Two pop psychology books I picked up the other day out of curiosity, from a series with the unwieldy name -> Introducing – The Practical Guides: Big Ideas For Real Life which also includes volumes on child psychology, sport psychology and the “psychology of success” with more promised to come.
I have read a little about CBT from such sources as novels and the blogs of friends who are undergoing it; what pushed me into getting this was a recurrent problem with insomnia, which is one of the things CBT is supposed to help with. The book does indeed offer some useful advice on what to do in the middle of the night, and other useful guidance on quelling anxiety. My main takeaway from it, I’m glad to say, is that my mental health is probably better than I had realised (there is much description of symptoms which I don’t think I have). In any case, CBT offers some tools to improve it further.
I had heard about NLP partly from a couple of professional contacts (who I now suspect have been using it on me) and partly from a rather skeevy article about the “online seduction community” I read a while back. This book is rather more breathless than the CBT one, less well written but with more practical exercises. I quite liked the idea of analysing amd changing your own discourse to make yourself a more effective communicator; I was however skeeved out by the gleeful way in which the author suggests that one can coerce others to do your will; it seemed to be lacking a moral compass. There may be a fine line between persuasion and manipulation, but I think the line is definitely there.
There are probably better books out there on both topics but these are not bad starting points.
As you say a very predictable result although I think there will be significant implications for future elections as a result of Lutton’s performance.
For a virtually unknown guy with no previous political experience whatsoever, and a very short incredibly low key campaign, to have achieved the highest unionist share of the vote in 15 years is no mean feat.
If the unionist parties can find a credible candidate and replicate the good cooperation demonstrated in this election, then surely a single unionist running a good higher profile campaign will be in with a good chance in more marginal seats such as Fermanangh South Tyrone. Especially since the SDLP seems to have stopped the rot. The combined unionist vote here was 46.3% in 2011. I think that figure wins the day if it can be replicated in 2015.
Rodney Connor failed in 2010 by just 4 votes. However there were factors and circumstances which mitigated against him, including poor unionist relations on the ground campaign and Rodney’s late selection and somewhat ambiguous platform (I recall him even being reluctant to declare himself a unionist candidate!). Perhaps the Mid Ulster experiment has rectified these mistakes.
What do you think Nicholas, evens your pick!?