the book and share them with others. I am a technical trainer, but would love to present the model to (hopefully) help others benefit from it as much as I have. Many thanks!
Dear Dr Peters. I work as an artist in schools using circus and clowning as a platform to talk about and encourage positive behaviour and creativity in primary school children in the UK. I am reading your book with deep admiration and excitement at what I beleive is a genuine ground breaking and throughly engaging model for behaviour education. Thank you – more please!
Peter Turner MA FRSA
I have bought the book and openly admit that I have only got to the 6th chapter so far, so what I am about to type may be covered later in the book.
I also respect the success you have had with your clients in using this model of human experience.
That said I propose that the model you have presented could be improved further.
In the book you mention an instance of road rage and how the human (and by that I mean all of it) responds to the situation.
You suggest that the “chimp” gets it wrong by feeling “angry”. Firstly I propose that the chimp can’t actually do that because it has no linguistic abilities.
Seconda;y I propose that it is the “human” that labels the feeling response in its body as “angry” and that the “chimp” may have been bringing the human’s attention to something else. Perhaps the feeling was really a polite nudge to keep an eye on the car the other person was driving, perhaps it was a signal saying something else.. However, the deed had been done, so the “chimp” sensing this misinterpretation did not meet it’s intention increased the signal to let the “thinker” know its thoughts on the matter where not as intended. A kind of “oi, listen to what I’m saying numpty!”.
The “human” caught up in a self induced loop continued to misinterpret the feeling/response from the “chimp” and began to lead the “chimp” in the wrong direction.
As the situation has now changed the clever “chimp” changes its response to something more appropriate to the new situation that has now been set by the “human”. Silly “human” and what a clever chimp!
They need not have been here in this new situation if the “human” had listened properly. Oh well, at least the chimp can help the whole person out of the deep brown stuff. Note the word “help”. The “chimp” and “human” can work in harmony together as a whole when they choose to.
I wonder what would have happened if the “human” had chosen not to interpret the initial signal from the “chimp” and had instead allowed the “chimp” to lead the way?
The naughty “human” should be sent to sit on the naughty step and learn the error of its ways.
I’ll continue to read the book and, if I may, I’ll send some more of my interpretations to you once I have actually read the everything that you had to say.
